Insurance firm Genworth Financial has consolidated its administration systems across 21 countries onto a single global platform.

The project involved moving 15 million client policies from five separate systems to one as well as the termination of legacy systems. It was completed by the company's IT division.

Migrations occurred on a country-by-country basis, and to avoid disruption to the business, they were implemented over weekends, with timeframes ranging from two hours to a full weekend depending on data volumes.

The single platform will allow the firm to simplify its operations and introduce new products worldwide more quickly.

It also allows the firm to move into new countries in less time than it would have taken using old systems.

"A more streamlined, sophisticated IT infrastructure is essential to our market-leading position and will support our Lifestyle Protection division as it continues to grow," said Ronan Hanrahan, CIO of Genworth Financial's Lifestyle Protection division.

"Consolidating our policy administration across Europe onto one platform was a key element of this process, and we are pleased with the results."

Standard & Poor's Ratings Services assigned an 'A' credit rating to Genworth Financial earlier this year on the basis of the single platform, noting that it "results in reduced operational risk from back office systems".

The next phase of technology investment at Genworth Financial will include the development of a range of web-based sales and claims services based on the new administration systems.