State Auto Selects SAS® Enterprise BI Server; Solution Offers Unsurpassed Analytics Integrated with Powerful Business Intelligence

Business Wire, May 22, 2006

CARY, N.C. -- Providing superior insurance products at competitive prices and quality customer service have been hallmarks of State Auto since its beginnings in 1921. Now, the insurer is turning to SAS to provide its primary analytic and business intelligence (BI) solutions. Using SAS(R) analytic tools and the SAS Enterprise BI Server (http://www.sas.com/technologies/bi/) component, State Auto will fine-tune its ability to utilize company data as a corporate asset, leading to greater efficiency and helping control costs.

Selected this year by Forbes magazine as the Best Managed Company in the insurance industry, State Auto focuses solely on serving independent agency partners and must continue to earn their trust through sound pricing, stellar customer service and smooth business relations. With SAS, State Auto plans to use data-driven analytics and key performance indicators to build upon its proven success. Executives aspire to provide continuous improvement in their ability to use corporate and third-party data for the pricing process, customer and analytic research programs, sound daily management of results, and increased data management efficiency. Also, they need powerful analytics within an organizational dashboard to help employees quickly see how their roles contribute to the company's overall goals.

"SAS is generally known to have among the best analytics available," said Kim Bailey, Vice President of Information Resources Division at State Auto. "Now, SAS's leadership extends to the business intelligence environment with SAS Enterprise BI Server. This solution addresses our goals by giving us the ability use common data access tools to work with our data assets from an analytics and a business intelligence perspective. We believe we can harness the prowess of SAS analytics on top of a common, easy-to-use business intelligence foundation."

State Auto takes pride in doing business with steadfast integrity and appreciates the rock-solid reputation that SAS strives to uphold through its financial stability and commitment to its customers. This is best demonstrated through SAS' high investment in research and development.

"Through our research, we heard very positive feedback from a variety of SAS customers and from peers in our industry," said Bailey. "Our staff is impressed with the skills and abilities, integrity, and work ethic of the SAS employees we've partnered with. We are confident that our implementation needs are well addressed."

Through the comprehensive business intelligence solution offered by SAS, State Auto expects to reduce total ownership costs by improving upon their ease of accessing and reviewing their results throughout the company. They expect to utilize the power of SAS to enhance the use of data as a strategic asset. Also, they expect to better serve the company's independent agencies and increase customer retention by developing a more comprehensive view of the customer experience.

"State Auto's goal is to use SAS to consistently improve upon our already demonstrated excellent business results," Bailey explained. "The valuable intelligence that SAS Enterprise BI Server provides will help us achieve our company data analytic initiatives. Eventually, we also hope to share this data with our agency partners to help them obtain better insight into their results."

SAS differentiates itself from conventional BI vendors by providing unmatched technology and expertise in advanced analytics, data management and tailored solutions for specific industries, such as banking, insurance, life sciences, manufacturing and retail. SAS offers a fast, simple and complete solution that integrates analytics to supply insight and hindsight through historical reports while forecasting future outcomes, providing greater insight and foresight. With these capabilities, SAS offers users at all levels immediate access to cleansed and reliable data through targeted user interfaces that match the skill level of any individual user.

About State Auto

The State Auto Insurance Companies, headquartered in Columbus, OH, are engaged primarily in writing personal and commercial insurance products through more than 22,000 independent agents associated with nearly 3,100 agencies in 27 states. The State Auto Insurance Companies are rated A (Superior) by the A.M. Best Company. Additional information on State Auto can be found at www.stateauto.com.

About SAS

SAS is the leader in business intelligence software and services. Customers at 40,000 sites use SAS software to improve performance through insight into vast amounts of data, resulting in faster, more accurate business decisions; more profitable relationships with customers and suppliers; compliance with governmental regulations; research breakthroughs; and better products. Only SAS offers leading data integration, intelligence storage, advanced analytics and traditional business intelligence applications within a comprehensive enterprise intelligence platform. Since 1976, SAS has been giving customers around the world The Power to Know(R). www.sas.com