Unum Ranks No. 5 on 2008 InformationWeek 500

CHATTANOOGA, Tenn.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Unum (NYSE: UNM) today announced that it ranked No. 5 on the 2008 InformationWeek 500, as revealed last night at a gala awards ceremony. Unum was recognized for its product and service platform Simply Unum, which was launched nationwide in 2008.

“Now we can respond to customer needs with much greater speed and flexibility. It is a business model that will be the foundation of our future growth.”

“Hundreds of professionals from across our business units and technology organization worked in collaboration to develop and launch Simply Unum,” said Kathy Owen, senior vice president and chief information officer for Unum US. “We are so pleased to receive this recognition from InformationWeek for this innovative work.”

Simply Unum was more than two years in the making and involved every department that interacts with a customer – from sales, to underwriting, to enrollment, to service, to claims. The result is a benefits solution for small to mid-sized businesses that creates one path from benefit package design to quoting to enrollment to ongoing billing and administration. It provides more than 28,000 product combinations and significant pricing flexibility.

“Simply Unum represents a very significant transformation in how we engage the small-employer market, how we deliver to employers to meet the needs of their employees,” Owen said. “Now we can respond to customer needs with much greater speed and flexibility. It is a business model that will be the foundation of our future growth.”

In addition to the InformationWeek 500, Simply Unum has been recognized with a 2008 Microsoft WFS Innovator Award, a Visionary Award from Exstream, and CELENT award for document automation.

“For 20 years, the InformationWeek 500 has honored the most innovative users of business technology,” said InformationWeek Editor-in-Chief Rob Preston. “Year after year, InformationWeek 500 companies harness technology to improve efficiency, boost productivity, drive revenue, and establish a competitive advantage. We applaud this year’s winners, and the CIOs and other executives whose ingenuity and risk taking are at the center of business technology innovation.”

InformationWeek has identified and honored the nation's most innovative users of information technology with its annual listing, now in its 20^th year, and has tracked the technology, strategies, investments and administrative practices of America’s best-known companies. The list is unique among corporate rankings because it spotlights the power of innovation in information technology, rather than simply identifying the biggest IT spenders.

Additional details on the InformationWeek 500 can be found online at www.informationweek.com/iw500/.

About Unum (http://www.unum.com)

Unum is one of the leading providers of employee benefits products and services in the United States and the United Kingdom. Through its subsidiaries, Unum provided more than $6 billion in total benefits to customers in 2007.

About InformationWeek Business Technology Network (http://www.informationweek.com/)

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