2008-05-14 04:33:59 -

www.unum.com - Unum Amanda Carmichael, 423-294-7839 Unum (NYSE: UNM) today received the prestigious Innovator Award from Windows in Financial Services for its Simply Unum benefits solution.

Simply Unum operates on a single technology platform, creating one path from benefit package design to quoting to enrollment to ongoing billing and administration. The Simply Unum benefits package was

designed specifically for small to midsize businesses and provides a base of group disability and life insurance coupled with voluntary benefits. With more than 28,000 product combinations possible, an employer can offer benefit options that best meet the specific needs of their workforce at a price that doesn't strain the bottom line.

"This award is a showcase for the quality of our IT solution for Simply Unum," said Richard Klausner, vice president of enterprise architecture for Unum US. "More than two years in the making, the development of Simply Unum involved every department that interacts with a customer - from sales, to underwriting, to enrollment, to service, to claims. IT was at the core of the process, knitting all the business objectives together while keeping the needs of our customers at the center. Microsoft's technology was a significant part of the overall solution and helped us to deliver such a robust and streamlined product to the marketplace."

Unum was among five companies awarded this honor at a ceremony at the ACORD LOMA Insurance Systems Forum in Las Vegas today.

Now in its third year, the Innovator Awards from Windows in Financial Services recognizes those firms that have harnessed the flexibility, scalability and reliability of Microsoft technology to remove obstacles to progress and create new opportunities.

"Unum's enterprise architecture team is driving the technical innovation and architecture responsible for enabling the Simply Unum initiative," said Bill Hartnett, general manager, U.S. insurance industry solutions for Microsoft Corp. "Unum has made serving their customers top priority and we are proud of their innovative use of Microsoft technologies in developing significant business solutions."

About Unum

Unum (www.unum.com) is one of the leading providers of employee benefits products and services, and the largest provider of group and individual disability income protection insurance in the United States and the United Kingdom. Through its subsidiaries, Unum paid more than $6 billion in total benefits to customers in 2007.

Architecture underlying Simply Unum recognized by Windows in
Financial Services magazine