JULY 2, 2001

Insurance Shopping Made Easier
With RC Knox & Company's New Web Site

BRIDGEPORT, CONN.
RC Knox & Company, an insurance subsidiary of People’s Bank, has made shopping for insurance easier with the introduction of its new Web site, www.rcknox.com.

The site offers interactive features such as instant online quotes on auto insurance, home insurance – including renter’s and condominium insurance – and laptop insurance, as well as a “Contact Me!” feature that puts the user in touch with an RC Knox representative at his or her convenience. Users can also learn about the full range of insurance products and services provided by RC Knox and its division, Beardsley Brown & Bassett.

“Our clients and prospective clients place a premium on convenience, so we’re glad to help make their lives a little easier by offering online insurance quotes,” said John F. Byrnes, president, RC Knox, an insurance subsidiary of People’s Bank. “We also know that people have questions about insurance, and we’ve provided answers to some of those most frequently asked questions.”

The new site caters to the company’s commercial clients – RC Knox and BB&B offer full lines of commercial insurance products – and includes a tool with which businesses can manage their employees’ benefits information online. The site also features answers to frequently-asked insurance questions, a glossary of insurance terms, a monthly newsletter and eHuman Resource Solutions, which provides human resources professionals with up-to-date information about regulations and compliance.

The site was designed and built by the People’s team that created People’s Bank’s site, peoples.com, which was rated the fifth-best financial services Web site in the United States, Canada and Latin America in the latest study by Speer & Associates, an Atlanta-based Internet consulting firm. The RC Knox site has the same look and feel as peoples.com and can also be reached through the bank’s site and the Beardsley Brown & Bassett site, www.bbandb.com.

“The investment we’ve made positions the business for the future,” said Barbara P. Johnson, senior vice president, manager, Insurance Services, at People’s. “This platform gives us the opportunity to provide our commercial clients and our individual customers additional functions and services through Web-based technology.”

The functionality offered at www.rcknox.com is a significant step forward in the evolution of the online insurance services offered by RC Knox and Beardsley Brown & Bassett, both of which had been on the Internet prior to their becoming part of the People’s financial services family.

RC Knox & Company, based in Hartford, Conn., is an insurance agency known for its expertise in commercial and personal property and casualty insurance;life, health and employee benefits;and bonding, risk management and pension services. Beardsley Brown & Bassett, a division of RC Knox located in Bridgeport, is an expert in the full range of commercial and employee benefits insurance products. An insurance subsidiary of People’s Bank, Knox was founded in 1893 and is one of the nation’s 100 largest insurance agencies. Beardsley, Brown & Bassett was established in 1884.

People’s (peoples.com) is a diversified financial services company providing commercial, consumer, insurance and investment services. Founded in 1842, it is the largest state-chartered bank in Connecticut with managed assets of $14 billion, 143 branches and 220 ATMs. People’s is a leader in consumer and commercial banking, residential lending, insurance sales, supermarket banking and is the nation’s 16th-largest issuer of MasterCard and Visa credit cards. People’s subsidiaries offer brokerage services, asset management, equipment financing and leasing, and insurance services.