Cover-All Acquires BlueWave

Looking to round out its core system offerings, Cover-All Technologies Inc. has acquired BlueWave Technology for an undisclosed amount of cash.

The acquisition of BlueWave, maker of the claims administration software package Pipeline Claims, is part of a broader push by Cover-All to expand its footprint in the property/casualty marketplace. In 2011 the company, which provides policy administration and business intelligence technologies, launched products aimed at commercial lines as well as business intelligence and analytics offering resulting from its 2010 acquisition of Moore Stephens Business Solutions' business intelligence and analytics solution.

Manish Shah, Cover-All president & CTO, says the company plans to invest in ongoing development of pipeline claims as a standalone product while simultaneously integrating it into an existing product, My Insurance Center. "We are very excited that we were able to acquire Pipeline Claims and BlueWave,” Shah said in a statement. “The appeal of Pipeline Claims was easy for us to recognize. From a technology perspective, not only had BlueWave created a new, modern claim solution which contained the functionality and performance that the marketplace would demand, but it had done so using the same technology base used by Cover-All in creating My Insurance Center.”

Honolulu-based BlueWave has garnered accolades in recent years, including being named “Company to Watch” in 2009 in Insurance Networking News’ Vanguards in Insurance Practices (V.I.P.) Awards.  Cover-All said it expects to retain most of the employees of BlueWave, including President, Alyssa Hostelley, and COO, Keith Inouye.

Karen Furtado, a partner at SMA, said that while the deal may present some challenges from the architecture and go-to-market standpoint for Cover-All, it makes strategic sense as insurers increasingly seek out broader, suite-based software to improve core systems. “The significance of this deal for me is that the insurers are really speaking loudly and looking for ease of integration,” she told Insurance Networking News. “They want the ability to buy from a single source a solution that can cover policy, billing and claims.”

While best of breed solutions may still offer many benefits such as richer functionality, some carriers are now prioritizing ease of integration above all, Furtado adds. “There are certainly a lot of insurers that went for components but it was a lot to bite off and it cost them a lot of money,” she says. “This doesn’t mean that all insurers want enterprise [solutions] but there certainly been a direction set in the past few years to be more enterprise like.”