Vermont Mutual Set to Fast-Track Development of New Business Apps

Vermont Mutual Insurance, part of the Vermont Mutual Insurance Group, has inked a deal with business rules management systems (BRMS) provider Corticon Technologies Inc. to facilitate the development of new business applications, the companies report.

The provider of personal and commercial lines insurance will deploy a business rules methodology for application development as part of a larger effort involving Corticon partners Appian Technologies, a provider of business process management systems (BPMS), and Blue Slate Solutions, a BPM consultancy. Vermont Mutual will leverage that partnership with the integration of business rules and processes in a single system that incorporates a common user interface across an external web portal serving insurance agents throughout New England and New York, and an internal web portal accessible to Vermont Mutual staff.

"We needed both business rules and BPM to implement our vision of an agile architecture, one where we don't have to run everything through the IT development queue," said Joanne Currier, VP of information technology for Vermont Mutual. "Modernizing our legacy systems and externalizing the business rules enable us to get the business units centrally involved in developing the systems that run our business. This lets us increase agility, reduce operational costs, improve ease of use, and improve customer satisfaction."

Vermont Mutual partnered with with Blue Slate to perform an extensive review of BRMS technology provider offerings before selecting Corticon. The insurer will use Corticon's rules engine to migrate beyond traditional code-based applications, which the vendor says are expensive, take months or years to develop, require dedicated IT support, and are complex to change. Using Corticon's "no-coding" development environment, the insurer plans to establish interdisciplinary teams that combine IT developers with business unit modelers, with the goal of rolling out new applications in significantly less time than traditional programming approaches require.

"We are excited to assist Vermont Mutual in systematically applying technologies to improve and manage the process of making decisions," said Shawn Firehock, managing director of Blue Slate. "New business applications that automate decision management and increase organizational agility provide tremendous benefits in cost, efficiency and overall customer satisfaction."