Ohio National, Sunshine State Sign with CSC
Falls Church, Va.-based Computer Sciences Corp. announced Cincinnati-based Ohio National Financial Services signed a 10-year contract to license two insurance software programs: CSC's Insurance Optics Business Analytics with Wealth Management Accelerator, and the Vantage-One administrative software with PerformancePlus. The software will be integrated into the systems currently in place.
"With a record-setting 20 years of consecutive life insurance sales growth, Ohio National maintains focus on operational discipline and risk management," says Al Bowen, SVP and CIO, Ohio National. "By selecting Wealth Management Accelerator to manage both asset accumulation and disbursement, and Business Analytics to predict trends and track key metrics, we are well positioned to respond to the changing demands of our distributors and policy owners."
In a separate deal, Sarasota, Fla.-based Sunshine State Insurance Co. signed a six-year extension of its business process outsourcing (BPO) agreement with CSC. Under the extension, CSC will provide upgraded technology to allow for updated support to Sunshine State's personal and commercial property business by delivering more autonomy in the underwriting process, according to a release. The technology is designed to allow agents to underwrite and issue policies at a more rapid rate.
"The Agency Link functionality has already been released to our first group of agents, and the response has been phenomenal. Many of them attribute their success to how quickly they can provide answers to their customers," says John Rogan, president and CEO, Sunshine State. "CSC's BPO services have also enabled Sunshine State to employ a virtual insurer model with a focus on delivering exceptional service. As we expand, CSC's BPO staff and systems can scale to meet our needs."
West Point Employs DRC
Pinellas Park. Fla.-based West Point Underwriters (WPU) will use the DecisionMaker Rating Enterprise from Honolulu-based Decision Research Corp. for rate comparison.
According to DRC, the DM Rating Enterprise Edition integrates three of its programs-DecisionMaker Rating, DecisionMaker Analyzer and DecisionMaker Assistant-into one program that allows users to manage and analyze market rates, and provides underwriting services.
"DM Rating Enterprise provides us the flexibility to support the wide variety of customized rate plans we offer," says Paul Clayson, CIO of WPU. "Because the solution places rate control in the hands of the business group, we can react quickly to external changes and adjust rates with minimal reliance on our IT resources. And, given that DRC's solution is built on an SOA foundation, we are also able to easily call the rating service from other systems."
Progressive Deploys SSP
Mayfield Village, Ohio-based the Progressive Group of Insurance Cos., will use the S4i administration solution from U.K.-based SSP, a solutions provider to property/casualty carriers.
SSP's S4i, a policy administration system, is designed to provide Web-enabled solutions with rapid investment return. According to the companies, Progressive is employing the solution to expand services to the Australian automotive market.
"In Australia, personal lines products, and particularly car insurance, are primarily sold direct through call centers," says Tom King, head of international operations at Progressive. "Our research suggests there is a market for an online-only product. We wanted a cost-effective, best-of-breed package that would deliver straight-through processing. SSP and S4i enable us to get our Australia program off the ground quickly and within budget."
MetLife Utilizes Ci&T
New York-based MetLife is using a new workflow application from King of Prussia, Pa.-based Ci&T, a consulting and technology outsourcing services company.
The new application automates critical processes involved in the sales and processing of new insurance policies for MetLife's individual, SMB and corporate clients, making it one of the company's most important systems.
As a provider of insurance policies to the global marketplace, MetLife must issue policies with the utmost efficiency, and ensure that these policies are processed in a way that generates the maximum possible revenue for the company. Recognizing this need, MetLife first approached Ci&T to develop an application that would provide the efficiency and speed necessary to process individual policies-from the initial sale to the analysis of the proposal to the implementation of the policy.
"When we invested in the implementation of a new application by Ci&T, MetLife sought an innovative tool that would allow the issuance of policies with significantly greater efficiency," says Fatima Primati, CIO, MetLife Brazil. "The methodology that Ci&T used in this particular project, based on the concepts of Agile and Lean IT, helped us to understand the vision of the project both as a whole at the outset, and incrementally during its respective stages."
When deployed, the application, developed by Ci&T, demonstrated immediate benefits in standardizing the flow of information and fostering greater collaboration within MetLife, the companies say. Previously, processes were performed manually, and lacked the documentation capabilities critical to ensure compliance with industry regulations. With the Ci&T application, these functions are now completely automated, reducing the time for analysis of individual proposals and electronically documenting the history of each proposal.
Two Opt for ProspX
Waukesha, Wis.-based R&R Insurance Services Inc., one of the Midwest's largest independently owned insurance agencies, has selected an on-demand enterprise search and sales collaboration solution from Austin, Texas-based ProspX Inc.
Users at R&R's five office locations will be able to find, connect to, and collaborate with the relevant internal resources and external carrier partners as they work on new or renewal business opportunities, the company says.
"We are excited to invest in an essential tool that will allow R&R Insurance to align the talents of our producers, account managers and marketers to provide the real-time expertise needed to stay competitive in this industry," says Mike Harrison, EVP of R&R Insurance Services Inc. "Utilizing Prospx to connect our offices across Wisconsin, we can enhance our product offering to best fit our clients' needs, increasing their bottom lines, and creating a long lasting relationship."
In a separate deal, Las Vegas-based Cragin & Pike also selected the ProspX platform to simplify communication and collaboration on sales opportunities, drive best practices, accelerate the sales cycle and increase revenue.
"ProspX understands the complexities of today's commercial insurance market and has developed a powerful, integrated platform for sales and marketing teams," says Tom Burns, VP of Cragin & Pike. "With ProspX, we now not only have the ability toeffectively manage the sales process, but also to promote communication and collaboration early in the sales process, shortening the sales cycle and facilitating higher hit rates for our business."
Zurich Japan Goes Live With Guidewire
Zurich Insurance Co. Ltd., Japan Branch (Zurich Japan), a foreign general insurer in Japan, has successfully implemented ClaimCenter from San Mateo-based Guidewire Software. The new end-to-end claims management system, which Zurich Japan refers to as "Z-Trust," is now processing the company's auto and motorcycle claims.
Additional branches will be brought online with full deployment expected March 2010. Z-Trust will then be extended to other lines of business in additional phases.
"Guidewire's technology is enabling us to provide our customers with the high quality service and care that is at the heart of our corporate philosophy," says Amanda Curley, CIO, Zurich Japan. "Our claims handlers have a state-of-the-art system to work with, and we are better equipped to respond to rapidly changing industry regulations and business needs."
Atlas Selects Duck Creek
San Diego-based Atlas General Insurance Services has selected Duck Creek Policy Administration, Duck Creek Templates for Workers' Compensation insurance and Duck Creek Billing from Bolivar, Mo.-based Duck Creek Technologies Inc.
"Atlas develops workers' compensation programs to meet the needs of a wide variety of market segments," says Bill Trzos, Atlas president and CEO. "Our brokers rely on us for competitive solutions, but just as importantly for dynamic service and responsiveness. The Duck Creek system gives us the needed flexibility to service our customers in a timely and powerfully effective manner."
COUNTRY Financial TAPS Silanis
Bloomington, Ill.-based COUNTRY Financial has integrated Montreal-based Silanis Technology's ApproveIt Web Server into its eApplication system to help streamline processing of life insurance applications.
Captive financial representatives can now electronically process new insurance applications, including the capture of client signatures in documents, using the Web-based application.
Adding electronic signature capabilities will enable COUNTRY to eliminate its paper dependency, along with all associated costs, inefficiencies and errors, and greatly improve the application experience for both its clients and financial representatives.
"Streamlining the application process has been a priority for us for several years," says Wade Harrison, COUNTRY SVP of life/health operations. "We realized that we needed to do more than just push out an e-application to financial representatives and clients. We needed electronic signatures to achieve the full efficiency and cost savings benefits of streamlined processing. Silanis' ApproveIt Web Server provided an integral part of the solution to electronically process insurance applications. The e-signature technology has improved our overall operating efficiency & further enhances our client services."
Barney & Barney LLC Chooses Succeed
San Diego-based Barney & Barney LLC, a multi-line insurer,has selected Risk Management Center from Succeed Management Solutions LLC, a Wilsonville, Ore.-based provider Web-based risk management solutions.
Succeed's Risk Management Center offers an online resource to assist commercial insurance agents, brokers and carriers to deliver proactive risk management services to their clients.
The Risk Management Center is a software platform used to develop and manage risk mitigation programs. Succeed Management brands its platform to its partner agencies, helping them deliver customized risk management programs to their clients through a comprehensive library of safety, risk management and human resource materials.
In addition, the platform contains software applications that automate many of the training, record keeping, reporting and data collection tasks required for compliance, and for developing and managing successful risk mitigation programs.
