BARTON IMPLEMENTS BINDEXPRESS
Liberal, Mo.-based Barton Mutual Group has implemented Columbia, S.C.-based SpeedBuilder Systems LLC's BindExpress underwriting and rating platform.
SpeedBuilder says the portal offers sales-enhancing, Rate-As-You-Go screens that help agents provide real-time counsel to insureds, displaying total policy premium and individual prices at each coverage level during the quote entry process. BindExpress Underwriting powers the portal's once-and-done processing for American Association of Insurance Services' rates and rules, according to SpeedBuilder.
"SBS delivered more functionality than we requested, and completed the project in about 12 weeks and 17% under budget," says Joel Dermott, CIO of Barton Mutual Group. "That's proof positive that the BindExpress Suite, with its hundreds of external configuration settings, does indeed reduce programming time and cost. We expect this savings to reduce future maintenance and enhancement costs."
STONEGATE CHOOSES INSURESOFT'S DIAMOND SYSTEM
Stonegate Insurance Co. is implementing The Diamond System, a policy administration system for agents writing personal auto policies from University Park, Ill.-based Insuresoft.
Stonegate's sister company, Unique Insurance, had been using The Diamond System since 2008 for its non-standard auto policies in Illinois, Mississippi and Indiana, which Stonegate says made the decision to implement the system easy.
Stonegate says Insuresoft is working to integrate Unique with Chicago-based Quotepro, a comparative rater, and will establish a separate project with Insuresoft to implement Diamond Access for Unique's agency users.In addition to personal auto, Stonegate says its homeowners implementation is currently in progress, along with a planned rollout of commercial lines later this year.
PACIFIC SPECIALTY AND SOUTHERN PIONEER CHOOSE IPARTNERS
Jonesboro, Ark.-based Southern Pioneer Property and Casualty Insurance Co. will use iPartners LLC's Insurance Scorecard business intelligence solution. iPartners, an Atlanta-based provider of software-as-a-service business analytics solutions to P&C insurers, says Insurance Scorecard will support Southern Pioneer's growth by providing improved analytics through management dashboards and timely access to the company's policy and claims data.
Providing quick time-to-value through its SaaS delivery, the solution is planned for Southern Pioneer's production use in the latter part of Q2, iPartners says. Southern Pioneer recognized the experience and knowledge of the iPartners' team, the company notes, as well as the value of the strong, working relationship between iPartners' and the policy administration solution provider.
Insurance Scorecard Business Intelligence is a SaaS solution designed specifically for the P&C industry, offering performance management dashboards and scorecards, ad-hoc detailed analysis, production reporting and drill to detail.
Anaheim, Calif.-based Pacific Specialty Insurance Co. (PSIC) also selected Insurance Scorecard from iPartners.
The companies say the product enables more informed business decisions and offers an attractive cost model compared to internal development, while allowing Pacific Specialty's staff to focus on other critical business initiatives.
"We were impressed with iPartners and the flexibility their system offered," said Bill Guthrie, VP of Information Technology, PSIC. "With the wide range of options and ways to look at our data, including the quickly customized dashboard view and detailed policy-level data analysis, iPartners' solutions give us a powerful tool to more proactively and better manage our business."
ATLANTIC CASUALTY TO USE ORACLE DOCUMAKER
Atlantic Casualty Insurance Co., a Goldsboro, N.C.-based surplus lines insurer, is making Oracle Documaker available for its managing general agents, such as Alpharetta, Ga.-based Southern Insurance Underwriters (SIU), to issue new policies.
Atlantic Casualty and SIU are using a Documaker connector developed by Simplified Policy Processing in conjunction with Oracle Insurance, which automates the flow of policy data between managing general agents and the carrier. Oracle says the combined solution enables SIU to automatically populate Web-based forms from Documaker with data from their agency management systems without the need to re-key data.
This automated information flow helps accelerate policy issuance and reduces the time, effort and risk of errors and omissions exposure associated with duplicate data re-entry, Oracle says.
Atlantic Casualty is piloting the new environment with SIU, and plans to eventually make the connector available to the 100 other managing general agents with which it does business.
VGM INSURANCE CHOOSES 4SIGHT BI
Waterloo, Iowa-based VGM Insurance has chosen 4Sight Business Intelligence for Property & Casualty Insurance from Austin, Texas-based 4Sight Business Intelligence Inc., a provider of off-the-shelf property/casualty specific business intelligence products.
"4Sight's ability to incorporate data from multiple sources is allowing us to have one single source for reporting from our systems," says Tom Jones, president of VGM Insurance. "The 4Sight reports and dashboards, and especially their ad-hoc reporting, gives us a great way to provide more reporting capabilities to both our internal users, as well as the agencies we work with."
BRICKSTREET MUTUAL OPTS FOR VALEN
Martinsburg, W.V.-based BrickStreet Mutual Insurance Co. is using InsureRight Risk Report from Denver-based Valen Technologies Inc. to help identify policy risk in advance of pricing their workers' compensation policies.
With InsureRight, BrickStreet will be in a position to take corrective actions on new or renewal policies that InsureRight identifies as likely to have misclassified exposure, the companies say. Valen, a provider of cloud computing predictive analytics solutions to the insurance industry, already is working with the BrickStreet team on the implementation of InsureRight, and is on track to have the product available for BrickStreet's next round of policy renewals.
"We must understand the risks we are writing, price for the risk we are accepting and be able to decline business outside of BrickStreet's risk appetite," says Jeff Benintendi, SVP of BrickStreet. "We believe that Valen's InsureRight will help us better understand the exposure of the policies we write."
RSA AND ACCENTURE EXTEND AGREEMENT
Ireland-based Accenture will provide RSA UK with insurance business process outsourcing services for four more years. Accenture says that under the original contract, signed in 2003, RSA outsourced a range of front and back office operations to Accenture, including portions of its sales and service, claims, finance and commercial administration functions that support RSA's direct, affinity and broker customers.
The terms enable RSA to meet its customers' needs and explore other opportunities to support the online proposition, Accenture says, adding that services are delivered through Accenture's Global Delivery Network using centers in Bangalore and Mumbai, India.
JEWELERS MUTUAL AND KFB SELECT GUIDEWIRE
Jewelers Mutual Insurance Co., a Neenah, Wis.-based jewelry insurer, selected Guidewire Software Inc.'s InsuranceSuite as its new platform for underwriting, policy administration, billing and claims management departments.
Jewelers Mutual recognized that to continue to achieve its goal of profitable growth, it would require new and more robust software systems and capabilities. Two of its key business strategies-increasing responsiveness to its market's needs and improving efficiency across the organization-would require more flexible applications. Therefore, Jewelers Mutual will be simultaneously implementing all core InsuranceSuite applications to first service its personal lines business, and will subsequently extend the new functionalities to its commercial lines operations.
"We plan to grow our business significantly in the years ahead," says Darwin Copeman, president and CEO of Jewelers Mutual. "To do this, we need the technology to help us deliver even better products and service levels to our customer."
Kentucky Farm Bureau Mutual Insurance Co. (KFB), a Louisville, Ky.-based P&C insurer, is now live on Guidewire's PolicyCenter. KFB has used PolicyCenter, an underwriting and policy administration system, for the past 18 months.
PolicyCenter is designed to enable property/casualty insurers to grow by improving efficiency, while responding with agility to market opportunities and enhancing relationships with agents and customers.
San Mateo, Calif.-based Guidewire says the system has supported KFB's underwriting and policy administration processes for its personal auto line of business, and additional personal and commercial lines will be supported in the implementation.
More than 400 agents and their staffs in KFB's local agencies are using PolicyCenter to collaborate more effectively with their state office underwriting team, says Guidewire. This allows them to concentrate on delivering the best service possible to member policyholders.
KFB already has realized significant benefits from using PolicyCenter, including faster quoting and applications, more efficient underwriting and improved competitiveness, Guidewire says.
