Celent ModelInsurer2010 2010-01-26

Mike Fitzgerald
Celent Model Insurer 2010

Case Studies of Effective Technology Use in Insurance
January 2010
Content
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Executive Summary Introduction Common Best Practices and Results Model Insurer Components 2010 Claims Esurance Hertz Europe Highmark Distribution Management Allianz Life Insurance Company of North America AVIVA-COFCO Life Insurance Co., LTD Erie Insurance Group Farmers Insurance FBL Financial Group Harford Mutual Insurance Company Infrastructure/Architecture Kansas City Life Insurance Company LV= The Phoenix Companies Unitrin Direct IT Management Atava, RSA Scandinavia PMI Group Tokio Marine & Nichido Fire Insurance Co., Ltd Zurich Financial Services Policy Administration American Modern Insurance Group The Cincinnati Specialty Underwriters Insurance Company Calliden Group Limited Product Design and Development / Rating Erie Insurance Liberty Mutual Agency Markets Suncorp Service The Church Pension Group Nationwide The Hartford Financial Services Group, Inc. Underwriting Capitol Insurance Companies Model Insurer of the Year 2010: Missouri Employers Mutual Conclusion Leveraging Celents Expertise Related Celent Research
Executive Summary
The vision for Celents Model Insurer research is to try to answer an apparently simple question: What would it look like for an insurer to do everything right with todays technology? Given the recent economic environment, this question is more applicable today than ever before. Capital-constrained insurers must leverage all available resources to the maximum to meet market challenges. The approach Celent takes to identify model insurers is to offer, at a high level, some key best practices in the use of technology across various areas of the industrywhether in components of the product and policyholder lifecycle or general areas such as IT management, service, or business process outsourcingthat a model insurer would use. These areas are illustrated by case studies of specific initiatives and capabilities, selected from the many submissions and presented in this report as Model Insurer Components. Model Insurer Components are used to group the case studies and represent portions of the insurance value chain. The components represented in the 2010 report are: Claims Distribution Management Infrastructure/Architecture IT Management Policy Administration Product Design and Development / Rating Service Underwriting
Copyright 2010 Oliver Wyman
A case study typically includes multiple examples of best practice and/or outstanding results. Celent has organized the general benefits of initiatives into categories to allow readers a summary of the major value areas of each profile. These are summarized in Figure 1. Table 1: Common Best Practices and Results
IT Best Practices Use of industry standards Optimization of infrastructure Positioning for future reuse Automation, STP, and system integration Data transparency and compliance Improved use of channels Risk management through proper development, testing, and project management Solicitation of end user feedback and review Measurable Business Results Higher productivity, lower staff expenses Increased revenue or market share Faster cycle times and more consistent processes Better decisions, more accurate pricing, reduced losses Decreased time to market More efficient document/content management Improved agent/customer satisfaction and adoption
Compliance and reduction of market conduct penalties
Use of metrics
Source: Celent
Introduction
What Is a Model Insurer?

The vision for Celents Model Insurer research is to try to answer an apparently simple question: What would it look like for an insurer to do everything right with todays technology? Of course, the question is not nearly as simple as it appears. The terms everything and right mean very different things to different insurers depending on their size, the complexity of their operations and product sets, and their technological starting points. The approach Celent takes is to offer, at a high level, some key best practices in the use of technology across the product and policyholder life cycle and in IT infrastructure and management that a model insurer would use.
What Is a Model Insurer Component?

Of course, there is no such thing as a Model Insurerevery insurer does some things well, and others not as well when it comes to technology. Accordingly, Celent gathered as many real world examples of effective usage of technology as possible and then decided on a set that reflected important best practices. These case studies are presented as Model Insurer Componentscomponents of a theoretical model insurers IT systems and practices. An important note is that a model insurer component is a recognition of a insurers effective use of technology in a certain area, not necessarily a statement that the insurer is absolutely best in class (although some may be). Model Insurer Components are those that help insurers improve performance and meet market demands. In general, they represent the way things should be done. Celent refines this summary of best practices and identifies new Model Insurer Components annually.
Nomination and Selection Process

For this report, Celent identified Model Insurer Components through the following process:
Invitations and self-nomination forms were sent to over 100 insurers and 50 vendors (vendors were asked to pass the form along to their insurer clients, and allowed to work with them to nominate their initiatives) in multiple waves over the course of 2009. Nomination forms were reviewed by Celent insurance senior analysts, and cases that demonstrated the most effective use of technology, a clear best practices approach, and quantifiable success metrics were selected. The 2010 process was more selective than previous years. Insurers were interviewed to review their cases and provide additional information if necessary to create the case study. Celent senior analysts drafted case studies, which were approved by the insurers for accuracy and confidentiality. The 2010 selection process was extremely competitive. Submissions were 50% above 2009 levels and almost all categories had multiple qualifying winners. Consistent with the practice begun last year, Celent selected an overall Model Carrier of the Year for its outstanding application of multiple best practices. We are pleased to report that Missouri Employers Mutual has been chosen to receive this recognition in 2010. An extended case study of its initiative is included as the final selection in this report.
Client Disclosure
There were no fees charged to insurers or vendors mentioned in this report. Some of the nominating vendors, and many of the selected insurers are or have been clients to Celents retained advisory service (Celent serves dozens of insurers across the globe in this capacity). However, Celent was not directly involved in the creation or deployment of any of the initiatives that have been recognized, and no preference was given to clients in the selection process.
About this Report

This report is divided into sections for each of the Model Insurer components of the product and policyholder life cycle. Each section contains an overview of what makes a component important and how a Model Insurer can distinguish itself in this area through technology. This is followed by one or more Model Insurer Component case studies that illustrate the best practices discussed.
Although the majority of the cases cited in this report are of initiatives in the US, nearly all are equally applicable to insurers in geographies with roughly similar conditions and business practices, including the UK, Europe, and Japan. Although Celent intends this report and future Model Insurer reports to be equally applicable to non-US insurers, US terms (e.g., property/casualty rather than general insurance) are used throughout. Since there is a high degree of overlap in best practices for effective use of technology between life/health insurers and property/casualty insurers, Celent has combined both into a single volume to avoid unnecessary duplication. However, differences between the sectors are noted and separated where appropriate.
Common Best Practices and Results
No two projects in the insurance industry look exactly the same, making it difficult to judge which ones qualify as model insurer components. The projects that rise to the top, however, tend to demonstrate a number of similar elements, a cross-section of best practices and quantifiable gains common across all model projects regardless of their particular category. While this report does not present an exhaustive list of best practices or expected results, Celent has attempted to identify a number of the most important items. Any insurer striving to be a model insurer in its approach to an IT initiative should consider the following IT best practices. And any insurer looking to achieve model insurer results should plan in advance to measure the following business gains and returns on investment in a quantifiable way. Table 2: Common Best Practices and Results
IT Best Practices Use of industry standards Optimization of infrastructure Positioning for reuse Automation, STP, and system integration Data transparency and compliance Improved use of channels Risk management through proper development, testing, and project management Solicitation of end user feedback and review Use of metrics Measurable Business Results Higher productivity, lower staff expenses Increased revenue or market share Faster cycle times and more consistent processes Better decisions, more accurate pricing, reduced losses Decreased time to market More efficient document/content distribution Green organization Improved agent/customer satisfaction and adoption Compliance and reduction of market conduct penalties
Source: Celent
IT Best Practices
Industry Data Standards
Model Insurers understand that they need to think beyond successful point solutions and create lasting systems that work within a larger infrastructure. Critical to this is the use of industry data standards, such as XML and ACORD.
Using data standards means that an insurer avoids reinventing the wheel and instead manages risk by working with accepted, well-tested, and well-defined models. Even if it requires a little extra work or planning, the reduced risk will save time overall. Perhaps more importantly, working with industry data standards helps position a new system for easier integration, whether with systems internal or external to the insurer. As more and more systems within the organization conform to the same industry standards, it becomes easier to have them communicate. When looking to bring in vendor software or integrate with a third party source, such data standards enable a common ground from which to start. Not every project needs to define itself around industry data standards, and its likely that even the most disciplined team will find the need to add some unique customizations to suit their needs. However, any model insurer will spend a good deal of time in the planning phase determining how best to utilize these standards, deciding to reject them only when the benefits and risks have truly been weighed.
Optimization of Infrastructure
Model Insurers do more than just build or buy modern systems, they also work to rationalize and optimize their existing systems into an ever modern infrastructure. This can mean different things, depending on the project and the circumstances. An insurer with several policy administration systems may consider consolidation a higher priority than bringing in a modern system. An insurer looking to manage expenses in a difficult financial market might seek ways to better leverage its existing legacy system in a modern environment rather than replace it. The optimization of the infrastructure doesnt have to trump other business realities. An insurer that licenses a modern policy admin system might decide that rather than going through an expensive conversion process, it will keep the legacy system in place for existing business and utilize the new PAS for new business going forward. Although this may create a suboptimal infrastructure, the Model Insurer knows that the optimal scenario balances many factors.
Positioning for Reuse

Any insurer struggling with a legacy system that is decades old understands that todays technology investment might become tomorrows burden. And any insurer with multiple systems duplicating similar functionality knows that bringing in a new system might add to the burden even before the days end.
This is why a Model Insurer thinks about reuse when investing in new technology projects. Any system added to the infrastructure will likely be stretched beyond its original intentions, in terms of both functionality and shelf life. It will be easier to achieve these goals by using a service-oriented architecture, industry standards, and easily configurable systems, but a Model Insurer knows the challenge is not just about the technology, but about the way a system is tested and used by the enterprise. For example, a new rating engine needs to be leveraged by the policy admin system, the agent portal, and any other user getting quotes. Otherwise the investment has resulted in additional processes to keep multiple rate models in synch. And in two years time, when the legacy policy admin system is no longer supporting the business, the nowolder rating engine needs to easily adjust to support the replacement.
Automation, STP, and System Integration

Many of the technology best practices involve thinking about an IT project as a full enterprise strategy rather than an isolated solution. Nowhere is that as crucial as when planning a reduction of manual processes and an increase in automation, a high ranking item on most insurers priority lists. Manual processes are a burden on an insurance organization, increasing errors and requiring additional staff. Manual processes most frequently arise for one of two reasons: 1. A system does not provide the correct functionality and can not be easily adjusted, requiring manual workarounds. 2. A system does its job well, but is poorly integrated with other systems, requiring a manual process to pass data or jobs from one system to the next. In order to reduce these burdens, it is important to build or buy a system that can be configured to fit the companys business process needs and also be integrated into the larger infrastructure. Manual processes are not just about flaws in the technology, of course. Straight-through processing (STP) is slowly becoming a reality in selected lines of business. However, some decisions, such as complex underwriting, need to be made by a human. The goal, however, is to maximize STP, extending or bringing in systems that can be configured to automate as many decisions as possible. When a process requires
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human intervention, the workflow should be simple, allowing the people at an insurance company to focus on their high-value jobs rather than dealing with systems. Like the best practice of Positioning for Future Reuse, these goals will be helped by service-oriented architecture, industry standards, and easily configurable systems, but require foresight and planning, and, in many cases, a change to corporate culture.
Data Transparency and Compliance

In an economic environment where regulations are likely to be increasing while expenditures are shrinking, the importance of having a good view into corporate data has never been clearer. Many otherwise excellent projects fail to consider how data will be utilized by other systems, how actions will be audited, or how historic records will be archived and made accessible. Even projects focused exclusively on business intelligence sometimes create new silos of data that only exacerbate the larger problem. Data is critical in the insurance industry, and model insurers know that any project needs to fit into a broader data strategy. This doesnt mean an insurer can only be a Model Insurer if they have a centralized enterprise data warehousein fact, at many insurers, failed attempts at just such projects still linger as a model of how not to approach an IT initiative. But new projects will make data accessible and usable, allowing good reporting even if such reports come in a later phase. This allows Model Insurers to make good decisions about their business and prepares them for audits and to comply with whatever regulations the industry may face.
Improved Use of Channels

The IT Best Practices listed in this report focus on an approach to a project rather than a specific feature of a system, which is why Celent does not demand that new technology utilize the web in order to be considered a Model Insurer Component. It is crucial, however, that insurers think about all their channel options when implementing new technology or enhancing existing systems. Clearly, being a modern insurer typically requires providing agents and customers with easy-to-use web applications, though direct integration to agency systems or simplifying existing paper processes is also important. And while the use of a text messaging channel might push the envelope of technological innovation, it does not win any Model Insurer awards if it is not adopted by agents and customers.
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A Model Insurer project that succeeds in this best practice might be an initiative entirely focused on improving a channel, such as (and most commonly) a new Producer Portal. But it also might be a project in a different area that effectively considers how new functionality will impact existing channels and leverages it appropriately.
Risk Management Through Proper Development, Testing, and Project Management

Model Insurers dont need to have highly paid or prestigious IT teams in order to succeed, nor does a project timeline have to accomplish huge amounts of revolutionary change in a minimized schedule. By following best practices in project executiondevelopment, testing, and project managementan insurer can accomplish great things over time. While best practices in execution help guarantee many things, when it comes down to it, they are there to help companies manage risk. What is the risk the project will be late? What is the risk there will be bugs in production? What is the risk the right features wont be available? What is the risk that by the time the project goes live the needs have changed? The best practices associated with execution are too numerous to list, but involve good requirements gathering, proper interaction with the business, usage of both automated and manual test cases, executive level support and user level buy-in, and much more. One of the most crucial practices is having a team of players who can communicate effectively. Many projects finish late and over budget not because of a failure of execution but because the IT group failed to properly estimate and explain the true timeline. A team that, on the same day, rolls out several new nationwide systems for multiple lines of business can point to its accomplishment as a huge success, but this isnt a best practice. Maximizing results by maximizing risk is not typically best for an insurer. Celent considers a company that plans several stages of development, with smaller, localized pilot programs to be a true Model Insurer.
Solicitation of End User Feedback and Review

While it may not sound like an IT Best Practice, the solicitation of input from end-users can be crucial to a projects success. Many times in the industry, after immense efforts are put forth by an IT organization to launch a new system, the response to a solution is only lukewarm. This is not because of a failure to deliver the requirements, but because the requirements were misaligned from the beginning. By building a user group to review early designs and milestones, a project path can be readjusted before time has been wasted on low priority features.
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Sometimes a user group consists of other internal staff who sit right down the hall and getting their participation is easy. But other times, such as when building a portal for independent agents, a Insurer must go out and build relationships. Typically, agents and others who will be using a system are happy to participate if not excited at the chance to give feedback. Model Insurers use this as an opportunity not just to build the best system, but also to get a head start on training.
Use of Metrics
Without the ability to quantify results, it is impossible to know what constitutes a successful project. All of the business results and returns on investment listed by Celent as necessary for a Model Insurer Component require the use of metrics, meaning that metrics are an implied best practice for all winners. Using metrics does not mean a insurer needs to practice Six Sigma or a highly repeatable and measurable review methodology to succeed. It does mean that an insurer needs to take a good look at the important metrics of a system before and after a project. It is not enough to measure the time to underwrite new business in a new system if that cannot be compared to the previous toolset. It is difficult or impossible to determine the highest priority IT needs if such self-analysis is not available. By identifying critical business factors and performing realistic measurements, a Model Insurer is able to focus on the most important IT efforts, point to successes, and continuously discover areas for improvements.
Measurable Business Results

Higher Productivity, Lower Staff Expenses
The insurance industrylike most industries in todays marketis looking for ways to cut expenses without sacrificing service quality or speed. Smart technology can help insurers achieve more with less. Technology can reduce cycle times, automate tasks (and occasionally entire processes), give workers the information they need when they need it. Increased productivity allows the same number of staff to handle increased volumes of work (submissions, service requests, claims, etc.), or a smaller number of staff to handle the same volume of work.
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In either case, the key for a Model Insurer seeking this benefit through a given initiative is to identify where and how things will change, establish baseline measures, project changes, and then track those changes post-deployment. The largest cost impact will generally be among operating staff, but savings in IT itself will often seen as well.
Increased Revenue or Market Share

Growth is a goal for nearly all insurers. Growth may be absolute (increase NPW by 8%), or relative (increase market share to 4%). Growth in a shrinking market means taking business away from competitors. A Model Insurer also remembers that improving retention of current business is a foundation of growth (and profitability as well). Measuring growth is a challenge, but sometimes secondary metrics (for example: number of submissions received, or approved, or renewal rates for claimants) are more readily available.
Faster Cycle Times and More Consistent Processes

Manual, inconsistent, and time consuming processes are expensive and error-prone. Many new initiatives automate tasks and/or simplify processes. Specifically, several Model Insurer winners automated underwriting rules and shortened the cycle time for new business submissions. Since complex processes span systems, better system-tosystem integration reduces the need for staff time to accomplish handoffs. To optimize labor costs, an insurer needs to look across the entire infrastructure before beginning an IT initiative. How will a new system link to existing systems? Will it reduce or add to the overall burden on staff? Sometimes an organization needs to recognize that the first phase of an implementation will actually increase everyones manual process load, especially when the new system has gone online but the old system still maintains half the business. A Model Insurer also knows that new systems do not just take existing processes and put them online. Rather, these new projects provide an opportunity to rethink processes: their complexity, linkages, and effectiveness.
Better Decisions, More Accurate Pricing, Reduced Losses

IT projects can help the bottom line by helping grow new areas of business, but it can also help an insurer be smarter about the business the company already has. Managing insurance risk is what insurers do,
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and that is best done with good data and insight into the customers and policies, and good tools for all the people involved in the process of pricing, selling, and approving business. Measuring this, however, can be difficult, and many IT initiatives are started not to make better product decisions but simply to provide the tools and data needed to understand the decisions that are being made. Not every project is directly tied to making these kinds of risk decisions, but Model Insurers recognize that all initiatives do involve new opportunities for gathering data. The IT department must think about all systems as an opportunity to feed data to the business.
Decreased Time to Market

Time to market is a cycle time, but it differs from the previous category Faster and More Consistent Process Cycle Times in that the time to market is a cycle that takes places before any business is transacted. Whether a company attempts to roll out an entire new line of business or make one change to a rate table, the time to market can take anywhere from minutes to months. Being nimble enough to adjust pricing strategies and provide competitive new products is crucial to a companys ability to adapt to a difficult marketplace, but overburdened IT departments required to write code for every alteration can create huge bottlenecks for the business. Time to market is one of the most frequently cited reasons for licensing new systems. It is not enough, however, to recognize that time to market is a problem. Many insurers see an unacceptably long delay for product adjustments and leap into a new technology acquisition instead of calculating ROI for a new project. While decreasing time to market may be a critical factor in the business, an IT initiative is not always the right or only solution. Once IT is able to implement a change to a rate in a day, a Insurer may discover that a six week bottleneck still exists in another area, whether it is business users seeking approval or the time spent updating marketing material. A Model Insurer knows to analyze the whole process and to measure each step before any projects begin.
More Efficient Document/Content Distribution

The interaction of an insurer with its agents and clients all comes down to content: product information, application forms, policies, marketing materials, policyholder statements, adjuster reports, bills, and all manners of correspondence. Moving all of these documents off of paper and into an electronic format has been an industry focus for as long as computers first started showing up on desktops. It is not just about reducing printing and mailing costs; it is also about creating easier, less error-prone ways of interacting. Many companies have gone
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through the effort of providing agents or customers an online channel for submitting business only to print out those submissions in-house in order to feed them back into an older process. For a certain Insurer this might be the right first step, as long as there are plans in place to update the back-end document process as well. Similar to the result Faster and More Consistent Process Cycle Times, a Model Insurer doesnt just take a paper process and put it online. Instead, a Model Insurer looks to use new channels to interact in a better way, allowing agents and customers options as to how they will receive policies and information. With more efficient document and content distribution, a Insurer can reduce the costs associated with printing and mailing, reduce manual process times, reduce storage needs, and reduce errors associated with rekeying data. In addition to these reductions, a Insurer can also increase agent and customer satisfaction.
Improved Agent/Customer Satisfaction and Adoption

There has been a great focus in the last few years on providing portals and tools to agents and customers to allow them to more easily interact and transact business with the Insurer. Many of the reasons for this investment tie to previously listed business results: reduced cycle times, more efficient content and document distribution, higher productivity, and increased revenue. But these investments also result in a less tangible increase in agent and customer satisfaction. Increased agent and customer satisfaction itself leads to higher productivity and increased revenue, so may be seen as a means-to-an-end rather than an end in itself, but a Model Insurer knows differently. One way for an insurer to measure agent and customer satisfaction is to talk to their agents and customers. Though only briefly touched upon in the IT Best Practices section, an important part to making any IT initiative succeed is to involve input from the targeted users of a system, even if those users are outside of the organization. This also allows a Insurer to track how changes are being received and adjust accordingly. Another way to measure satisfaction is the more concrete metric of system adoption. If a new agent portal is being used by only five percent of the agent force, its a sure thing that the agents are either unhappy with it or do not know about it. Working with the agents to determine their opinions will both help a Insurer build the best possible system and also kick start the agent education and training process.
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Measuring system adoption is not just to gauge user satisfaction. Presumably, a system has been put in place to achieve certain benefits to the organization, and unless the system is being used those goals will not be realized even if the features are there.
Compliance and Reduction of Market Conduct Penalties

Doing business in the insurance industry means conforming to a broad set of regulations at the state, and increasingly, at the federal levels. Noncompliance can impact the bottom line, both through market conduct penalties, and even more significantly by a tarnished image among producers, prospects, and policyholders. Given legislators and regulators proclivity to pass laws and issue new regulations and guidance, the job of compliance is a constant. And given that any insurance process can the subject of regulation, achieving compliance is a job for both business and IT leaders, using the best available governance and project management methodologies. These include process, rules, and document management; and reporting and data transparency.
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Model Insurer Components 2010
The following is an alphabetical list of the 28 Model Insurer Component case studies included in this report: Allianz Life Insurance Company of North America: Using technology to attract new distribution partners American Modern Insurance Group: Replacing a legacy platform in a budget-neutral manner Atava - RSA Scandinavia: Combining the scale of a traditional company with the flexibility of a startup to build a new proposition AVIVA-COFCO Life Insurance Company, LTD: Realizing internal and external business value through data standards Calliden Group Limited: Consolidating multiple systems to a modern platform which enables growth in a startup operation Capitol Insurance Companies: Bringing work processes in line with the expense structure of a book of business Church Pension Group: Changing a legacy platform to selfservice to realize a business vision Erie Insurance Group: Tying together all parts of the insurance value chain Erie Insurance Group: Increasing speed to market and decreasing expenses using an external rating engine Esurance: Implementing self-service claims with vendor technology while retaining company-specific branding/look and feel Farmers Insurance: Using data to drive distribution strategy and tactics FBL Financial Group, Inc: Supporting a startup business with necessary automation without incurring all costs of a traditional support structure Harford Mutual: Using multiple technology solutions to increase ease of use for independent agents
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Hertz Europe: Transforming a business model with technology Highmark: Discovering fraud that cannot be seen Kansas City Life Insurance Company: Using ECM to modernize applications across multiple processes Liberty Mutual Agency Markets: Changing product development from a reactive to a proactive process to support business growth LV=: Using a standard presentation layer across the business to increase online channel revenue from multiple lines of business Missouri Employers Mutual Insurance Company: Transformational change Nationwide Insurance: Using technology to rapidly enter a new market with premium service requirements PMI Group: Using an advanced testing utility to improve system delivery and business results Suncorp: Supporting a segmentation approach to the market The Cincinnati Specialty Underwriters Insurance Company: Leveraging a previous implementation in order to enter a new market quickly The Hartford Financial Services: Bringing order to multiple, aging systems that support a critical, highly regulated process The Phoenix Companies: Consolidating multiple systems into a single front end in order to increase efficiency and improve customer service Tokio Marine & Nichido Fire Insurance Co., Ltd.: Overcoming critical challenges in a complex project Unitrin Direct Auto and Home Insurance: Using business process management (BPM) to modernize applications across multiple processes Zurich Financial Services: Standardizing process and technology on a regional basis in a manner that allows for local differences
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Claims
Overview
Improving claims systems provides an opportunity to improve the form of claims information and data, how it is accessed, and the processes that depend on it. One of the most common changes is that all (or nearly all) information becomes digital as paper claim files are eliminatedworkflow is easier to manage and moves more quickly, the experience of claimants and their agents improves, reserving accuracy increases and compliance increases as required forms and correspondence are automatically created and sent by the claims system. New claims technology gives insurance companies the opportunity to revisit both their organizational structures and their staffing levels in order to put them in better alignment with organizational priorities and skill requirements. Several insurers are beginning to use claims analytics to provide systematic loss information to their front end product development, pricing, and underwriting activities. This 2010 report includes a new push to self-service claims that further leverages web technology and allows clients to manage more of the transaction.
Model Insurer Components

Esurance
Implementing self-service claims with vendor technology while retaining company-specific branding/look and feel Esurance was one of the pioneers in offering personal insurance direct to US consumers online. Based on Esurances experience as an innovator in direct online insurance, and through insights gained about customer expectations by surveying its policyholder base, Esurance determined that technology leadership in self-service was paramount to future growth. With the front end process well-established (allowing customers to quote, buy, and manage their policies online 24/7), Esurance decided to focus on providing its tech-savvy customers with a unique, robust self-service claim reporting experience. The companys objective was to provide customers with an online selfservice claims experience that would transcend the industrys typical online claims approach. Traditionally, claimants reporting through the
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Internet dealt with static forms, very basic data capture, and significant rekeying. Customers did not have access to claims services and could not make their own assignments. The result was lost cycle time (longer time to repair/resolution), higher expenses, and little to no impact on paid loss. The company also observed a lost opportunity in the lack of branding applied during the claims process. The current Esurance solution enables a unique online claim reporting environment that moves far beyond data capture. In addition to providing a unique customer experience for each policyholder through reflexive, conditional questioning, the platform also provides such critical services as: Real time triaging Scheduling of field appointments for auto physical damage claims Dynamic vehicle inspection options based on the location of the policyholder Scoring for coverage and total losses Claim number assignment Claims office assignment (with contact information available during the online experience) Email confirmation of a successfully submitted claim along with the contact information of the assigned claims office immediately following submission. Innovation Groups First Notice of Loss (FNOL) technology was chosen for the self-service solution and is embedded in Esurances website design. A unique aspect of this implementation is the ability of Innovation Groups platform to substitute the Esurance presentation layer of the software for its own and thus maintain a 100% consistent Esurance-branded experience throughout the entire website. The solution provides flexibility for different customer interactions based on a sophisticated business rules capability, scripting engine, and integration with third parties such as CCC Information Services (ProcessClaims) and Esurances own E-star network of repair facilities. Implementation began in September 2008 and was completed in all states by May 2009. Through December 2009, online claims volume accounted for 7.0% of all claims reported. This percentage also includes recently released glass claims. This percentage is projected to increase approximately 1020% annually as awareness grows among customers
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and prospects. In November for all claims reported online, Esurance offered an inspection 80% of the time, and half of those inspections were set up online. Significant benefits are accruing: Efficiency Gains for claims reported online: In the past, claims that were reported online generated an email notification to a Loss Reporting Unit, which would then have to manually enter all of the data into a claims system. On average, this manual entry process took 9 minutes per claim. The new claims reporting application automatically imports the details of the claim into the claims system and routes the claim to the appropriate claims office. All duplicate entry is avoided for each claim. Cycle Time Improvements-Comprehensive Claims: Comprehensive claims reported online have an increased closure rate of 7% over those that were not reported online. Allowing customers to report their claims and set up their own inspections enables adjusters to resolve the claim in a more efficient manner. Customer Service Satisfaction Rate: Over the past six months of survey data obtained, 99% of customers who reported their claim online were satisfied with the self-service online experience. Future development will include self-service claim reporting for glassonly claims (recently released in December) and the ability to provide rental scheduling. Esurance was chosen for Model Insurer because of the companys best practices for higher productivity, improved use of channels, and automation / STP / system integration.
Hertz Europe
Transforming a business model with technology Founded in 1981, Hertz Claims Management (HCM) is a division of the Hertz Corporation and provides services in the two Hertz Divisions; the Americas and EMEA & Asia-Pacific. HCM Europe has claim offices in eight countries and specializes in third party auto liability claim handling for the Hertz rental businesses and for clients including corporations, commercial brokers, insurers, and risk carriers. It manages approximately 175,000 motor first party and third party, personal property and personal accident incidents across Europe.
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HCM Europe had two key strategic objectives. First, enable growth by increasing the amount of claim handling services delivered to Hertz operations and to enable an increased servicing capability to external clients. Second, centralize generic processes (such as FNOL, Receivable Management and Customer Contacts) in the Hertz Europe Shared Services environment in Dublin. To achieve these objectives, it was imperative to have an overall claims management operation that drove efficiency into the business, reduced overall operational costs, and provided flexibility, scalability, and agility to respond to internal, market, regulatory, and client changes or demands effectively. Limitations in the existing system did not allow for these abilities. The legacy claims system had no workflow functionality and had, over time, become significantly customized by country. The result was that transformation and organizational development opportunities were limited and flexibility and agility inhibited. Fundamentally, the legacy system did not provide the necessary platform to drive change, efficiency and flexibility into the business. HCM selected Innovation Claims from Innovation Group to be the basis for their new Claims solution. The new platform has allowed Hertz to restructure key business processes, increase automation of those processes, externalize some of the processes and information via the internet to their customers and dramatically reduce operating and claim costs. A phased implementation and conversion of 10 years of country-specific data was used to create a baseline global solution that is localized for country specific needs. The baseline system was implemented in the UK in June 2008, followed 9 months later for Belgium and Luxembourg, and subsequently one month later for Netherlands and Germany. Most recently, Italy went live in October, 2009. Initial results reveal an overall productivity improvement of 28% and claims cost reduction of 8%. While unplanned, the new solution also offered HCM efficiencies and cost reductions during the global financial crisis, helping them retain customers through aggressive pricing while preserving quality and service levels. Moreover, as Hertz has rapidly developed the range of customer services (through acquisitions, entering new territories, development of Hertz Equipment Rental, new rental technology and launching new products such as 'Connect by Hertz'), HCM has responded; the strategy to transform the business proved to be 'ahead of the curve'. Hertz Europe was chosen for Model Insurer because of the best practices of optimization of infrastructure and higher productivity / lower staff expenses.
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Highmark
Discovering fraud that cannot be "seen" Highmark was created in 1996 by the consolidation of two Pennsylvania licensees of the Blue Cross and Blue Shield Association. As one of the largest health insurers in the United States, the company serves 28 million customers, had 2008 revenue of over USD $13 billion, and processed 201 million health, dental, vision, Medicare, and pharmacy claims. In 2006, Highmark launched an initiative to automate the detection of fraud, abuse and error both prior to and after a claim payment. At that time, most of the leads on fraud cases were "organic" -- coming in through referrals from examiners and customer service representatives. Limited automated detection was in place using a rules-based system. However, analysis indicated that they were missing the vast majority of fraud that was too difficult to spot with the human eye and too abnormal to identify with a rule. Most of the cases that were spotted were either well-defined or already known fraud cases. Highmark selected the FICO Insurance Fraud Manager based on its predictive analytics capability. Shortly after implementation, all medical providers were scored. The higher the score, the more likely the provider is fraudulent. Of the top 200, 83 were in fact true cases of fraud and 39 of those were previously undetected by Highmark's existing technology and processes. Of the 44 cases that were already under investigation, the solution helped uncover an additional 19% potential recovery dollars. The company has extended the use of the technology to cases involving abuse and waste. One analysis identified a medical group that was misusing anesthesia products, resulting in waste. Using the parameters of that case, 12 additional groups were targeted. Savings were realized in excess of US$2 million. Highmarks data is hosted on the vendors servers. It recently began providing feeds of claims information hourly. This increased frequency moves them closer to real time detection of fraud. Value realization when compared to recoveries and savings versus investment has been in a range between seven and nine to one. Highmark was chosen for Model Insurer because of the best practices of better decisions, more accurate pricing, reduced losses and the use of metrics.
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Distribution Management
Overview
Growth. Profitable, sustainable growth. How can insurance companies grow their business in a meaningful manner, given the current economic outlook? Celent believes that effective distribution management is an untapped area of competitive advantage. However, this is easier said than done. No matter what geography, insurance distribution is a multichannel, fragmented, and changing landscape. Business practices are constantly innovating, but few historical approaches are retired. Distinguishing oneself in this area involves continuing to outperform rivals in old models while investing in new ways of bringing product to prospects. The result can be confusing and expensive. Model Carrier Components reflect an ability to service multiple channels or to significantly change the game. They use technology to more effectively move information from one part of the value chain to another. The Distribution Management Component is the most heavily represented category in the 2010 report. Given the imperative of growth in virtually every insurer, the lessons that can be learned from this group are particularly valuable.

Allianz Life Insurance Company of North America
Using technology to attract new distribution partners Allianz Life is expanding its broker-dealer and wirehouse distribution channel to enable top line revenue growth. An assessment of the market determined that technology investments were required to meet the requirements of new distribution partners and gain shelf space for Allianz Life products. Additionally, new processes were needed to enable wirehouse-registered representatives to do business with Allianz Life in a manner that minimizes manual processing of applications.
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A four-phased program was developed to update existing Allianz Life systems to support wirehouse expansion. Named the DTCC (Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation) Transformation program, the first phase has been implemented and included: Procuring and implementing a managed file transfer solution to provide a secure, reliable means of exchanging files with DTCC. Establishing an eCommerce portal application to manage both the setup of broker-dealer eCommerce partners and the inbound and outbound feeds for each partner. Building the capability to receive new business applications from broker dealers for fixed and indexed annuities through the DTCC. Providing money settlement through DTCC MSD feed. Building the capability to send positions and values to broker-dealer partners through the DTCC POV feed. The technology applied to enable such a high level of integration includes packaged software, industry standards, and technical utilities. The Lombardi TeamWorks business process management tool controls the rules that manage the messaging. DTCC and ACORD Life Standards are used extensively to ensure that data exchange is reliable and consistent. MS SQL Server, Informatica Power Center, and Informatica Data Transform work together to extract, transform, and load data. The design emphasized not only a successful exchange of information but also an environment which enables ongoing maintenance at low cost and effort price point. In addition to the technical improvements introduced, a number of process innovations were instituted with the project. Optimal offshoring sourcing was used to reduce development costs. Collaborative workspaces using Microsoft Sharepoint assisted communication and coordination across distributed teams. Finally, domain-expert business analysts were involved throughout the lifecycle using tools such as rational unified process methodologies and automated requirements documentation software. The benefits are beginning to accrue, and results to date indicate that the program will drive top line growth and reduce expenses. Improved ease of doing business will expand the broker-dealer channel. Within two months of implementation, eight broker-dealers were on the system receiving position files. As of December 2009, there were 16 brokerdealer distribution partners using the POV services for Allianz fixed product line, providing financial details on over 66,000 fixed annuity
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policies a month. These Allianz broker-dealer partners now receive daily information delivered directly to their administration systems with current detail policy information. This has resulted in direct cost savings to Allianz though reduction of call volumes for policy detail information. Operational expenses are also lowered through the elimination of manual processes. This new functionality has improved Allianz ability to provide enhanced value to its broker-dealer partners. The implementation of the automated order entry system using the DTCC APP transaction is in production with its first broker-dealer distribution partner. Future phases will include commission reconciliation and payment functions through the DTCC COM transaction, licensing, and appointment administration through the DTCC LNA transaction, automated account transfer through the DTCC ACATS transaction, and automating handling of activities such as broker account number changes though the DTCC IFT transaction. The DTCC Transformation Program was chosen for Model Insurer because of the best practices of use of industry standards, improved use of channels, and optimization of infrastructure.
AVIVA-COFCO Life Insurance Co., LTD

Realizing internal and external business value through data standards AVIVA-COFCO Life Insurance Co., LTD. (ACL) is the second largest foreign life insurer in China. It offers financial services in savings, investment, life and health insurance, and plans to extend its business to retirement planning services. The expansion of the business has called for an integration of ACLs multiple distribution channels, which include banc assurance, direct telemarketing, brokers, agency, and outsourcing service providers. The adoption of a single solution based on an industrial best practice is a top priority for the company. This was accomplished with the implementation of DMS (Distribution Management System), supported by Siebre Systems Ltd. The system is based on the ACORD LAH Standard for industry standard transactions, business, and data models. It enables comprehensive business-to-business (B2B) integration with various partners. For example, real time straight-through processing between ACL and major domestic insurance agencies is accomplished through DMS. In addition, the
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application supports data exchange with major banks and enables bank tellers to respond to proposal preparing and new policy issuance in real time. Bank systems can also conduct daily direct debit and direct credit transactions on DMS platform. DMS also provides a standard information architecture at the enterprise-level for ACL. Extensions to additional systems such as claims and reinsurance have been made more quickly and at lower cost than in the previous system environment. Development costs have been reduced by over 50% through the deployment of DMS. In addition, the DMS unified business model enhances the efficiency of data analysis across the various channels. With the adoption of the ACORD LAH Standard and the flexible configuration capabilities of DMS, the system has supported ACL through its continued, double-digit growth in the past three years. DMS has been implemented for various headquarter-to-headquarter and headquarter-to-branch connections with five major domestic banks in China. A total of 11 direct business connections among five banks are supported. DMS also enables real-time data exchange with outsourcing data entry partners and telemarketing channels. ACL also uses the ACORD Information Model for a consistent and cross-functional information model and has built a customer-centric data model. By consolidating customer and transaction information from various processes and systems, ACL has built a comprehensive and accurate view of its customer, in terms of knowledge, value, and relationships that helps to maintain high customer satisfaction and consistently develop in-depth understanding of customers needs. AVIVA-COFCO Life Insurance Co., LTD. was chosen for Model Insurer because of the best practices of use of industry standards, increased agent/partner adoption of technology and optimization of infrastructure.
Erie Insurance Group

Tying together all parts of the insurance value chain Erie Insurance transitioned the back-office administration of traditional life, universal life, annuity and group voluntary life insurance policies to Dell Perot Systems in August 2007. The company has also launched two new universal life policy forms and a new group voluntary life product since the transition. Given the increasing
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sophistication of its service delivery approach, it was critical to ensure tight integration between the company, the outsourcer, the independent agents and the policyholders. To accomplish this, Erie Insurance launched an initiative that leverages the Agent Web Portal, policy administration and imaging systems provided by Dell Perot Systems to deliver electronic notification and secure access of all correspondence sent to customers. The Web Carbon Copy (CC) Functionality for Policy Correspondence system allows agents to view exact images of the letters sent to their customers. Agents can access correspondence copies before customers receive them in the mail. This allows agents to proactively contact customers where needed. The system also offers substantial cost savings over mail delivery of hard copy print-outs. To support the need for custom requirements, the development team built document-level configuration rules for outbound documents. These tools work with the policy imaging system to store electronic images of customer correspondence. Agents, ERIE and Dell Perot staff have direct access to a copy of the correspondence mailed to the customer. The parameters also allow specific document types to be physically printed and mailed to agents where necessary on an exception basis. Since the functionality was implemented in January 2009, ERIE agents have been notified of nearly 1 million correspondence documents that have been sent to their customers. Compared to the typical costs to print and mail copies of the letters, ERIE has saved more than $400,000 USD. Agents typically receive notification and viewing access to correspondence images between two and nine days before the customer receives the correspondence. This allows agents to review correspondence and anticipate their customers' needs based on the information in the correspondence. The result is that front-line agents can serve their customers more proactively, which adds professionalism and satisfaction throughout the value chain. Agent feedback indicates that the Web CC functionality has increased ease of doing business with the company. The technology also enhances service reliability by eliminating the chance of lost or misplaced mailed copies. Most importantly, all areas of service delivery have access to the same client information in a model that delivers higher quality service at lower cost levels.
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The Web Carbon Copy project at Erie Insurance was chosen for Model Insurer because of the best practices of more efficient document/content distribution, improved use of channels, and higher productivity / lower staff expenses.
Farmers Insurance
Using data to drive distribution strategy and tactics Business strategists at Farmers Insurance began this initiative after analysis revealed that 20% of its customers provided nearly 80% of its profit. This approach lies at the intersection of distribution management and data analytics. Combining back end operational data and public information with advanced analysis and predictive modeling results in a new model of distribution management based on customer lifetime value to the company. Farmers established three goals for their analytics effort: Fully understand their best customers Use this information to attract and retain the customers with the highest lifetime value Better understand the performance of their top-performing agents. The analytics team at Farmers uses the SAS Analytics product to derive unique insights from existing data. A complete understanding of customers involves identifying their unique characteristics and understanding their attitudes at both an individual and collective level. Quantifying lifetime value includes developing a holistic, customercentric view of the insurance process and moving away from a transactional or product approach. A number of data elements are used, including the number of relationships, the expected longevity of each, and current and future expected cross-sell revenues. In addition to acknowledging key policyholders, top-performing agents are also identified based on historic metrics such as sales and retention as well as newly established lifetime customer value measures. Once these agents are known, the company analyzes the specific techniques used in these agents to attract a large number of high-value customers. Their practices are then communicated throughout the distribution force in order to build on success.
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Decisions concerning marketing practices, retail location, and agent remuneration use lifetime value factors. As a result, the ROI of direct marketing efforts has been increased by 14. Efforts to date have increased the number of high-value, lifetime customers across the Farmers book of business, ensuring continued benefits into the future. The Data Analytics project at Farmers was chosen for Model Insurer because of the best practices of data transparency, improved use of channels, and use of metrics.
FBL Financial Group

Supporting a startup business with necessary automation without incurring all costs of a traditional support structure FBL Financial Group is a multi-line Property Casualty insurer which sought to expand its target market to address the Gen X and Gen Y segments. This growth strategy required the development of a personal auto insurance proposition that could be delivered directly to consumers via the Internet. Because of capital and time constraints, it was necessary to enter this new distribution channel with a virtual company business model. The new Protectant Direct program includes a web application which allows consumers to quote, purchase, and self-service their personal automobile insurance needs online. The solution combines several of CSCs standard products (Agency Link, POINT IN, Information Ordering, POINT IN Rules, Document Production, and Media Management) with an open source portal (DotNetNuke). This concurrently delivers the stability benefits of an established vendor environment with the flexibility of a modern platform. The site is hosted on CSCs infrastructure and serviced with its back office BPO virtual company support. This includes licensed customer service representatives and underwriters. A key element stressed throughout the requirements was the need for configuration flexibility to enable quick adaptation to market changes. To accommodate this need, the project team developed several application innovations. For example, many of the newly developed application pages are metadata driven. This enables rapid changes to the user interface. Additionally, the business layer is configurable and offers utilities for altering navigation, information ordering, edits, field valuation, form selection, online print, and underwriting rules. The data layer is also configurable via metadata definition. Additional flexibility is obtained through the use of the ACORD XML standards.
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The new web application also features third party URL tracking tags that allow the client to identify and evaluate the effectiveness of their marketing strategies originating from Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, and various other web advertising sources as analyzed via Google Analytics. FBL expects to retain and build on these relationships as their clients needs evolve over time. It is also expected that some of these additional needs will be met by expanding the relationship to include FBLs more traditional agency distribution channels. The Protectant Direct program at FBL was chosen for Model Insurer because of the best practices of optimization of infrastructure and improved use of channels.
Harford Mutual Insurance Company

Using multiple technology solutions to increase ease of use for independent agents In 2007, Harford Mutual Insurance Company began looking for ways to work more efficiently with its 400 independent agents. An assessment of the current automation solution determined that major enhancements were required to meet agent expectations. The resulting system, named RapidWrite, delivers a level of ease of use which has increased submission rates and resulted in revenue growth. Harford Mutual surrounded its in-house legacy policy administration system with new functionality. After a broad vendor search, they selected AgencyPorts web-based solution, AgencyPortal, to streamline the interaction between the companys agents and its downstream systems. Harford Mutual also undertook the major task of totally replacing its existing rating engine with a more service-oriented architecture rating package, Ratabase, from CGI. This enabled the policy administration system to use the same rating engine as the web portal, ensuring a match between quoted and issued premium. Finally, the effort also implemented address scrubbing and geocoding to enable risk concentration considerations during the property underwriting process. This capability also assists with ongoing management of risk aggregation. A rules engine in the portal product ensures automated routing of information to the appropriate decision-making points within the carrier organization. This facilitates real time underwriting decisions and decreases cycle time. It also alleviated a major auditing concern by making rules highly visible and allowing for a very positive separation
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of responsibility in the rule definition and development process. Support for ACORD XML schema is built in to the AgencyPortal Toolkit, allowing rules to be built and maintained easily by a business analyst. The implementation of RapidWrite has allowed Harford Mutual to demonstrate its commitment to their agency force to meet and exceed the requirements for ease of doing business. Since its launch, agent utilization of the insurers web portal has increased by almost 80%. In terms of 2009 submission activity, BOP is up 22%, workers compensation by 16%, and commercial automobile by over 54%. Quote-to-bind ratios across all three lines have risen in excess of 7% above 2008. Harford Mutual was chosen for Model Insurer because of the best practices of improved agent/customer satisfaction and adoption, use of industry standards, and increased revenue or market share.
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Infrastructure/Architecture
Overview
The Infrastructure/Architecture Component seeks to recognize companies that use technology to solve their business challenges by adding new tools to existing environments. Key elements include enterprise data strategy and enterprise data models, platform modernization through wrapping old technology with new, Web services, and service-oriented architecture (SOA). This category recognizes that it is not always feasible or prudent to completely replace a legacy application and that significant value can be realized by introducing modern capability that works in conjunction with older technology.

Kansas City Life Insurance Company
Using enterprise content management (ECM) technology to modernize applications across multiple processes Kansas City Life Insurance Company (KCL) has been committed to providing "Security Assured" and high-quality service to customers for more than a century. Processes prior to the implementation of this project were best characterized as activities powered by people and paper. Core insurance operations areas relied on paper documents, content, case files, and procedures. To continue to meet service commitments, it was necessary to replace the existing imaging technology that lacked the functionality needed to modernize their infrastructure. The scope of the project included insurance operations activities in Claims, Customer Service, New Business Processing, and Licensing and Contracting. KCL acquired Hyland OnBase for its anchor enterprise content management (ECM) component and Open Texts Right Fax and DataCaps Rule Runner to augment the ECM tool set with other capture and automation components. This toolset was used to automate existing document handling in each of the targeted areas. Multiple interface points with the existing core administration system were established. By introducing workflow management, KCL extended a document management project into a business process redesign implementation.
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Results extend throughout the enterprise. Benefits realized to date include: US$3 million in net accumulated savings 12% reduction in Insurance Operations staffing. An estimated 10% of claims are auto-adjudicated via straight-through processing, and 60% of claims can be paid within four days Customer service representatives have virtually eliminated any backlog for work requests and have one touch access to all policy file documents for each policy holder; CSRs can now focus on customer service rather than handling and managing paper-intensive processes. Agency licensing department processes are now 80 to 90% paperless and complete 90% of applications within three days. The new business activities lifecycle is now automated, with the system directing work through various stages of the process, including administration, underwriting, and final preparation for customer delivery. In this implementation, KCL reached beyond a focus on the technical components of the project. They employed a blend of systems, disciplines, commitment, teamwork, creativity, and relationships. Work was prioritized incrementally and resulted in quick wins, more rapid user acceptance, and exponential gains as the project progressed. The ECM project at Kansas City Life was chosen for Model Insurer because of the best practices of more efficient content management, higher productivity / lower staff expenses, and risk management through proper development, testing, and project management.
LV=
Using a standard presentation layer across the business to increase online channel revenue from multiple lines of business In 2007, with ambitious growth plans, UK Carrier LV= (formerly Liverpool Victoria) was looking to significantly increase revenues by expanding its product reach via its online channel. As part of its online development strategy, LV= chose to implement a SOA-based presentation layer solution from edge IPK, called edgeConnect, which would act as a replacement front end for the legacy system. Initially, edgeConnect was deployed to replace LV='s online
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presentation layer for all its auto and household products. The product is now fully integrated with the LV= mainframe quote engine with data delivered via a Web Services Layer. The separation of the front end "Point of Sale" processes from the quote engine has given LV= the agility to respond quickly to changing requirements (both regulatory and market). The company is also now able to support mobile platforms that require WAI accessibility compliant applications. In 2008 LV= decided to extend the use of edgeConnect across its General Insurance product range as its standard presentation layer and as a component of its overall SOA architecture. In 2009, LV= decided to extend the technology across the LV= Group which encompasses P&C, Life and Retirement products. LV='s online business has dramatically increased since the project was launched. Channel usage has shifted from 20% online and 80% call centre to 80% online and 20% call centre. The growth in the online channel has increased by 500% in just under 2 years. At the same time, IT development and maintenance costs have been significantly reduced. The increased development speed and agility of the system have resulted in direct distribution benefits. Launching white-labeled products is much quicker because of the ability to provide multiple presentations from a single process. Also, the time required to deploy with new aggregator partners has been reduced LV= is now viewed as a leading company in the UK online market. Research by independent web benchmarking research company (eBenchmarkers) shows that the website has moved from 23rd place to 2nd place in a ranking of UK insurance websites. LV= was chosen for Model Insurer because of the best practices of optimization of infrastructure, decreased time to market, and improve use of channels.
The Phoenix Companies

Consolidating multiple systems into a single front end in order to increase efficiency and improve customer service Phoenix Life Insurance is a manufacturer of life, annuity, and alternative products distributed through a variety of nonaffiliated partner relationships. The Hartford, Connecticut-based carrier specializes in products for high net worth consumers and business owners.
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Over the years, Phoenix had accumulated multiple policy administration systems from several vendors, requiring call center representatives and back office users to keep multiple host system sessions open on their desktops. Every system represents the same data element differently, thereby creating the need to memorize all the codes from many different systems. Rather than replacing its existing systems, Phoenix opted to aggregate the data into one Web-enabled interface that presents a single view of the customer using a vendor product (CSCs Customer Service Accelerator (csA)). The new system aggregates data from seven systems; four policy administration systems, Phoenixs customer repository, Automated Work Distributor for workflow, and PerformancePlus for producer management. ACORD based data structures are used for SOAP/XML-based messaging. The software enables the CSR to immediately access all customer information including portfolio, contact history, policy data, producer information, and workflow data within one interface. The first phases of the initiative involved combining common inquiry elements from all seven systems into a single presentation. This yielded immediate benefits because customer service representatives were able to answer the majority of the calls completely with this data. A process change was then implemented that added transaction processing to the call center. This eliminated a previous handoff step to back office processors. Customer-facing CSRs now handle transactions in a one-and-done manner while the customer is on the phone. As a result of the implementation, CSR call times have decreased by 15%. Audits of customer calls reveal greater consistency, and the company has reduced CSR training time on Variable Life account processing by 60%. Phoenix Life Insurance was chosen for Model Insurer because of the best practices of optimization of infrastructure, use of industry standards, and higher productivity / lower staff expenses.
Unitrin Direct
Using business process management to modernize applications across multiple processes
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The Unitrin Direct insurance companies (Unitrin Direct) sell automobile and homeowners insurance directly to consumers and through group-sponsored voluntary benefit programs. Unitrin Direct is dedicated to providing its customers outstanding service and quality coverage at competitive prices, making personal auto and property insurance simple by offering people the choices they want with the convenience they deserve. In 2005, the company introduced business process management (BPM) capability to address two goals: significantly enhance its competitive standing and position it for cost-effective growth. In the workflow environment at that time, manual processing and filing resulted in inconsistencies, data redundancy, and errors. Unitrin Direct needed to increase the number of complete, correct policy applications and process them more quickly to remain competitive and grow. The strategy for the project was to focus initially on Underwriting, the area with the greatest need, and then leverage the tool across the enterprise. To ensure the solution would ultimately serve other business areas as well as underwriting, users from claims, human resources, customer service, and other areas were involved in the planning process. Following a competitive search process, the company selected a document management and BPM/workflow software vendor to interface with its existing technologies. Optical Image Technologys DocFinity Workflow serves as the hub around which a complete and integrated solution is built. Workflow was integrated with the companys automated call system, policy administration software (Decision Research Corporations DecsionMaker system), and third party document capture products. The integration and leveraging of information stored in various applications has dramatically improved the underwriting processes. Policy data is now available immediately to the claims department, enabling the underwriting department to comply with time-sensitive service level agreements and regulations. Customer service was dramatically improved by the ability to access information securely and immediately over the Web. By scanning the bar codes on returned mail and using the data to instruct their calling system to make automated calls requesting address updates, customer information was updated more quickly and for a lower cost. Finally, management, staff, and customers have benefited from the ability to track and view where a policy is at any point in the underwriting process.
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Automation of mechanical and mundane tasks has enabled Unitrin Direct to repurpose specialized staff to tasks that required higher-level critical thinking and analysis while providing better customer service. The benefits of the underwriting implementation extend across many areas. Unitrin Direct has been able to process 15% more new business within time standards with less than half of the number of administrative employees. The platform enabled the company to be one of the first auto insurers to introduce electronic signatures. The automation of processes and the analytical tools that workflow reporting provided enabled Unitrin Direct to process new business reviews on a daily basis (rather than once a week). The greatest return on investment results from Unitrin Directs ability to work more cost-efficiently. After implementing the solution, the company saw a 50% increase in productivity related to the handling of correspondence within its underwriting department. As Unitrin Direct builds on its success in underwriting by expanding the solution enterprisewide, management anticipates similar cost savings and improvements in multiple areas. Workflow automation has already been expanded successfully into the Claims area and is being used for some processes in nearly every other area of the enterprise, including customer service, finance, human resources, and licensing. Involving staff from multiple departments in the project planning process has proven to manage employee expectations, mitigate the risk of nonacceptance, and ease adoption in the wider user community. Unitrin Direct was chosen for Model Insurer because of the best practices of increased productivity / lower staff expenses, more efficient content management / document distribution, and solicitation of end user feedback.
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IT Management
Overview
IT governance leapt to the fore after the technology crash of 20002001, when business reasserted its control over an IT side that it regarded as running off the rails. After a few years of tight budgets and tight oversight, a new partnership emerged. Given recent economic difficulties, the insurance industry is now looking to IT to help weather the storm rather than be a place to arbitrarily cut costs. The business side has started to understand that it is reliant on IT to operate and compete effectively, and IT realizes that its only meaningful metric is whether it enables the business to do so. While there are technology systems (project management tools, asset management tracking applications) that are helpful in this area, the most critical elements to success are best practices, organizational structures, and corporate culture. All Model Insurer projects have some element of IT Management embedded within them, otherwise they would likely not have succeeded. Winners of the Model Insurer component in this category are insurers that have demonstrated excellence in a project specifically targeted at building a lasting foundation for IT management across all of their projects.

Atava, RSA Scandinavia
Combining the scale of a traditional company with the flexibility of a startup to build a new proposition Atava is part of the RSA Group, a global insurance company operating in 33 countries. Atava is a new business proposition, serving the niche demographic group of singles and couples between the age of 20 and 40 years old who live in urban areas. Given a clean slate to start a new business, the dedicated team at Atava stripped away the trappings of traditional models. In 2007, it launched a business targeted around their chosen group of customers. Based on market research, Atava created an insurance proposition that is fun, simple, and focused on an I will do it myself online service model. Call center customer service was scaled back significantly, and the self-service element of the website was increased. Ninety-nine per-
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cent of traditional services can be done by the customer, and the resultant cost savings were reinvested into a lower priced product for this price-sensitive segment. To overcome the dilemma of a startup insurance company with low economies of scale, the team at Atava bought various support services such as claim handling and actuarial pricing from the parent company. This allowed it to maintain a lean organization and enjoy the benefits of a large and efficient parent network. In order to support Atavas lean, virtual organization model, the IT operation is outsourced to Affecto, a long-time TIA Technology partner. Based on the TIA core policy administration, Atava was able to develop and launch products with the speed required by the startup. In addition to this, the call center is also partly externally outsourced. A motor and two additional personal lines products were introduced to the Swedish market within nine months. A homeowner product and a launch into the Danish market were accomplished in the next nine months. Since its launch in 2007, Atava has been a contributing factor to RSA Scandinavias 16% increase in premium in 2008 and an improvement in the combined operating ratio of 3.1% (to 88.3%). Atava itself saw a growth in gross written premium of 342% in 2008. The company has undergone several cycles of process improvements and technology updates as it both grew and adapted to the market. Among these, the SAS Institute TIA business intelligence interface and SMS services are the latest contributions. All of Atavas technology is delivered with only six full-time employees. Because of the flexibility of its outsourcing and the use of the parent resources, this staffing level is expected to remain fairly constant as the company continues to grow. Atava was chosen for Model Insurer because of the best practices of higher productivity / lower staff expenses, decreased time to market, and optimization of infrastructure.
PMI Group
Using an advanced testing utility to improve system delivery and business results PMI Mortgage Insurance Companys Quality Assurance (QA) team provides testing services for all 12 PMI Group IT applications. In 2008, one of its vendors announced the withdrawal of support for its existing
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testing product. This provided PMI with the opportunity to revisit its test automation strategy and capabilities. PMI QA undertook an assessment initiative to identify the current automation challenges and design the optimal solution for future needs. The review highlighted the need to design a best in class test process to improve quality and reduce time to market. The PMI QA team partnered with Infosys to develop a test automation framework that supports all applications across PMIs applications landscape. The framework combines several vendor products to create an infrastructure unique to PMI that improves testing quality, accountability, efficiency, and continuous improvement. The components of the testing environment are: Quality Center: A Hewlett-Packard product that combines requirements, test and defect management into a single quality platform Quick Test Pro (QTP): An advanced automated testing solution for creating and managing functional and regression tests Windows SharePoint Services: A web-based application used as a repository for PMI knowledge management repository and process documentation CS Diff Tool: Analyzes changes which have been made between two revisions of the same file or folder Databases: DB 2 and MS SQL Platforms: Visual Basic (client server), AS400 (midrange), and J2EE (web applications) Several unique features of the framework combine to deliver business value. A key process involves a partnering between the IT department and business users for business capability testing. This increases test planning time, but decreases rework and increases quality. Test design and execution cycle times have been reduced by leveraging advanced utilities in the QTP package. Standardizing and automating processes have brought consistency across the application landscape that enhances execution efficiency, repeatability, and predictability. Finally, a common testing framework across projects reduces training overhead and improves resource flexibility by giving PMI the flexibility to move QA analysts across projects and applications. Some of the key success metrics from the project are:
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45% improvement in test scripting efficiency due to standardization and easy to use framework components 50% increase in automation test coverage due to improved test design, increased library functions to support additional technology components, and better utilization of tool features 150% improvement in execution efficiency compared to the previous automated environment, resulting in cycle time reduction and enabling effort and budget (re)allocation that increases coverage 85% increase in cross-utilization of professional staff across the applications landscape due to increased scripting standardization and enhanced documentation The most significant nonquantifiable benefit realized as a part of the project is the very high degree of satisfaction expressed by PMIs business user community. This results from the improved cycle time, increased quality, and the level of standardization achieved by the new automation framework. Best practices are shared across applications and an enhanced knowledge management repository has been implemented. PMI was chosen for Model Insurer because of the best practices of solicitation of end user feedback and review, decreased time to market, and higher productivity/lower staff expenses.
Tokio Marine & Nichido Fire Insurance Co., Ltd

Overcoming critical challenges in a complex project Tokio Marine & Nichido Fire Insurance Co., Ltd (TMNF) has the distinction of having provided P&C insurance to the Japanese market for over 130 years. As with other long-standing businesses, it also has the challenge of updating processes and tools to ensure that they continue to meet current market demands. The Business Innovation Project was launched in 2004 to update an aging system and business process platform. The vision was to make all the business process simple, speedy and comfortable by renovating insurance products, business rules, and systems from scratch. This vision yielded three key objectives: become the preferred insurance company for their customers, make their processes easy to understand, and implement an operational model which enables them to underwrite properly and handle claims fairly and rapidly. In other
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words, this was a complete renovation of the company and its automation. By any standard, this was an audacious goal. The total investment over a six year period exceeds US$650 million. As is common with such massive projects, requirements began to increase beyond the capability to deliver them. The pent-up demand for improved automation caused system requirements to inflate to three times the original estimated volume. Additionally, two years after the project began, forces from the external environment impacted the project. Scandals in the market resulted in regulatory requirements. This resulted in additional needs and significant rework. Scope creep became scope explosion. Another issue surfaced as user acceptance testing progressed. The number of test cases and problems found were far beyond expectations. Unsolved problems began accumulating and there even began to be a sense that TMNF would not be able to accomplish the project. Three initiatives served to rescue the project and drive it to implementation. The first was a collaboration framework established with the business called Application Owner System. In that approach, metrics were established that maintained a constant ratio of business resources to IT staff for approved requirements. For example, a feature that needed three IT resources would only progress if there was at least one business resource committed to its implementation. Business representatives were held responsible to analyze and clarify requirements. They were also heavily involved in testing and validation. Second, a more architecture-based, engineering-based approach to project management was instituted. Twenty project managers were assigned to the program, and a standard reporting discipline was applied across all of the workstreams. Increased quantitative management improved estimation and capacity management. Communication tools were put in place, and team members received training on the new system development methodology and effective information exchange. Finally, executive support for the Business Innovation Project was pervasive and very visible. TMNFs CEO actively promoted the program and expressed the vision for process simplification in multiple forums. His personal branch office visits stressed the importance of the transformation and the business value of a process-focused business. He also brought this message and understanding repeatedly to the company board level. This leadership strengthened business support, motivated project team members, and reduced resistance to change.
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Phase I, involving new automobile insurance products, processes and systems, and new agency systems was live in May 2009. Over 60% of the companys processes were affected. Phase II, addressing new fire products, processes, and systems launched in November 2009. Comparing 2005 results with 2009 results in key areas demonstrates the value of the implementation: Straight-through processing increased by 8% Cashless transactions rose from 42.1% to 99.5% Agency management system use increased from 60.4% to 90.5% Open manual reconciliation transactions decreased from 350,000 to 70 The Business Innovation Project initiative at Tokio Marine & Nichido Fire Insurance Co., Ltd was chosen for Model Insurer as an example of how an at-risk project can be accomplished through the best practices of risk management through proper development, testing, and project management.
Zurich Financial Services

Standardizing process and technology on a regional basis in a manner that allows for local differences Zurich Financial Services launched a pan-European platform to support the geographic region that includes the UK, Germany, Spain, Switzerland, and Italy. The business challenge was to gain the benefits of scale from consolidation while also delivering a product with the required local customization and variations. This was accomplished through a combination of advanced automation and adjustments to the IT organization and its processes. The Europe General Insurance (EGI) region consolidated on to a single IT platform in 2006. Using the Accenture Insurance Solution (AIS) as a base, a platform was built with multicountry, multicurrency, multilanguage functionality. A product model was designed which established common product structures across countries. These uniform models were then adjusted to meet local insurance regulation and market needs. A centralized product factory was established that used skilled product developers to build and maintain the insurance products. The technical expertise and project management skills required to make this transition were established in a single Center of Excellence, located in
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Barcelona, Spain. IT operations and development were also centralized. In order to accurately spread costs across individual profit centers, a sophisticated allocation process was instituted. The consolidated platform has yielded cost savings between 20% and 25%. Product rules have been fully documented, and there is increased control over required variations between geographies. Underwriting decisions are rule-driven and automated, resulting in time and consistency benefits. A workflow utility guides a user through the system and has standardized process across products. Zurich Financial Services was chosen for Model Insurer because of the best practices of higher productivity / lower staff expenses, and risk management through proper development, testing, and project management.
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Policy Administration
Overview
Policy administration systems are often called core systems, and with good reason. They are at the core of an effective technology strategy for insurers. No matter how impressive an insurers distribution and claims systems may be, in most cases the overall effectiveness of the companys IT environment comes down to the capabilities of the policy administration system in three key areas: Launching and modifying products quickly and inexpensively Supporting electronic distribution and improved workflow Providing access to detailed information for business intelligence. These days the traditional line between a policy administration system and other systems has become blurred. Many vendors include product configuration, rating, underwriting, agency portals, workflow, or new business automation as part of their offering. While an end-to-end replacement may be in order, a Model Insurer also knows to look for the core functionality that will help run the business.

American Modern Insurance Group
Replacing a legacy platform in a budget-neutral manner American Modern Insurance Group is a specialty insurer in niche markets with a multichannel distribution strategy. It is licensed in 50 US states. In planning its business strategy, American Modern recognized the requirement to employ modern and innovative technology and business solutions to enable business processes that were highly automated and relatively untouched by human hands. This involved major investments in infrastructure, human capital, business solutions, and business processes. Their long-term initiative, named modernLINK, included a web-based insurance transaction processing
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platform, the replacement of aging legacy systems, and enhanced information management. The implementation of a policy system based on a flexible architecture was a key enabler of modernLINK. American Modern identified needs and opportunities and planned a long-term roadmap. The implementation was then scheduled in a phased manner based on a self-funding approach so that the IT budget was not materially impacted. A detailed and defensible business case was developed and continues to guide the decision-making process. The business case commits to efficiencies that contribute to improved profits and support of growth without equivalent increases in headcounts. Benefits are being tracked and projected to 2016. Legacy systems replacement, along with modernization of the technology, was facilitated with support from Innovation Group and its services-based (SOA) software, Innovation Policy. Selected components (client management, policy administration, rating, and billing) are used together and in combination with American Moderns existing and developing infrastructure. Some of the key benefit areas, once fully deployed, are in: Business processing productivity: Self-service options available over the web will reduce the instances in which home office personnel complete transactions, conduct follow-up, and set up new users, resulting in a savings of nearly 20,000 hours of effort per year. Enhanced underwriting approach: Interfaces with third party providers, a more robust rules engine, consistent application of underwriting rules at each phase of the policy lifecycle (new business, endorsement, renewal), and improved data capture will ensure appropriate rates for new and renewal business, substantially increasing written premium. Improved billing: Revisions to existing bill plans and redesign of billing notices are expected to significantly reduce mailing costs and account reconciliation efforts. Customer retention: Improved customer communications and other process improvements have increased overall retention by at least 1 point. The policy administration initiative at American Modern was chosen as a Model Carrier component because of its unique self-funding approach, the benefits from higher productivity, and lower staff expenses.
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The Cincinnati Specialty Underwriters Insurance Company

Leveraging a previous implementation to enter a new market quickly The Cincinnati Specialty Underwriters Insurance Company (CSU), an excess and surplus lines (E&S) carrier, launched as a new company on January 1, 2008, with two lines of business in five states. By mid-year, the company saw an opportunity to further serve its independent agents by expanding into the errors and omissions (E&O) product line. CSU, a subsidiary of The Cincinnati Insurance Company, set an aggressive production schedule of just three months to analyze, test, and launch the new line. The companys policy administration system would have to support several key requirements. First, it was necessary to rapidly launch more than 60 classes of E&O across 37 states. Second, underwriters needed to quote, bind, and issue policies immediately. Finally, the system needed to allow rapid expansion into other states and other classes of E&O. CSU approached Camilion Solutions, Inc. to roll out its new E&O products by December 2008. Because Camilion had previously implemented for CSU, it was able to take product architecture developed for previous lines of business within CSUs central repository and simply make specific changes to it to form the new line of business. This leveraged approach enabled CSUs insurance products to be quickly architected and launched in a significantly decreased timeframe compared with traditional industry legacy systems. From start to finish, CSUs E&O product rollout took only three months. E&O was successfully released in 33 states by December 8, 2008. Within two weeks of launch, 50 policies were issued. In April 2009, the company went live with another three classes, consultants, accountants, lawyers, and construction E&O, in 37 states. In late 2009, CSU went live with another product line, excess liability, in 33 states. The results have yielded significant business value to the company. Net written premium from E&S lines was US$9 million in the first nine months of operation in 2008 and US$14 million in the first year. Sameday policy issuance and real time delivery of quotes and policies have made CSU easier to do business with. More than 98% of CSU policies are issued immediately. The company also now has the ability to launch new states within weeks and new lines each quarter. Internal staff is now able to complete 100% of the product configuration, and
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CSU no longer relies on the vendor to maintain the application. Finally, the new platform has decreased costs. Underwriting costs have been significantly reduced, and it now takes less than a day rather than weeks to produce a policy, allowing CSU to better serve customers. CSU can complete the entire policy issuance process with one person as opposed to several people involved in traditional, industry legacy policy administration systems. Technology maintenance costs are also lower because hard-coded systems do not need to be programmed to accommodate product changes. This also has allowed IT resources to focus on strategic initiatives instead of coding systems. Finally, the central repository that holds all product information ensures the control and integrity of product definitions. This has dramatically reduced errors and improved quality control efforts. CSU was chosen for Model Insurer because of the best practices of positioning for reuse, decreased time to market and faster cycle times, and more consistent processes.
Calliden Group Limited

Consolidating multiple systems to a modern platform which enables growth in a startup operation Calliden Group Limited is an Australian general insurer providing products to small and medium enterprises and selected personal customers through intermediaries, particularly brokers. Over the last four years, organic growth and a series of 16 acquisitions have seen Calliden grow from four staff to over 200 and achieve its original US$180 million GWP target three years ahead of schedule. In order to simplify its business and position it for future growth, Calliden found the compelling need to rid itself of acquired multiple legacy systems and convert onto a vendor solution, SSP S4i. In a single year, Calliden has decommissioned two old systems. An additional conversion is on track for mid-2010. The modern platform enables the business community to automate their lines of business using the product build utilities of the S4i system. Calliden can now make product changes overnight which would previously have taken months (or could not have been achieved at all). IT cost savings are approaching US$1 million in the first full year of operation. The original IT expense base will be reduced by half when all legacy systems are replaced. These savings will continue to accrue
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because the new IT operating environment is less complex and involves fewer databases, better access to data, and simpler maintenance. Calliden now trades 40% of its commercial package business using straight-through processing (STP) and is targeting reaching 80% within the next 12 months. This has allowed the consolidation of multiple support centers into one location, with the resultant cost savings. Opportunities to move other lines to an STP environment are now being explored. Another significant benefit is the reduction of business risk. Previously, Calliden relied on a pool of small number of increasingly expensive IT staff which had programming skills in obsolete languages. The new Microsoft platform has increased the availability of support resources and lowered the cost. Finally, the companys products are able to be distributed more widely and efficiently. The system is integrated with the Sunrise Exchange for distribution of products to some 300 insurance brokers (out of a total Australian market of about 800). Sunrise channel usage has increased by some 20%, while support costs have been reduced. Callidens policy administration consolidation initiative was chosen as a Model Carrier component because of the substantial reductions in expenses and cycle times, the higher productivity/lower staff expenses, and the improved use of channels.
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Product Design and Development / Rating

Overview
The insurance product market is highly competitive, and competitive advantage is fleeting. Celent research on the impact of product freshness has shown the positive financial impact of getting products to market faster. Celents past US CIO/CTO surveys show that improving time to market is often in the top three priorities for CIOs. In property/casualty insurance, one of the most important issues in product development is microsegmentation. To price effectively, insurers must be able to segment risk into increasingly smaller groups. Preferred, standard, and nonstandard categories are too broad-brushed to provide effective pricing models, and insurers must be able to price based on an ever-increasing number of variables to find and attract profitable risks before their competitors do. Another key issue is improving product development capability and speed for complex commercial products. In life/health, product development is typically focused on new coverages, riders, benefit guarantees, and support of different underlying financial instruments. Effective new product development depends on access to comprehensive risk and modeling data, effective modeling tools, and the ability to bring new products into production rapidly in key productivity and record-keeping systems: rating engines, policy administration systems, document creation systems, claims systems, billing systems, and others.

Erie Insurance
Increasing speed to market and decreasing expenses using an external rating engine In 2007, Erie Insurance (ERIE) began a project to replace the rating engines for six individual quoting and processing systems with a single application, Ratabase from CGI, for its automobile line of business. These six systems included a policy administration system, an agentfacing quoting and processing system, two web portal quoting systems, one in-house quoting system, and a batch calculator. Prior to
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implementing Ratabase, ERIE constructed, tested and implemented rating changes for six systems from three different rating engines. The main business driver for this enhancement was to increase speed to market for product changes and introductions, giving ERIE a competitive advantage. Maintenance, support, and product enhancement is much more efficient and cost-effective when done in one system and promoted for use by all quoting and processing systems. Additionally, the company wanted to realize cost savings from moving the responsibility for rate changes from IT to business areas. Throughout 2008 and 2009, all 11 states in ERIEs trading region were converted to the new platform. The benefits that have accrued are numerous: Increased throughput: A change that once may have taken four months to accomplish is now completed with a simple table change. These table changes, sometimes coupled with minor formula changes, have enabled ERIE to make fine rate adjustments that increase competitive advantage in the market. Because of the flexibility of the rating engine, these changes are made during regularly scheduled rate reviews rather than becoming separate projects unto themselves. System changes to meet certain requirements in the past that would have taken more than 6 months are now completed effortlessly. ERIE has been able to implement four new discounts and three very complex, large rating routines in 2009 in addition to their normal scheduled rate reviews. Some of these changes could not have been done using their legacy rating systems, and others would have taken a considerable amount of time and effort to complete. Increased efficiency: The effort required to construct, test, and deploy rating logic has been reduced by one third: business areas are performing 85% of the tasks involved with rate changes and rate maintenance. Decreased costs: Maintenance and support to perform changes in one place versus three yields ongoing savings from future efforts. Increased product flexibility: As the result of ease of implementation, additional features such as discounts and rating variables are being introduced to products that previously would not have been pursued. This includes varying discount and surcharge rating factors by coverage or territory.
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This type of rating refinement has been desired for years, but the effort to make these types of changes was not cost effective until the Ratabase implementation. The rating implementation at Erie Insurance was chosen for Model Insurer because of the best practices of higher productivity/ lower staff expenses, faster cycle times and more consistent processes, and decreased time to market.
Liberty Mutual Agency Markets

Changing product development from a reactive to a proactive process to support business growth Liberty Mutual Agency Markets undertook an initiative to address issues related to product innovation and management that are common among insurers. For many insurers, product innovation and management is often reactive, yielding limited product extensions with inconsistent success. As a result, insurers are frequently left with stale and sometimes irrelevant product portfolios. Using FICO's Blaze Advisor business rules engine, Agency Markets built a product management utility that innovates and manages insurance products throughout their lifecycles. Rules determine how products work and how they work in different transaction scenarios. Managing these rules, instead of embedded code, allows Agency Markets to quickly react to or anticipate changing market conditions. In addition to implementing the automation tool, the business unit established a repeatable, measured, and managed product development process. This combination of system and workflow delivers the ability to rapidly define, test and launch insurance products. It also provides detailed metrics and establishes best-practice benchmarks. These product configuration capabilities yield a number of very tangible benefits. The efficiency of pricing & rate change activity has increased, with a realized total savings for these activities of 30,000 hours per year. Approximately 1000 hours were saved during the annual recalibration of the underwriting model. Product refresh rates have doubled from once every four to once every two years. Additionally, the time savings for new product introductions is approximately 9,000 hours per year. The transparency and accessibility of business rules management achieved with the product development application also creates intangible benefits. Product managers report that a more complete product knowledge enables increased effectiveness and efficiency in general product development. There is a clearer picture of the business and the
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impact of product changes. Most importantly, the company is able to implement changes on a schedule that meets business objectives. The application also automatically documents product business rules and eliminates the need for and expense of creating and maintaining physically separate documentation. Liberty Mutual Agency Markets was chosen as a Model Insurer because of the best practices of faster cycle times and more consistent processes, higher productivity, and decreased time to market.
Suncorp
Supporting a segmentation approach to the market Suncorp is one of Australias largest general insurance groups, offering a range of products across personal, commercial, and workers compensation. The General Insurance Pricing Engine (GIPE) is a centralized pricing and product tool supporting multiple brands and back end systems as well as several business units for both the personal and commercial lines of business. It is a module of a software application named the Product Machine, offered by FJA. The business need that drove the implementation was to improve pricing efficiency and the delivery of special product offerings in shorter time frames. The GIPE addresses multiple objectives. It is used for all pricing requests from online and back end systems. This single application replaces multiple legacy rating engines in separate back end systems with one pricing service which supports both real time and batch mode rating. The engine supports sophisticated pricing algorithms which enable increased capabilities such as microsegmentation and geocoding. Finally, the consolidation of pricing in the engine allows greater control of variations across different channels and brands. The tool enables business and actuarial departments to adjust and modify the underlying rates on a daily update schedule if required. The success of the Pricing Engine led to an expansion of the FJA-US Product Machine into underwriting in Suncorp. The Product Machine was used to decouple business logic from the back end and move it to a business service layer. Rules now support an infinite number of variations of products and transactions for multiple lines and intermediary channels.
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An example of the benefit of these capabilities was exhibited with the enablement of flood cover for personal lines. By empowering the business users and actuaries with the tool, Suncorp was able to shorten the time to market and reduce the cost of updating and maintaining various aspects of its business. Suncorp was chosen as Model Insurer in the area of product design / development because of the best practices of faster cycle times and more consistent processes, decreased time to market, and improved use of channels.
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Service
Overview
Insurers are in a service-intensive business. Celent encourages insurers to see the issue of service broadly, as one of the two pillars of their business (the other being risk management) and understand that excellence in service means providing the information and transactional capabilities to all stakeholders (policyholders, agents, distributors, and internal staff) as they need them. Much of the discussion above about distributor management and agent portals really falls under this concept of service (for more on this, see the Celent report The Technology Foundations of Advantage for Insurers, June 2006). In its most broad application, service means adopting an end-to-end approach and utilizing a fully integrated suite administration package. More narrowly, service means best-of-breed applications for contact centers. Neither path is right or correct as a stand-alone decision. Factors such as required functionality, technology infrastructure, and investment budget must be considered in choosing the best approach.

The Church Pension Group
Changing a legacy platform to self-service to realize a business vision The Church Pension Fund and its affiliated companies, together known as the Church Pension Group (CPG), serve Episcopal clergy and lay employees and their families, and Episcopal churches and institutions. CPG provides pension benefits and services, wellness strategies, retirement planning, life and disability insurance, health benefits, property and casualty insurance, and book and music publishing. The Episcopal Church Medical Trust and Church Life Insurance Corporation (CPGs health benefits and life insurance affiliates, respectively) recently undertook a strategic initiative to improve customer satisfaction by leveraging the Internet to bring self-service to 25,000+ church employee families.
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CPG's Web Self-Service (WSS) program allows both internal and external customers to process group health and life transactions in a selfservice environment, similar to online banking or shopping. Individuals and administrators of dioceses, parishes, and other employer groups can add or change employee benefits and demographic information, and review and reconcile billing and payment information. Prior to this implementation, transaction requests from individual administrators were printed from a website and manually keyed into StoneRivers ID3 policy administration system by CPG employees. The Web Self-Service project moved this legacy environment to a straightthrough process. A previously developed website (MLPS) was enhanced and integrated with ID3 using StoneRivers ACORD Transaction Server. The labor-intensive work associated with manual transactions was eliminated, allowing key business processes to be dramatically streamlined and turnaround time reduced. The billing and collections process was also revamped. Group administrators are now able to view their invoices online, make changes to enrollment, and immediately see the results of those changes on their statements. Once all changes have been completed, the administrators are able to finalize their statements or have them automatically finalized by the system. Once finalized, changes are reflected on the next months invoice. The finalized statements are stored online, providing immediate access to past invoices. In addition, administrators are able to view their payment history online. Internal customer service representatives (CSRs) also utilize MLPS to service paper and phone transactions. This yields significant efficiencies in new business processing because only a minimal amount of keystrokes are required on the website. In the previous environment, multiple screens were required to complete a submission. The benefits resulting from this integration include: A reduction in transaction turnaround time: Prior to WSS, Customer Service operated under a five-day turnaround service level goal. WSS provides real time completion of each transaction. A reduction in the volume and persistency of unallocated cash: The invoice finalization process allows the application of cash to be almost self-reconciling and immediately applied.
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An increase in the capacity to grow the business while containing cost: In 2009, the General Convention of the Episcopal Church passed a resolution establishing a denominational health plan for the Church, to be administered by the Episcopal Church Medical Trust. The WSS project will allow CPG to fully support this resolution with minimal staffing increases. More intangible customer service improvements include 24/7access to online enrollment and invoicing, an improvement in the customer online experience, and increased overall customer satisfaction. An executive in a key client group noted that supported by highly motivated, well-trained staff, improved processing standards and execution, and the aforementioned investment in technology, our Church administrators have experienced greatly improved levels of service. The Web Self-Service initiative at the Church Pension Group was chosen as a Celent Model Insurer because of the demonstrated use of industry standards, improved agent/customer satisfaction, and higher staff productivity.
Nationwide
Using technology to rapidly enter a new market with premium service requirements Nationwide identified an opportunity in a new demographic outside of its traditional market comprised of individuals who fall between "Main Street" and the very wealthy or ultra high net worth. These individuals are defined as emerging / mass affluent, and have broader coverage needs than typical off-the-shelf products provide and want all their policies placed with one insurer. In addition to desiring extra guidance when placing a claim, this customer segment also desires the combined benefits in extra features such as travel assistance, identity theft coverage, appraisal services and domestic employee background checks. Successfully servicing this client requires a customer service oriented approach in keeping with the company's "On Your Side" promise that tightly integrates products, systems, service, and distribution channels. The greatest challenge for Nationwide was how to make a rapid entry and seize this market opportunity. Management set a target date of the end of 2009. The company wanted to create new products for this line. In addition, Nationwide wanted specialized systems capacity to service this market.
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To achieve the required speed-to-market at a viable cost, Nationwide decided to find and implement a single vendor solution from Exigen Insurance Solutions providing full core systems policy, claims, billing and distribution management capability. The technology is a serviceoriented architecture (SOA) design implemented with Java 5 technology and 100% Web client and web services interface. Business data definitions use the ACORD-based Business Object Model framework. Using an agile project methodology, Nationwide was able to implement a full, integrated core system to roll-out and support its Private Client business within 14 months of the beginning of implementation. The implementation supports a phased rollout to additional states. The Nationwide project was chosen as a Model Carrier component because of decreased time to market, and increased revenue or market share.
The Hartford Financial Services Group, Inc.

Bringing order to multiple, aging systems that support a critical, highly regulated process The Variable Investment Pricing, Settlement, Trading, Accounting and Reporting (VIPSTAR) initiative began in 2007 to replace The Hartfords trading platform. The complex nature of variable investment pricing and associated trading were the primary drivers of this initiative and a decision to custom-build VIPSTAR was taken after a thorough analysis of commercial software components available in the marketplace. VIPSTAR is a new pricing and trading platform for The Hartfords investment products and a transfer agency system for mutual funds. The application also maintains accounting ledgers for all of the financials that are processed in the system and provides financial reporting data to several areas, including the general ledger, regulatory agencies, and auditors. Several project management best practices were used to ensure a successful implementation. The VIPSTAR project team included members from The Hartfords IT and investment and insurance businesses. For approximately 18 months, the IT and business team members worked together in a war room to validate requirements and design the application.
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The team agreed upon two fundamental design concepts. First, any process change or technology introduction should be transparent from an implementation perspective due to the complex nature of the application. Second, the final solution must be economically feasible. The conversion of the application was very successful and the implementation of this mission-critical application was seamless. This was due to the parallel testing approach applied in the final stages of development. The application was fully migrated onto the production platform seven weeks before the actual production implementation. The system was then run side-by-side with the legacy application. During this phase, business users processed on both applications. This enabled the project team the ability to address the inevitable unknowns before the final switch over. A clean release was mandatory because of the interface complexity of the system. The application provides complete automated integration to 31 interfacing applications. Transferring data to downstream systems is necessary to meet compliance and regulatory requirements. These dictate that timely, accurate, and complete accounting data is reported to abide by Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), National Association of Securities Dealers (NASD), and state regulations. The application has delivered both quantitative and qualitative benefits. VIPSTAR introduced self service reporting with the addition of integrated query, reporting, and analysis tools. The availability of this extensive capability provides the business team with the tools to conduct data research without engaging IT. The system has improved cycle time by fully automating the offshore trading and forecasting process. This was previously was a manual process. The largest benefit from this automation is the elimination of pricing or trading errors and the reduction in the amount of time required to make a trade. Offshore trades must be complete by 9 a.m. without exception. Prior to VIPSTAR, offshore trades were being done on average at 8:50 a.m. Since the implementation of VISTAR, the offshore trades have been ready by 8:15 a.m. This gives the trading team additional time to address any issueswithout missing the trading cycle.
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Finally, the process used to add/update new products into the application was rewritten to execute more than 300 edits to replace the manual quality checks done by the investment business team. It is estimated that this will reduce the work of the product team by 50%. Regarding qualitative benefits, the application provides business users with greater control over the very dynamic activities involved in the trading processes. A system dashboard displays real time application status via a web page. This is used to provide the current processing cycle status at a quick glance to all business areas. VIPSTAR also supports immediate historical trending analysis. This includes metrics such as batch processing statistics, pricing, and trading trends. The VIPSTAR project was chosen for Model Insurer because of the best practices of solicitation of end user feedback, risk management through proper development, testing, and project management, and improved compliance processes.
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Underwriting
Overview
Technology has two key roles to play in underwriting. The first is to automate the actual selection and pricing of risk itself. Driven by the availability of electronic applications and the increased sophistication of rules engines, automated underwriting is now common in property/ casualty for personal lines and even in some lower-value, well-defined commercial lines and in life/health for low-face amount policies. However, automation also has an equally important role in facilitating and improving the work of human underwriters, and a powerful underwriting desktop can help an insurance company make smarter decisions.

Capitol Insurance Companies
Bringing work processes in line with the expense structure of a book of business In late 2007, Capitol Insurance Companies (Capitol) had approximately 80,000 bonds in force, 70% of which averaged less than US$500 in premium. This significant number of small premium bonds made it imperative that Capitol have a system which could administer these bonds cost effectively. In response, the company developed Capitol Express (CapEx), a surety underwriting portal used by both retail and general agents to automate the underwriting and distribution processes. The key functions of CapEx are real time bond issuance (both new and renewal) based on a standardized underwriting approach without underwriter intervention, and referral to general agents for bonds falling outside of the underwriting template. Capitol used a vendor package, OneShield Dragon from OneShield, to enable its underwriting process. Workflows and rules were configured specific to bond type, limits, underwriting characteristics, and user roles (agent, general agent). This allowed for real time approval and issuance, real time declinations, and real time referral when additional underwriting was required.
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A key ingredient to Capitols success was to create and utilize an Agents Council. This group consisted of 10 agency representatives. They validated the initial design prior to the start of development. Capitol engaged them intermittently throughout the project to ensure that the system met their needs and to reinforce the importance of their input to the success of CapEx. The implementation has resulted in a significant reduction in underwriting expenses, a reduction in agents time allocated to administrative processing and bond issuance, and is helping to solidify Capitols position as a company that is easy to do business with. Agent feedback has been very positive with comments such as the system is very easy to use and intuitive. Adoption steadily increased over 10 months since going live in five Western states. In the first month, 13 agents signed in and tried the system, and another 35 agents have been regularly using the system since the start of the year. Bond issuance through CapEx is up more than 500% since implementation. In the new submission workflow, if a nonstandard request is received, the system routes it to an external General Agent. The feedback from this critical group has also been positive since the nonstandard program gave Capitols agents an additional option to get the bond written. Comments have been received that the process put in place for CapEx referrals saves multiple steps. Capitol Insurance Companies was chosen for Model Insurer because of the best practices of solicitation of end user feedback, automation, STP, and system integration and the improved customer/agent satisfaction and adoption.
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Model Insurer of the Year 2010
From the winning components, Celent has chosen a project that most exemplifies the IT best practices and measurable business results required to be a Model Insurer. Celent is pleased to give the title of Model Insurer of Year 2010 to Missouri Employers Mutual. A full case study of the MEM project follows.
Missouri Employers Mutual (MEM)

Transformational change
The Business Imperative

Missouri Employers Mutual (MEM) is Missouris largest provider of workers compensation insurance. Established in 1995, MEM is a mutual insurance company established by statute and dedicated to benefiting the employers of Missouri. The company writes nearly 600 different classes of business in all Missouri counties. MEMs 2006 strategic planning process identified a need to grow market share and a number of tactics to reach that goal: Leverage service as a differentiator in a market with increased competition. Improve outcomes through better management of care to injured workers. Support the management needs of larger, more sophisticated customers. Expand capabilities for more complex products. Facilitate handling of multistate business.
A Technology Strategic Plan followed the business planning and assessed the alignment of all technology solutions with the new direction. The claims management system was one component that was identified for more detailed evaluation. Analysis revealed that the business had changed significantly since the original, in-house system was deployed. The Claims philosophy had evolved from a model of managing indemnity payments to one emphasizing medical management
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and minimizing lost time. There was a large backlog of current requests and the inflexibility of the aging system architecture made changes difficult and lengthy. Finally, there was a desire to fully automate key administrative tasks or to transfer them from IT to Claims. Automated assignments and authority level management were top on this list. Given the size of the potential investment required and the impact on the organization, MEM conducted a buy vs. build analysis, and the decision was reached to replace the in-house system. A full RFI/RFP process was initiated to assess third party solutions. The final recommendation was to implement the ClaimCenter product from Guidewire. However, the impact of this project has extended well beyond a system replacement. In many ways, the effort has been transformational for MEM because it introduced multiple new organizational capabilities. This one initiative employed Agile/SCRUM development methodology, continuous business case discipline, effective change management techniques, innovative resourcing approaches, and a unique governance model. The skills and lessons learned revolutionized the way the company approached this technology endeavor and continues to positively impact many areas of the organization. In addition, the Claims implementation was completed on time and under budget.
The Project
Such a wide scope of change was only possible because of the complete alignment of the executive team and their commitment to the guiding principle that they would do whatever needed to be done in order to maximize success. The risk of a project of this size and complexity was significant for a company like MEM. Total costs were estimated in the range of US$7 million to $8 million. Over one-third of the employees in the company used the claims system regularly. Claims data was made available to more than 1,200 independent agencies and 13,000 policyholders. Conversion involved nearly 15 years of open and closed claims history. Neither the business nor IT had attempted a program of this scale before. At the efforts inception, the IT organization was just formalizing a waterfall development approach. In a previous (smaller) project, requirements had lasted forever, and months of planning passed without any code being written. MEM could not afford this result with the Claims project. A comprehensive program was begun that implemented a number of new approaches to maximize the probability of success.
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Keys to Success
The first key to success involved the disciplined and continual use of a financial plan for the project. As is common in large-scale programs, a cost benefit model (CBA) was built in the early planning stages. It initially included a large number of hard and soft benefits, but over time was focused on eight of the critical business objectives that drove the main benefits. This focus on the most important areas proved invaluable as the project continued. Unlike many CBAs, this one was not put on the shelf once approval was received. It was used throughout the project and provided a common decision framework for each stage. It also allowed team members to gauge the impact of several external market factors (such as the continuation of the soft market and the economic recession) on the expected benefit stream. As shown in Figure 1, the internal rate of return varied through the project. Figure 1: Internal Rate of Return (IRR) Variation
Source: Missouri Employers Mutual
Most importantly, the financial model and its continual use assisted the various teams in their decision-making. This guidance was central to the success of the project because of the second innovationa new governance model. MEM reviewed its past experience and observed that a significant proportion of project cost resulted from extended decision-making timelines. To avoid delays and expense, the company developed a governance model that drove decision-making to the lowest level. This empowerment proved to be critical to meeting the aggressive time schedule with a quality product.
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In order to establish a common protocol, the business case was analyzed to identify what type of decisions would likely be required. A matrix was constructed with impact on one axis and scope of decision on the other. At the intersection of these dimensions, the appropriate role was entered, which identified who would make the decision that met these criteria. For example, a Claims Adjuster assigned to the effort in a Business Analyst role had authority to make decisions for how a department would work going forward. A Team Lead made decisions on the business rules that drove claims assignments. Figure 2 illustrates an example of this approach. Figure 2: Decision Making Matrix (Illustrative)
Impact of decision Department KPI Department workflow Scope of decision X Multidepartment KPI X
XX% IRR X
Corporate KPI X
Scope of single sprint
Scope of single release
Team Lead Committee
Scope of entire program
Team Lead Committee
Operating Committee
Steering Committee
Steering Committee
X=Individual Team Member / Not Applicable

Source: Missouri Employers Mutual
The team used real life scenarios to test and refine the model. All team members, including the Steering Committee members, worked through multiple permutations to gain a clear understanding and to agree on the operating model. The final matrix assigned over 70% of decisions to individuals. Very few (between six and eight) were reserved for the Steering Committee. An early indication that the model would work occurred at the first Steering Committee meeting, where several items came up for decision and leadership turned all of them back to the team, as directed by the matrix. It is estimated that the Steering Committee level was required on only six decisions over the 14 months of the project. This saved vast amounts of team member time and allowed the leadership to focus on top-level issues such as eliminating inhibiting factors and making resource adjustments.
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The approach to the assignment of resources in the project was another first for MEM. Using the principle whatever needed to be done in order to maximize success, business and IT leadership agreed to 100% time allocation and colocation for team members. Past experience had taught them that splitting an employees time between a project and day-to-day tasks did not really work. MEM realized that if the initiative was the top priority for the company, then it had to fully commit resources to the project. Additionally, it was felt that if they did not physically separate team members from their previous jobs, they would be distracted. Despite the fact that the company had just completed a new headquarters building, office space was found nearby for the team. In reflecting on this area of the project, MEM states that dedicating the business and IT team members and locating them together and offset was not only efficient but also resulted in a number of innovative solutions to specific business process requirements. Collocation was also valuable because it enhanced the development methodology that had been chosen for the initiativethe Agile/SCRUM method. MEMs implementation of the Waterfall approach had yielded benefits in terms of documentation and structure, but it also had some drawbacks. The company spent months completing requirements only to find at the signoff stage that the original business need had changed. They also encountered the common problem that when the business finally got to see the results of the developers efforts, they could immediately determine that the programmed solution was not going to be acceptable. Users were unable to clearly articulate their needs in a document form. In order to address these issues, MEM adopted an Agile/SCRUM approach. The entire project team was divided into five teamsconfiguration, conversion, integration, reports and letters, and test and deploy. These teams were further subdivided into smaller tracks comprising both business experts and developers. At the beginning of a cycle, the entire project team met to outline the monthly objectives. Each track then broke into scrums and planned work for the current sprint. Workplans and assignments were then posted on the ten large whiteboards at the offsite location. This ensured continual visibility into and communication of the current work to all team members. At the end of the month, members of the areas impacted by the current development (most often claims and customer service) were invited to a demonstration day. One half of the time was spent demoing the newly developed parts of the system, and the second half was for feedback. The Agile/SCRUM approach allowed MEM to keep every-
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one informed and make mid-course corrections as necessary. The delivered functionality more closely met business needs, and the ability for the business to see the system resulted in more accurate specifications. Another difference in the resource management for the project was the use of a distributed resource model. Because of the scope of the project relative to the companys size, it was clear in the early planning that MEM did not have the resources to perform all necessary tasks. Hiring to meet this need was not economically feasible. The company initiated an RFP process to outsource selected project tasks. A key need was to find a company with a good mix of onshore and offshore resources and effective processes for managing the resources that were not onsite. MEM also needed to find a partner that had claims expertise and, if possible, knowledge of the Guidewire system. MEM selected HCL Technologies because HCL had the most well-articulated approach to the onshore/offshore dynamic and because of its past success with claims and Guidewire implementations. This effort was the first project in which MEM used a distributed resource model. Initial hesitation quickly faded as the team members quickly gelled and began delivering results. As one team member stated, two months into project you couldnt tell who was from what company. Such integration was critical, because the offshore staff was handling the majority of the conversion activities and was also involved in configuration and interface development. At the peak, there were approximately 25 offshore and seven onsite resources. The final new technique employed by MEM on the project dealt with change management in the claims area. Early on, acceptance of a new system was identified as a significant risk. MEM Claims Representatives had been deeply involved in design of the legacy system over the past 12 years. Even when engaged in discussion of the business drivers for the change, their preference was to just update the existing system with the new functionality. Additionally, it was known that the new system would require them to perform their work differently, partly because of its design, but mostly because it expanded functionality and capabilities. Conscious of these opinions and knowing that quick adoption would drive greater benefits, claims leadership launched an extensive change management effort. Executives conducted "road shows" at claim office locations and held town hall meetings at headquarters to review the reasons for the project, the current trends in workers compensation insurance that drove the change, and how current workflows and automation would not meet future needs. They addressed employee
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concerns and challenges openly. They were also fully transparent concerning the initial delivery of the project. It was discussed that, on the first day of the new system, all of the functionality of the old one would not be duplicated, but that the basic claims management features would be available. Additional abilities would be delivered in subsequent releases. This approach was chosen in order to speed benefits realization. The Agile/SCRUM project methodology also assisted with managing change. Many experienced claims experts served as full-time members of the project team. When the project neared implementation, they returned to their original assignments and became advocates for the new approach. Throughout development, the monthly demonstrations provided the opportunity for many affected employees to see what was coming. As the project approached acceptance testing, a sandbox system was established which enabled representatives to have handson time from their desks. During testing, experts in each branch were involved in test case development, execution, and validation.
Implementation
A big bang approach was selected for the roll out. The legacy batch cycle ran for a final time on a Thursday night, all claims history was converted over the weekend, and the new system was available on the next Tuesday morning. There were no major issues. Adjustments that arose were dealt with by a team of business experts and developers operating out of a war room. In the post go live period, through the end of the year, there were releases every two weeks. Currently in maintenance mode, MEM is still using an Agile model. The project owner continues involvement in the prioritization of work items, and IT works closely with the business on quarterly updates to the system.
Final Thoughts
A change management expert might have counseled MEM to be less ambitious in its implementation. It is common practice to limit the number of changes undertaken at any one time. However, a mere count of modifications to individual processes and behaviors would have overlooked the synergies between the changes that occurred during their application. For example, the disciplined use of the business case supported the implementation of the governance model by giving individuals a continuous, visible, and common yardstick to use in their expanded decision-making authority. There were repeated discussions about the internal rate of return at the individual team member and at
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the team lead level. Communication at the offsite location with colocated team members facilitated an immediate, real time exchange of information that enhanced the Agile/SCRUM approach. Finally, the new governance method resulted in speedy decisions which were then implemented in a very visible way through the continual Agile demonstrations. These demos to the business provided a feedback loop that then validated the decisions. MEM has now applied the skills and behaviors learned during the claims project to multiple areas of the company. Its automation renewal continues, and the company is using all the new approaches in the implementation of a new policywriting and billing platform. The wide scope of these changes and the resultant success of the project have earned Missouri Employers Mutual the Celent Model Insurer of the Year Award.
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Conclusion
Celent hopes that by aggregating examples of best practices and achieved success metrics from across the industry, it can illustrate the degree to which insurers are making effective use of technology today and provide inspiration to insurers contemplating how to improve their own technology strategies. Readers should take two key messages from this report. First, no one insurer does everything right. Rather, most insurers do some things right. Second, effective use of technology is more important than pursuing technology for the sake of technology. This is the common thread among every selected Model Insurer component, and a decision for which each should be proud.
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Leveraging Celents Expertise
If you found this report valuable, you might consider engaging with Celent for custom analysis and research. Our collective experience and the knowledge we gained while working on this report can help you streamline the creation, refinement, or execution of your strategies.
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Typical projects we support related to Model Insurer Case Studies include: Vendor short listing and selection. We perform discovery specific to you and your business to better understand your unique needs. We then create and administer a custom RFI to selected vendors to assist you in making rapid and accurate vendor choices. Business practice evaluations. We spend time evaluating your business processes across the insurance value chain. Based on our knowledge of the market, we identify potential process or technology constraints and provide clear insights that will help you implement industry best practices. IT and business strategy creation. We collect perspectives from your executive team, your front line business and IT staff, and your customers. We then analyze your current position, institutional capabilities, and technology against your goals. If necessary, we help you reformulate your technology and business plans to address short-term and long-term needs.
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Market messaging and collateral review. Based on our extensive experience with your potential clients, we assess your marketing and sales materialsincluding your website and any collateral.
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Related Celent Research
A Snapshot of Innovation: An Insurance Market Scan November 2009 2010 US Insurance CIO Survey: Pressures, Priorities, and Practices January 2010 Celent Model Carrier 2009: Case Studies of Effective Technology Usage in Insurance January 2009 2009 US Insurance CIO Survey: Pressures, Priorities, and Practices January 2009
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