EIS Blog

Can enhanced enrollment connectivity be a business driver?

Tony Grosso — Thu, 25 Sep 2014 16:50:00 GMT

Enrollment options are expanding. With dozens of third-party vendors (including the emergence of new market places that include public and private exchanges) the opportunity for carriers to successfully increase their enrollment rates and get their products out to the various markets has never been greater.

Connecting to these enrollment providers is the key to growth and it all comes down to the ease of doing business.

In reality, employers often settle on a particular enrollment platform because it’s where they’re putting their healthcare benefits. Working with a single platform simplifies things and allows their employees the ease of having all of their benefits (including ancillary benefits) in one place. With this approach, there’s no concern over a confusing enrollment process that can increase administrative duties or even deter individuals from signing up for coverage. Unfortunately, I’m seeing too many carriers losing business because they’re limited in their ability to adapt and connect to the multitude of enrollment platforms that are available to employers.

Now, consider the opposite scenario where the “connected” carrier has integration with multiple enrollment platforms and the connectivity reaches all the way down to the carrier’s policy administration system. In this case, the carrier may already be connected to the employer’s enrollment systems of choice or can connect with relative ease. A carrier who can eliminate enrollment as a roadblock to winning new business will expand their reach to new markets and be viewed as a flexible carrier that is easy to do business with. In this scenario, the right technology is an enabler for the carrier to win new business.

From a business perspective, this is an illustration of why connectivity is so important. For carriers with upgraded business models and platforms capable of supporting multiple enrollment providers the benefit is clear—gaining the flexibility to intake and interchange data. This alone presents a significant advantage over the competition that has yet to onboard this “connected” model.

So what’s enrollment nirvana? Pre-mapped and out of the box ready integrations, with an integrated administrative platform that can consume the enrollment data and leverage it across policy administration, billing and claims.

Feel that you have a connected administration platform? Is it an enabler of winning new business? Let me know.

Tony Grosso is VP, Product Marketing at EIS Group

Contact him on Twitter at @AJGrosso and on Linkedin

To read more about connectivity, be sure to download our new E book: “Eliminating Barriers to Connectivity.”

Exchanges: Better for all, but hard on insurers; reflections on the LIMRA Benefits Conference

Chuck Johnston — Thu, 11 Sep 2014 19:04:00 GMT

I recently attended the 2014 LIMRA Group and Worksite Benefits Conference at Baltimore Harbor which has grown dramatically, driven by the disruption and opportunity to be found in the US group and worksite benefits marketplace. There were excellent prepared sessions and many good discussions at the conference, which left me thinking of what I see as the next conundrum in this market, the need for simplicity, transparency and clean customer experiences in a complex business. It seemed almost every session had the word “Exchange” somewhere in the title and most were trying to explain how exchanges of various kinds benefit insurers, employers and consumers, and how to leverage the opportunity this transformation presents. It was stated that exchanges are making things simpler for all parties: broker, insurer, employer and employee. But these new automated marketplaces make things considerably more complex for insurers.

There was little discussion of public exchanges as a change agent or how they are meeting their mandate to promote the public good, other than as a way for existing distribution channels to avoid low margin business. Most of the discussion I was part of was around the role of single and multiple-carrier private exchanges and the best way to align them to supplement existing distribution. The other point of concern was how to prepare to play across multiple exchanges and work with multiple enrollment/service technology vendors to ensure market coverage.

As an insurance technologist, I am happy this shift is enabling the creation and deployment of new technologies that can enhance the employer/employee experience in benefit education, product choice and streamlined service. My concern is can the insurers support this channel and product proliferation when the hardest part of the equation is not the exchange but the back office.

I am currently working with insurers that are trying to support this faster and more complex distribution and service channel, while launching new products for a changing market and meet shifting regulatory rules. They have their work cut out for them as they upgrade layers of complex legacy policy administration, billing and claims systems to support these new product and channels, and the hardest part is the business models are still evolving. IT leaders are frustrated as they attempt to put systems in place to support these evolving business models and the one thing that is clear is flexibility is critical and change is inevitable.

Bottom Line: This market disruption can easily overrun an insurer’s ability to keep pace with change when their infrastructure wasn’t built for this new model.

I would be very interested to hear your thoughts as to what do you perceive as the greatest hurdle for insurers in these new exchange-based marketplaces.

Chuck Johnston is CMO of EIS Group.

Operational Strengths Win EIS PolicyCore a “Best-in-Class” in CEB TowerGroup’s PAS Report

Kevin Haydon — Mon, 21 Jul 2014 20:15:00 GMT

Native CRM and communications module, pre-configured LOB solutions and data integration highlighted

Citing a range of operational strengths, CEB TowerGroup awarded PolicyCore™ a “Best-in-Class” award in its recently released Policy Administration Systems Report.

The report, which surveyed a large number of vendor solutions in the North American market and profiled a final 14, evaluated systems based on a comprehensive 24-point diagnostic anatomy.

“The system [PolicyCore] is distinguished by its pre-configured line of business solutions and its native CRM and communications module,” states the report. “As the customer support needs of personal lines carriers continue to expand, these features will be especially useful. The system received a ‘Best-in-Class’ award for Operational Support, in recognition of this strong customer support (implementation support, training, etc.), external data integrations, and other features. Also notable is the system’s support for forms.”

The recognition comes to EIS Group as a strong endorsement of the company’s commitment to providing end-to-end capabilities and out-of-the-box pre-configured solutions that deliver broad value and reduce core system operational costs for insurers. When PolicyCore is packaged as a full suite with BillingCore and ClaimCore, insurers also benefit from pre-integration of components and a single data model and shared database.

CEB TowerGroup reported the following as PolicyCore product highlights:

• CustomerCore: CustomerCore™ is a native CRM and communication module included with PolicyCore. It is insurance-specific rather than adapted from a horizontal solution. It includes role-based interfaces for different types of interactions including self-service, such as Web and mobile applications, and contact center.

• Pre-configured solutions: Exigen [now EIS Group] can provide out-of-the-box platforms for several pre-configured LOBs. The packages for auto and home LOBs include pre-configuration of products, processes, and interfaces. When these pre-configurations match insurer needs, they should reduce implementation and upgrade time and costs.

• External data integrations: PolicyCore includes a large number of pre-built external data integrations, including address services, geocoding, CLUE, credit reports, mapping, claims reporting, loss history, and others. These integrations are facilitated by selective exposure of external component interfaces as web services.

To download the full profile of PolicyCore, click here.

CEB TowerGroup included a case study of the CSAA Insurance Group, an AAA insurer, deployment of PolicyCore in the report. The implementation of a new, single Policy Admin platform for all insurance products is the foundation of a bottom up technology transformation replacing 6 legacy PAS and 3 legacy billing systems at the $2.8bn DPW insurer. Download a copy of the case study here.

Exigen Enablement on IBM Cloud-Ready Platform an Industry First; Subject of First IBM Innovation Center Case Study

Kevin Haydon — Wed, 20 Nov 2013 14:50:00 GMT

Exigen Insurance Solutions achieved an industry first with its recent enablement of Exigen Suite on IBM PureApplication Virtual Application Pattern (VAP) with DB2 database server, the first full insurance core systems solution to do so. The VAP deployment culminated a series of engagements with the IBM Innovation Center which earned Exigen the honor of becoming the subject of the Center’s first partner case study.

The IBM PureApplication VAP with DB2 is the highest and strictest virtual pattern for applications to be deployed in the PureApplication stack. We are able to deploy Exigen Suite 5.2 in about 15 minutes onto this stack, and IBM is now registering Exigen Suite into their pattern library (app store).

Exigen benefited significantly from the assistance provided by the IBM Innovation Center to enable Exigen Suite on the Pure Application System on both VAP and Virtual Appliance Factory (VAF), an IBM self-enablement toolkit to help ISVs pre-package application solutions for deployment in cloud and hypervisor environments. This allowed Exigen to pre-package and test Exigen Suite to facilitate rapid deployment and enhanced virtual management of the solution in critical production environments.

The IBM Innovation Center provided technical assistance and consulting in addition to making middleware available to Exigen. Exigen has also enhanced its offering with this collaboration. It is now working with IBM to pilot Worklight (Mobile First) middleware to create a scalable mobile application for all high-volume insurance customer and distribution network transactions, including claims, quote, account inquiry and policy endorsement.

Download the case study here.

Addressing Risk in Core System Replacement - Risk & Insurance article by Alec Miloslavsky

Kevin Haydon — Mon, 24 Jun 2013 21:57:00 GMT

In upgrading systems, it's important not to maintain the status quo, but to rethink processes and take advantage of best practices.

By Alec Miloslavsky in Risk & Insurance magazine, June 2013 - Download PDF

Depending on which analyst's report you read, approximately 80 percent of major system implementation or legacy replacement projects in the insurance industry are not completed on time or on budget.

That adds up to months or years of unplanned and unexpected delays with corresponding millions of dollars spent that were not forecast or budgeted. And that doesn't include the opportunity cost for business initiatives dependent on the new system that had to be delayed or scrapped entirely.

As one might expect, an implementation project gone awry can cut a promising CIO career tragically short. The question is, does it have to?

Insurance is an industry built on the business of evaluating and mitigating risk. Actuaries and risk managers have a wealth of historic data to draw upon from years, decades and perhaps even centuries of insurance transactions.

Typically, the various perils and risk items are well understood, as are how to price them and how to mitigate the risks. Many data points such as credit scores exist, which help evaluate the risks in personal lines underwriting, for example.

In contrast, no such historical data exists for system replacement projects. This means it's more than a case of the shoemaker's kids going without shoes; it's a matter of not having the tools and data to understand and mitigate common implementation risks.

Getting in the Same Page

In the case of a core system replacement, dozens of people must simultaneously agree on the requirements, a fact which increases risk considerably, especially if the decision-making criteria are unclear.

Inevitably, stakeholders from operations and IT will have their own perspectives on the issues, for example, and keeping them aligned is difficult. The challenge grows as the volume of requirements and specification documents and changes grow, because traditional tools are not designed to quickly highlight the reasons for certain requirements or changes and don't allow team members to effectively assess the real business impact.

Diligence is the key. Once a large and expensive IT project is approved and initiated, there is no plausible way back. This means the project owner truly has only two decisions to make once the project is started: Keep writing checks or stop. This is a primary reason insurers must approach core systems replacement projects with the same rigor they use to evaluate and price a risk.

Understanding the Risk

Core systems replacement affects almost every functional area of an insurance organization, and since most people who work in the trenches don't like change, this presents a major risk to any project. A goal for many, whether subconscious or intentional, is to maintain the status quo and may well be supported by phrases like "you don't understand, we're different" or "we've always done it this way."

The bottom line is that there's a cost for being different. Unless it provides a real competitive advantage that results in higher profits, there is no value in maintaining the status quo just for old-time's sake. Rarely is that the case.

The truth is that within a given line of business, most insurers have the same basic processes. The difference, as we all know, lies in the mix of products sold, the states or countries in which the company is licensed, and the lines of business written, not to mention the technology infrastructure underpinning it all.

Perhaps it goes without saying that new technology offers increased ability to streamline processes and improve operational efficiencies. Isn't that the point? That said, modifying a software package to maintain outdated customs and traditions is the equivalent of paving cow paths. After the asphalt dries, the new system could allow the company to perform the same outdated processes.

In addition, once a single line of code has been created, the software becomes a one-off version that has never run before, making scalability and performance a complete unknown.

In addition to delaying implementation, customization may result in added time and higher costs to upgrade to new versions and enhancements. Customization, whether in a commercial language like Java or, even worse, in some proprietary language, may ultimately result in rapid obsolescence, a lack of flexibility and a total cost of ownership (TCO) that quickly skyrockets.

Mitigating Concerns

For some companies, the best way to deal with core system replacement is to consider a system that includes pre-configured solutions to handle transactions within specific lines of business. This can mitigate concern about customization and stop the seemingly inevitable paving of the cow paths.

Typically, pre-configured solutions are based on the best practices of like companies within the industry that have been honed over time. They cover things like product design, business processes and even pre-built integrations with common third-party data sources. They have embedded subject matter expertise and take a lot of error-prone committee work out of the risk equation by pre-configuring the business requirements. They may also provide a valuable shortcut to system implementation and allow those responsible to focus on a small percentage of the total configuration effort rather than starting from scratch.

When a system package is 60 percent to 70 percent pre-configured, insurers start with a working system. The question is no longer, "How do we make the system work our way?" But instead, "Will the new pre-configured system work for us, and if not, why not, and how much will it cost to change?"

Of course, manufacturing a system that is capable of accommodating multiple lines of business, and allows sufficient flexibility to handle all the required complexity with minimum custom coding is difficult.

Software vendors take years to manufacture an integrated policy, billing and claims suite, and unless it is built correctly coming out of the box, a significant amount of customization will be necessary in every implementation.

A slick demo or an aesthetically pleasing color scheme on the UI is not a good indicator of the underlying system capability. So, what is? What are the various risks, which can be identified and mitigated, that will lead to a successful implementation?

Implementing Successfully

There are obviously many obstacles to pulling off a successful implementation, customization being the biggest.

The question becomes whether a system is built so that it has the right balance of configuration versus customization. Does it configure those elements that change the most, or those that are the most difficult to maintain or upgrade? Are there other obstacles, such as proprietary language use, that will add to system maintenance cost? What percentage of custom code is spent on business rules, product configuration and workflows? If it is a high percentage, you may be creating a custom system.

Upgradability must also be considered. How long does it take to upgrade? If it's many months, the implications are obvious. Do multiple lines of business run on a single instance of the platform using the same master data? If not, you might again be implementing a core system per line of business.

Having automated tools that keep track of requirements, retain knowledge, and evaluate the impact of changes to the system before they are committed is a significant factor in achieving success.

Insurers need to seek out multi-line software solutions designed to support new products and new business, and break old cycles.

Alec Miloslavsky is executive chairman and CEO of Exigen Insurance Solutions. He can be reached at riskletters@lrp.com.

Exigen Suite for Group Benefits Addresses Technology Gaps in a Market Undergoing Change

Kevin Haydon — Thu, 23 May 2013 18:01:00 GMT

The introduction of Exigen Suite™ for Group Benefits is generating a lot of interest among insurers offering group benefits products and has been well-received by analysts familiar with this segment’s market conditions and pressing technology needs.

“As a modern, configurable system based on open standards, Exigen brings a new option into an underserved market,” said Chad Hersh, managing director in the insurance practice at Novarica. “Few systems adequately address the unique needs of the group benefits space, including the robust flexibility and scale requirements. Market forces demand greater investment in technology as insurers seek to build more effective channels that market to employees directly, while dealing with the convergence of traditional group and voluntary insurance and customer desire for greater control over their benefits.”

Exigen Suite for Group Benefits provides insurers with a technology response to the business, regulatory and social drivers that are reshaping the Group Benefits market. The Exigen Suite offers plan management for group and worksite products – life, disability, accident and health, and medical – that accommodates all classes of participant and all billing options from non-contributory to voluntary. The solution includes all policy admin, billing and claims functions and provides insurers with unparalleled flexibility to manage product offerings and distribution across a wide spectrum of the market. Through the built-in customer relationship management (CRM) module insurers, worksite sponsor companies and brokers get a full on-line account view of customers. The solution also meets the growing demand by plan participants to view and manage their products online and on mobile devices.

"As the group and voluntary insurance markets converge, changing distribution and service models will strain IT application architectures and legacy systems past the breaking point,” said Chuck Johnston, director, Americas Life/Annuity & Group Practice with Celent’s Insurance Group. “Insurers and brokers have underinvested in group and voluntary insurance solutions over the last 20-plus years, and will struggle to meet new market requirements. Celent believes that compelling new solution offerings in the group administration space will come from property & casualty (P&C) vendors leveraging their multi-coverage, multiple insurance object models to meet the unique needs of this market.”

Key features of Exigen Suite for Group Benefits include:

A single multi-line platform for group and worksite insurance that reduces cost and provides greater control of distribution;
A single view of the customer to improve service and increase cross-sell opportunities;
Simplified eligibility and enrollment that saves time and increases accuracy;
Flexible billing as a strategy to improve customer relationships; and
Full real-time self-service for participants, brokers and sponsors.

“By consolidating disparate line of business systems into one and leveraging the ultra-configurability of Exigen Suite, we expect insurers to reduce operation and IT costs by more than 30 percent and to grow by controlling more of the value chain and being able to more quickly enter markets,” said Adam Denninger, SVP, Commercial Markets, Exigen Insurance Solutions.

Get more information here.

AAA NCNU Insurance Exchange Recognized as 2013 Model Insurer as Personal Lines Products Roll-out Continues

Kevin Haydon — Wed, 20 Mar 2013 15:19:00 GMT

Congratulations to customer AAA Northern California, Nevada & Utah Insurance Exchange for their recognition as a Celent 2013 Model Insurer for policy administration. Several Insurance Exchange and Exigen staff were on hand in Boston in February at the awards ceremony that highlighted the benefits of the company’s transition to a new policy administration system and their utilization of effective change management practices to accomplish it.

By any scale the Insurance Exchange’s project is large and complex. It involves replacement of six legacy PAS and three legacy billing systems. After the original Auto book roll-out in California, the organization has been able to hit a good stride with Auto roll out in 7 further states in the last six months of 2012 and an additional 13 states scheduled in 2013. Homeowners is also currently in deployment. The Insurance Exchange offers personal lines insurance to AAA members through partnerships with AAA clubs in 23 states and Washington, DC. Nearly one million auto policy holders and 1.7 million cars in California alone are insured by the Insurance Exchange.

Kim Bissell, the Insurance Exchange’s IT Director, on receiving the award commented “This allows us to rapidly add new channels and new products and services at reduced cost.” Kim recognized Insurance Exchange leadership “who identified the significance of targeted investments to enable agility and efficiency in our business by reducing complexity in our systems” and “those who so effectively executed the implementation by leveraging Exigen pre-configured solution packages and closely aligning business processes to standardized integration services.”

From left at the awards ceremony, Karen Monks, Celent, Mark Binman, Exigen Services, Gwen Spertell, Exigen Insurance Solutions, Tracy Tillinghast and Kim Bissell, AAA NCNU Insurance Exchange and Mike Fitzgerald, Celent.

The Insurance Exchange utilized a Change Management Office and Program to ensure that the 80% of the organization affected by the introduction of the new policy administration system would receive complete, accurate and balanced information about the changes. It established a strong change champion and support network consisting of managers and supervisors, super users, support processes and tools. This included the creation of a model office/demo/training environment to allow users the opportunity to get a feel for how the new system would work.

The system roll-out experience for California Auto exceeded expectations, says the Celent Model Insurer report. Benefits include:

A high user adoption rate at implementation of 60%.
More than 2,500 staff members gained browser-based access with more than 1,000 staff using the system to quote, bind, and manage California auto policies.
Policies on the new PAS can be sold about 33% faster than with the old system.
Training new staff members is quicker because sales and service workflows and screens are the same.
Real-time policy servicing is quicker and more accurate because there is a single view of the customer with cleaner and more recent data.

Best’s Review 2013 Innovation Award to NBIC - Increases in Revenue, Efficiency and Distribution on Exigen SaaS Core Systems Recognized

Kevin Haydon — Thu, 31 Jan 2013 19:13:00 GMT

It was a great way to start the year! We were very pleased to get the news that Narragansett Bay Insurance Company (NBIC) had been chosen to Best’s Review’s 2013 Innovation Showcase. Our congratulations to NBIC and its CIO Mike Anselmo and his team. NBIC is one of ten companies in the showcase recognized for forward-thinking among insurance organizations.

What was innovative? It was the specialty homeowners insurer’s use of cloud-based solutions to modernize its legacy core processing systems. “The approach taken incorporates some of the latest thinking and technologies,” wrote Best’s Review. “It represents one of the earliest deployments of insurance core systems placed in the cloud as Software-as-a-Service.”

Best’s Review cited some measures of success to be proud of:
- NBIC is doubling written premium year-over-year
- time to issuance has been reduced by more than 80%
- distribution channel growth to over 6,500 agents and brokerage staff, including a high-volume direct writer call center
- anywhere, anytime access for agents on any mobile device

Read the full article here.

EIS’ president Gwen Spertell characterized the achievement with these words: “NBIC adopted a leading-edge approach to its core systems transformation and we are very pleased that its success has achieved high recognition in the industry. They have led the way in demonstrating that modern core systems based in the cloud can provide a rapid-start platform for growth that easily connects to and serves agents, customers and business partners.”

NBIC Nets a 2012 CIO 100 Award for its Core Systems Transformation

Kevin Haydon — Mon, 22 Oct 2012 20:57:00 GMT

Every year, the CIO 100 Awards honor 100 companies that demonstrate excellence and achievement in innovation and business value. This year, Narragansett Bay Insurance (NBIC) was among the select few for a project lead by NBIC’s CIO, Mike Anselmo. Exigen Insurance is pleased to congratulate Mike and NBIC for their success and recognition for what CIO magazine describes as “using IT in innovative ways to deliver competitive advantage to the enterprise and enable growth.”

The award recognized NBIC’s Project Apex, a cornerstone of which is Exigen’s PolicyCore and BillingCore solutions implemented as SaaS. CIO magazine wrote: “NBIC’s new software-as-a-service insurance platform for policy administration, underwriting, product, distribution, billing and claims management has increased its revenue by providing faster customer service and automated underwriting, and by enabling agents to more quickly quote premiums and capture new business.”

NBIC was among just four insurance companies recognized in 2012. The others were Aflac, Horace Mann and Nationwide. More information about the NBIC honors is available at CIO.com.

To read a case study on the NBIC implementation, click here.

Former Allianz of America President Peter Huehne Joins Exigen Insurance Solutions

Kevin Haydon — Mon, 02 Jul 2012 19:06:00 GMT

Peter Huehne, the former president and member of the board of directors of Allianz of America, has joined Exigen Insurance as vice chairman.

Until March this year, Peter worked for the Allianz Group and several of its subsidiaries. He served companies of the Allianz Group as a member of the board of directors, finance and audit committees. Since 2009 he was the president of Allianz of America and a member of the Fireman's Fund executive and finance committee. He has also served Allianz entities as CFO in Canada, Australia, Fireman's Fund Insurance Company (US), Allianz of America, and the Allianz German Insurance Group.

“I am very pleased to welcome Peter to our executive team,” said Exigen Insurance Solutions’ executive chairman, Alec Miloslavsky. “He is an accomplished industry executive and leader who brings a wealth of global business experience. His oversight in critical areas of risk, finance and strategy will help drive organizational excellence. His insights into building value within the insurance enterprise will, in particular, give direction to our delivery of the business transformation execution so needed by insurers wanting to meet current and future market demands.”

Until March this year, Peter worked for the Allianz Group and several of its subsidiaries. He served companies of the Allianz Group as a member of the board of directors, finance and audit committees. Since 2009 he was the president of Allianz of America and a member of the Fireman's Fund executive and finance committee. He has also served Allianz entities as CFO in Canada, Australia, Fireman's Fund Insurance Company (US), Allianz of America, and the Allianz German Insurance Group.

As vice-chairman, Peter has broad overall responsibility in the areas of risk, finance and strategy. This includes product pricing; oversight of financial target setting, planning, and third party management; interface to the capital markets; and insurance business outcome-based value alignment strategy.

Peter commented that “Exigen Insurance Solutions has a unique customer-focused business proposition for property and casualty insurance companies. This business model covers both the need for competitive IT solutions as well as optimizing the related expenses. The differentiated business model strategically and financially aligns Exigen and its customers through multi-year contracts way beyond the implementation of the IT solution.”

Exigen Suite Certified and Ready to Go on IBM’s New PureSystems

Kevin Haydon — Wed, 11 Apr 2012 21:53:00 GMT

Today IBM announced its new family of expert integrated systems, IBM PureSystems. We’re very pleased to be among a select list of IBM’s business partners certified on PureSystems. PureSystems is a new class of systems that combines the flexibility of general purpose systems, the elasticity of cloud and the simplicity of an appliance with integrated expertise to change the experience and economics of IT.

“IBM is excited to work with Exigen Insurance Solutions, a leader in insurance technology,” said Michael Riegel, vice president of global ISVs, IBM. “Insurers are demanding optimized solutions and the combination of Exigen’s solutions and the new IBM PureSystems will help them reduce complexity and drive innovation.”

Gwen Spertell, president of Exigen Insurance Solutions, commented: “Our clients are looking to capitalize on the enormous benefits of cloud computing, open technology and flexible software to support business transformation initiatives. With the combination of Exigen core processing and management solutions and PureSystems, they now have an integrated application and infrastructure solution that not only delivers business efficiency but also supports profitable growth. Insurers can focus on the quality of the business feeding the top line while closely managing underlying expense without compromising service.”

IBM describes expert integrated systems as building blocks of capability that represent the collective knowledge of thousands of deployments, established best practices, innovative thinking, IT leadership and distilled expertise.

PureSystems includes PureApplication, which is an application platform designed to fully integrate with the system infrastructure and deploy a range of applications, such as the Exigen Suite, and PureFlex, which is an integrated computing system that combines servers, enterprise storage, networking, virtualization and management into a single expert integrated system.

How to Maximize Scalability in SaaS Insurance Core Systems Design

Rick Koo — Mon, 09 Apr 2012 13:49:00 GMT

A key benefit of a software-as-a-service deployment is scalability. Indeed, employing well-designed SaaS solutions can offer near linear scalability. The benefit comes not only from the platform and infrastructure design. Sometimes overlooked, the software design itself also plays a big role.

The value of platform level scalability is mostly well understood. CIOs are often challenged to meet both the scalability and availability requirements for their operations, particularly at small scale operations, because highly reliable and scalable hardware and operating environments are not cheap to create and maintain. Traditionally, large companies have enjoyed the advantages of high scalability and the ability to spread the associated costs and benefits across a larger number of users and transactions. SaaS providers, however, can bring the scalability profile of large scale operations to their small customers by sharing most of the burden of investments in infrastructure and operations.

Other advantages of a full scalability profile include the ability to add computing resources at a finer granularity as required to meet service level agreements, and leverage state-of-the-art practices in database, operation and network scalability (e.g., server or database clustering) and reliability (e.g., redundancy, fault-tolerant design, and active monitoring).

For software to take advantage of this high-performance platform, it must however be fully Web service enabled with an optimal service-oriented architecture and component design that enables application profiling and scalability at the level of specific application services instead of servers. Individual services should be able to be added as necessary to the application server to remove bottlenecks, as opposed to merely adding servers. For instance, if a premium calculation service is slowing the quote process, adding additional instances of the premium calculator service to the application server can remove the bottleneck.

All these good design practices contribute to a very desirable feature of cloud computing – elastic scalability: the ability to scale up and to also scale down according to business workloads.

For more information about SaaS insurance core systems, download the white paper: How to Evaluate Core Systems in the Cloud: SaaS for Policy, Billing and Claims.

Rick Koo is SVP, Engineering, at Exigen Insurance Solutions.

Former Hannover Re CEO Wilhelm Zeller Joins Board

Kevin Haydon — Thu, 05 Jan 2012 23:16:00 GMT

We are pleased to announce the recent appointment of Wilhelm Zeller to Exigen Insurance's board of directors. Mr. Zeller is the former chief executive officer and executive board chairman of Hannover Re.

Commenting on the appointment, executive chairman, Alec Miloslavsky stated “The company will benefit directly from his growth-oriented, business-building approach. Willie shares our vision of technology as a creator of business value in the insurance enterprise and we look forward to his contributions and guidance.”

Mr. Zeller served as CEO at Hannover Re for 13 years. Under Mr. Zeller’s guidance, Hannover Re grew in standing from sixth to third largest reinsurer in the world. His strategy of efficient capital management, active cycle management and a focus on profitability made Hannover Re into the world's second most profitable reinsurer. Prior to joining Hannover Re, Mr. Zeller was a member of the executive board of Cologne Re from 1977 through 1995.

Read the full announcement

AAA NCNU Insurance Exchange Deploys Exigen Policy Administration, Billing and Distribution Solutions

Kevin Haydon — Thu, 17 Nov 2011 22:23:00 GMT

Roll-out of Auto Products in California Introduces AAA NCNU Insurance Exchange’s Multi-state Business Transformation and Technology Modernization

Exigen Insurance Solutions announces that AAA Northern California, Nevada, and Utah (NCNU) Insurance Exchange has rolled out Exigen Insurance Solutions’ policy administration and billing solutions for its California book of automobile insurance. The deployment is the first stage in providing AAA-branded personal lines insurance to more than 17 million AAA members in the 26 states served by AAA NCNU Insurance Exchange. Nearly one million auto policyholders and 1.7 million cars in California are insured by AAA NCNU.

“We are pleased with the results of the roll-out of personal auto in California. Technology modernization is a critical component of our business transformation strategy. It is enhancing our ability to provide great products with exceptional service and competitive pricing,” said Steve George, Chief Operating Officer, AAA NCNU Insurance Exchange. “Exigen Insurance Solutions has shown extraordinary commitment as a strategically aligned business partner to enable us to meet our goals.”

The project included replacement of multiple core systems and the installation of a scalable framework for large volume growth and was accomplished in a 13-month time frame. Exigen PolicyCore™ and Exigen BillingCore™ solutions were deployed in an enterprise package that also includes Product Factory™, DistributionCore™, rating, underwriting, business intelligence and reporting, customer relationship management, BPM, document generation, and content management.

“We chose Exigen Insurance for modern technology, flexibility, scalability and comprehensiveness of their solutions, and their reputation for implementation success,” said Steve O’Connor, Chief Information Officer, AAA NCNU Insurance Exchange. “Exigen’s on-time delivery proved how critical a fully open and service oriented architecture is to modern insurance IT development.”

“To complete a project with this level of complexity and deliver the business benefits in such a short time frame is unprecedented in our industry,” said Alec Miloslavsky, Executive Chairman, Exigen Insurance.

“We congratulate AAA NCNU Insurance Exchange for this successful roll-out. Its dedication to improving insurance operations through technology modernization underscores its strong commitment to members,” said Gwen Spertell, President, Exigen Insurance. “We feel honored to be providing a great organization like AAA NCNU Insurance Exchange with solutions that increase operational effectiveness and enhance business agility.”

Congratulations to NBIC CIO Mike Anselmo on Elite 8 Award

Kevin Haydon — Tue, 15 Nov 2011 22:34:00 GMT

Our warmest congratulations to customer Mike Anselmo, CIO of Narragansett Bay Insurance Company (NBIC), on his 2011 Elite 8 award. Exigen Insurance has the distinct pleasure this year of offering congratulations to two of our customer CIOs on their 2011 Elite 8 awards. Mike Anselmo is joined by Karl Uphoff, CIO of global consumer lines at Chartis.

Some insurance CIOs accomplish great things through the use of widely accepted technologies. Mike Anselmo is outstanding for his ability to prudently adapt leading-edge technologies before most of his peers appreciate their potential,” said Anthony O’Donnell, executive editor of Insurance & Technology. “In that respect, Anselmo has more than once shown the way forward for the industry.” Read Anthony's Narragansett Bay Insurance CIO Mike Anselmo on Leading Edge of IT for more information on the award.

The annual Elite 8 award recognizes eight senior insurance carrier IT executives who have made an outstanding contribution to their company’s success and have demonstrated leadership, insight and innovation.

"Mike is a strong believer in using technology to drive business value and he has the experience, confidence and vision to execute leading-edge projects, such as deploying Exigen’s policy administration and billing core systems as software-as-a-service," said Gwen Spertell, president of Exigen Insurance Solutions."Mike also recognized the potential of Exigen’s unique value-based, aligned business model that allowed us to truly share the risks and to meet joint goals. We are proud to be able to contribute to his and NBIC’s success.”

Recently, NBIC was named a 2011 Celent Model Insurer in recognition of the business benefits and efficiencies derived from its policy administration replacement with Exigen PolicyCore™ and BillingCore™.

Congratulations to Chartis CIO Karl Uphoff on Elite 8 Award

Kevin Haydon — Thu, 10 Nov 2011 19:50:00 GMT

The Exigen team offers hearty congratulations to long-time customer Karl Uphoff, CIO of global consumer lines at Chartis, on his well-deserved recognition as a 2011 Elite 8 Award honoree as named by Insurance & Technology.

Anthony O’Donnell, executive editor of Insurance & Technology, wrote of Karl that he “demonstrated an adventurous and entrepreneurial style early in his career both in technology start-ups and as a professional musician. His creativity and nose for technology’s potential led to the implementation of the Exigen-based ePCG platform at Chartis’ Private Client Group. Rather than take a piecemeal approach to modernization, Uphoff drove an aggressive, transformational approach that has supported double-digit growth at the high-end property/casualty business unit.” O'Donnell profiles Uphoff in his article Consumer Insurance CIO Karl Uphoff Improves Efficiency, Supports Growth at Chartis.

"Karl is a genuine visionary who a decade ago could see the huge potential of new SOA technologies and industry data standards to create a new way forward to greater business efficiency," added Gwen Spertell, president of Exigen Insurance Solutions. "We have been fortunate to work with Karl since that time to help him craft an industry-leading organization and we are honored to be able to continue working together within an aligned business model to build on that success.”

Chartis’ ePCG technology modernization has also earned a Celent Model Insurer Award and top honors in the annual Vanguards in Insurance Practices (VIP) Awards.

PAYD usage-based insurance: how disruptive is the business model?

Kevin Haydon — Mon, 17 Oct 2011 21:01:00 GMT

In a recent blog, Insurance Networking News’ editor Bill Kenealy drew a direct parallel between the rising wave of insurer interest in telematics to a thought-provoking essay in the Wall Street Journal by Netscape founder and venture capitalist Marc Andreessen about the propensity of software to “eat” existing business models and even entire industries whole.

What prompted this was Bill's attendance at Insurance Telematics 2011 Conference. He wrote that the ascent of telematics has meant that forward-thinking auto insurers have been able to offer insured usage-based or pay-as-you-drive policies, with Progressive’s “Snap Shot,” State Farm’s “in Drive” and Allstate “drivewise” programs being prime examples. And he cited examples of where the value proposition of telematics could be disruptive for personal and commercial lines auto insurers. For instance, it could have a broad impact on product pricing and policy administration, by allowing insurers to price more efficiently, and to redefine the customer experience. In claims, the impact is obvious. Insurers can know the precise time of accident and the cause, for example, and claims lifecycle times can be dramatically reduced.

In addition to Bill's list, there is another significant, highly-disruptive impact: the potential for first-movers to be able to cannibalize the book of business of those companies that either cannot afford or cannot currently support usage-based insurance (UBI) offerings. The result is an across the board re-pricing of premium that leads to the loss of preferred customers - low-mileage, lower risk – to companies that are quicker to offer UBI/PAYD options, and higher rates for the remaining higher-risk policies. Insurers’ books of auto insurance that are usually so finely balanced become unstable.

Hollard Insurance executive Roger Grobler, whose company offers both telemetry and non-telemetry PAYD (using Exigen Suite), has spoken compellingly of this conundrum for the slow movers. He likens it to the concept of Prisoners Dilemma, which is a game theory problem:

Two men are arrested, but the police do not possess enough information for a conviction. Following the separation of the two men, the police offer both a similar deal- if one testifies against his partner (defects / betrays), and the other remains silent (cooperates / assists), the betrayer goes free and the cooperator receives the full twenty-year sentence. If both remain silent, both are sentenced to only one year in jail for a minor charge. If each 'rats out' the other, each receives a five-year sentence. Each prisoner must choose to either betray or remain silent; the decision of each is kept quiet. What should they do?

How does this apply to PAYD insurance? Grobler explains it this way:

In traditional insurance, people who drive less, pay the same as people who drive more … [But] PAYD introduces accurate pricing for mileage, and by doing so low mileage drivers can receive a more accurate and fair premium.

If you are an existing insurance company with a large book of existing car policies, you most likely have a finely balanced book that is profitable, albeit with thin margins. Your pricing is working, and the cross-subsidies between high mileage and low mileage drivers are balanced. If you introduce PAYD you will charge low mileage drivers less (and a fairer price) and high mileage drivers more. High mileage drivers will most likely leave you and take insurance from someone else who still provides traditional insurance. As an insurance company you face the prospect of losing a large part of your book before you can replace it with low mileage drivers (where you are in fact competitive). That is a daunting prospect. You have a large infrastructure in place which you've built up painstakingly and which is well matched to your current size and volume. If you lose material volume your expense ratios will blow out, which will in turn very quickly eat through your thin margins, leaving you unprofitable. That is not an appetizing scenario for any insurance executive.

So this is where the multiple prisoner's dilemma comes in. If nobody acts (i.e. nobody offers PAYD), then status quo remains, books remain finely balanced and life goes on. The first large player to offer it faces the uncertainties listed above, and may take some short term strain. After the short term strain however, the first mover(s) will start benefiting from attracting more and more low mileage drivers and having a competitive offer for arguably 50% of the market.

What does that do to the other companies? As their low mileage drivers start abandoning them, their book becomes unbalanced. They have less low mileage drivers to cross-subsidize their high mileage drivers. Over time their margins will erode, and arguably in time they will be forced to switch to PAYD.

The Prisoner's Dilemma is not a trivial problem for existing insurers to overcome, and I think it will take many years for them to do so.

Watch Roger Grobler speak at ACORD LOMA Forum about PAYD here.

The Hype and Confusion Cloud

Fazi Zand — Tue, 11 Oct 2011 14:58:00 GMT

There’s quite a bit of confusion about what is what in cloud computing. This is in part due to the absence of a standard set of definitions for the three types of offerings provided in the cloud, namely infrastructure, platform, and software as a service. But I also think there’s confusion about what the “cloud” actually is. As usual with any term that is elevated to “the next big thing” in the market, everyone jumps into the fray, either to claim credit for the wagon or at least jump on the wagon before it leaves the station. This is the moment when the marketing machine is often seen to take over to redefine and repurpose everything to make it part of this new momentum. We’ve seen this trend before when suddenly all enterprise software became SOA and all hardware turned “green.” Now everything runs “in the cloud”. So as not to get caught in the undertow but to catch and ride the actual wave to your advantage, one ought to know the difference between types of currents and be able to read past the surface ripples caused by the hype.

Cloud computing actually is a well-defined term and its meaning is close to what is implied. Cloud has been a metaphorical term and visual for depicting a network for a long time, especially the network outside the enterprise. The telecommunication infrastructure, which evolved into the backbone of the Internet, has always been drawn as a cloud and this is what basically the term cloud refers to, the network outside the internal network of an enterprise. But gradually, most enterprises grew beyond a private network operating on physically separated, leased lines and have moved into virtual private networks (VPN) on a shared infrastructure that is also shared by the Internet. This is what is implied by a “private” cloud, more or less. But increasingly, enterprises are also connected to the Internet, which today is the whole web of public (unsecure) and private (secure) interconnected networks of varying bandwidths (typically slower closer to the end-nodes which are the servers, computers and devices on the network). A “hybrid” cloud is one that uses both private and public networks to deliver information and functionality over the Internet. By this definition, most every business conducted on the internet uses a “hybrid” cloud.

So how does all this relate to the insurance? What are insurer preferences? By-and-large, insurers have opted for hybrid cloud environments for non-core services, such as CRM and email, where computing capacity is a combination of dedicated private server and shared public capacity. But when it comes to critical core systems, such as policy adminstration, the preference has been for private clouds with dedicated private servers that maximize security and privacy (see blog Securing the Insurance Cloud).

For more information on the topic, download the white paper Evaluating Core Systems in the Cloud.

SaaS Policy Administration System Thwarts Irene at Narragansett Bay Insurance; Delivers Built-in Disaster Recovery and Scalability

Kevin Haydon — Wed, 14 Sep 2011 22:25:00 GMT

When Hurricane Irene hit Rhode Island with powerful winds and rain on Sunday, August 28, one concern that Narragansett Bay Insurance Company CIO Michael Anselmo did not have was that his company’s policy administration and billing systems would be shut down – paralyzing its ability to respond to customers. NBIC specializes in homeowners insurance in coastal areas of the Northeast, so one thing was certain – they would quickly be thrown into a period of high claims activity. But you can’t worry about systems you don’t have. NBIC has no core systems technology infrastructure on its premises. All core systems run in multiple private clouds on remote web-based servers. This proved to be a prudent strategy that provided built-in disaster recovery and plenty of capacity for the subsequent increase in Irene-driven system volume.

A recent technology modernization removed all of NBIC’s core systems from the Pawtucket home office and deployed it to its privately-managed clouds. NBIC rolled out Exigen Insurance Solutions’ PolicyCore and BillingCore as software-as-a-service with web-only access at the end of 2010. While NBIC did activate its home office disaster recovery process as power supply wavered, no fail-over portal, policy or claims systems needed to be brought up – they were always running. NBIC’s policy administration system runs in a veritable cloud computing fortress, a global cloud computing service provider environment whose operations were untouched by the hurricane. Even if they had been, redundancy protocols would have immediately kicked-in to provide uninterrupted availability.

“At the end of the day, when the storm passes, you want to be able to say there was ‘no impact to agent- or policyholder-facing services.’ Our decision to put our new policy administration system into the cloud as SaaS proved to be a good one from many perspectives, and right now the added value of built-in disaster recovery really stands out,” explained Anselmo. “While Irene caused power outages that affected our home office and our staff’s homes, our policy and claims systems remained available throughout the hurricane. If we had implemented our new core systems on-premise, it would have been very expensive to build out the necessary physical and technology infrastructure required, let alone create an additional disaster recovery site.”

Speaking three days after Irene’s passage, Anselmo says the SaaS core systems scaled easily to accommodate the twenty-fold increase in online and call center activity.

According to Exigen Insurance CTO, Michael Dwyer, “Redundant systems installed for Disaster Recovery purposes can be an expensive proposition for insurers. Exigen Insurance’s offering of Exigen PolicyCore, BillingCore and ClaimCore as SaaS removes that headache for insurers. Another important benefit is elastic scalability. The SaaS deployment is designed to increase capacity as needed as disaster-spiked demand surges. It avoids the need to build and pay for over capacity that insurers may or may not need.”

Securing the Insurance Cloud

Fazi Zand — Fri, 26 Aug 2011 20:19:00 GMT

I often hear the discussion of security in the cloud limited to considerations of public, private or hybrid cloud options when the focus should really be on the degree of security enforced and managed upon a shared network. I suggest thinking of the cloud as a raw but resilient network infrastructure that has to be hardened to the desired degree that is suitable and required for a specific purpose and application, such as core systems. Critical information requires mission critical security and no less. Anyone who is using less security than required is playing with fire and exposing the enterprise and its customers to unmitigated risks. Anyone who uses more security than required is prudent up to a point beyond which the approach quickly becomes wasteful and burdensome.

When it comes to cloud security, my advice is to always use multiple layers of defense and more than one source of expertise. Always get a second, and if you can afford it a third, opinion on your physical and logical security design. You may have an impenetrable logical and application security architecture and design but allow your employees to walk away with a USB drive full of sensitive business information or private customer data. Or conversely, you may have a Tier-4 datacenter in an undisclosed location but your application security allows easy passwords or unlimited password challenges with hints! In either scenario, you are asking for trouble!

For more information, download the white paper Evaluating Core Systems in the Cloud, which is an excellent resource for those considering using the cloud for applications and services.

BillingCore v3.6 Adds Advanced BI and Improved Customer Service Capabilities

Kevin Haydon — Mon, 15 Aug 2011 19:08:00 GMT

Insurers continue to experience significant pain points around their billing operations. Many are experiencing greatest difficulty meeting growing customer service expectations, and with high customer acquisition costs, this is a real problem. “They need solutions that create customer loyalty,” says Rowshi Pejooh, vice president of product managements, in Exigen Insurance’s announcement of BillingCore 3.6.

“In this significant upgrade of BillingCore,” explains Pejooh, “we have worked with our customers and billing experts to develop user-centric enhancements that equip insurers with the all the tools to analyze billing operations and to create flexible billing plans and operations for a frictionless customer experience.“

The core focus of the BillingCore v3.6 release is improving the system user experience, resulting in a faster and more satisfying response to customer needs, and exposing more detailed billing data to improve both risk analysis and process and performer analysis.

Users will appreciate these key 3.6 enhancements:

Extended rule-making capabilities
More flexible payment plans and process automation
Improved agency and billing management
Enhanced agent and customer self-service
Greatly expanded billing analytics and reporting through integration with Dynamic Analytics, Exigen Suite’s new business intelligence tool, that includes:

More out-of-the-box and customizable billing reports for audit and control of billing transactions, receivables, and refunds
Role-based Billing Dashboard and Billing Scorecard functions

For more details on the new and enhanced functionality in BillingCore, go here.

Succeeding with Core Systems in the Cloud

Fazi Zand — Wed, 03 Aug 2011 15:14:00 GMT

Insurance CIOs almost unanimously recognize that cloud computing can provide real benefits for their companies, including better economies of scale, elastic scalability, more flexible sourcing options and more efficient use of financial and human resources. A full 90% of those surveyed in Celent’s 2011 CIO Survey said cloud computing was already in limited use or they were investigating or piloting it in 2011. At the same time, some remain full of trepidation, concerned about the potential risks of depending on external sources to provide computing infrastructure and technology platforms, as well as application software and services. This limbo is no place to be. Mercifully, if CIOs follow some logical steps, many the same they have trod before, they can find the best strategy for their companies.

Here’s a pertinent fact: The Internet is an open network that has demonstrated incredible resilience and scalability beyond its original design and intent. It is already arguably the most successful distribution model for commerce, as evidenced by its growth in usage and the level of B2B and B2C commerce. But, because of its openness and the fact that it is shared by everyone, using it does pose challenges and risks regarding security and privacy and possibly availability and performance. However, there is no reason to doubt that the Internet is a safe and even prudent place to run core applications, such as policy administration, billing and claims. As one example, client implementations of Exigen Suite solutions are successfully running as software-as-a-service delivering high performance and high security.

Potential users have to see beyond the hype and fear surrounding core applications in the cloud. Any thoughtful examination of software-as-a-service (SaaS) sees it for what it really is: an operations and implementation alternative. Like all initiatives of its type, it requires careful assessment of current and future states of operations, and a deliberate transformation roadmap and comprehensive execution plan. Proper solution design can leverage the strengths of cloud computing, such as its boundless reach and built-in redundancy, and address its risks through smart design, proven technology, good practices and methodology.

When considering SaaS core systems solutions, I recommend that the CIO requires a higher level of diligence in verifying the SaaS solution provider’s capabilities, capacity and methodology in delivering the level of services and support required by business. The design of the network, where the servers are located and how they are connected to the network, the (physical and digital) security infrastructure and design, redundancy and recoverability, utilization and scalability profile, business processes, support and problem resolution, etc., should all be transparent to the CIO while kept hidden from unauthorized view (no less than they should be for an on-premise solution). As should the service level agreements, and the legal and contractual framework to govern performance and provision of services.

Download the white paper Evaluating Core Systems in the Cloud, which is an excellent resource for those considering the cloud and trying to find their comfort level.

Congratulations to NBIC on its 2011 VIP Award

Kevin Haydon — Mon, 01 Aug 2011 15:20:00 GMT

Congratulations to Narragansett Bay Insurance Company (NBIC) on their 2011 Vanguards in Insurance Practices Award. NBIC won third place in the prestigious Best Practices category. We are very pleased that our nomination of NBIC for its deployment of Exigen PolicyCore and BillingCore as software-as-a-service (SaaS) was recognized by the awards panel, which consisted of Insurance Networking News editors, its editorial advisory board of industry experts, and Celent’s top insurance research analysts.

“What impressed the panel about the NBIC nomination,” said Ben Moreland, senior analyst, Celent, “was the successful and pioneering deployment of SaaS core systems for legacy replacement and the strong results across the board, including such areas as new business quoting, operational efficiency and agency roll-out and adoption.”

According to Mike Anselmo, CIO, Narragansett Bay Insurance, “NBIC is growing rapidly and this success would not have been possible without the SaaS deployment that got up and running quickly and the highly-configurable solution that gives us the business agility to quickly service customers and add products, states, and producers.”

For more information about the award, go to the full announcement.

PolicyCore 3.6 enhances partner management, productivity and product development

Kevin Haydon — Mon, 25 Jul 2011 17:14:00 GMT

The release of Exigen PolicyCore™ 3.6 put some useful additional firepower into the hands of customers, with opportunities to provide a revenue lift or drive more operational efficiency. A good example is the simplified non-premium bearing endorsement process that saves an average of 50% in transaction time.

PolicyCore™ 3.6 is the latest version of Exigen’s underwriting, product development and policy administration system, and according Rowshi Pejooh, vice president of product management, “PolicyCore™ 3.6 has enhancements that appeal to customer-centric organizations interested in achieving differentiation through innovations in product, process and distribution. The common theme is providing insurers more flexibility, with transparency and control, so they can be more agile and responsive to customer needs.”

Here are some of the key areas of enhancement:

Product development:
• enhanced support for collaborative product development
• efficiency improvements in product rules management

User productivity:
• expansion of notes recording and management capability, including quick notes, search, spell check, and rich text support
• the introduction of task management models with escalation and routing capabilities for handling manual tasks in business processes
• drag and drop of files from desktop to the PolicyCore e-Folder

Partner and book of business management:
• new Partner Scheme management tool, which manages all agreements with distribution partners
• enhancements to single and bulk agency transfer

Policy servicing:
• call-center staff can instantly switch from one language to another to serve multi-lingual clients

System efficiency:
• greater flexibility to manage taxes and fees at the policy or coverage levels
• simplified handling of non-premium bearing endorsements that saves an average of 50% in transaction time

Read the full announcement here.

Evogi Collaboration Brings Complete Usage-Based/PAYD Insurance and Telematics Solutions to Market

Kevin Haydon — Mon, 27 Jun 2011 14:10:00 GMT

Exigen Insurance Solutions’ recently announced partnership with The Evogi Group is good news for insurers trying to enter the fastest-growing segment of the auto insurance market. The collaboration provides insurers full policy administration, billing, claims and account management for personal and commercial auto UBI products using telematics and GPS technology.

What’s provided is a turn-key solution that meets all the important challenges for insurers by satisfying all technology integration, data, actuarial, regulatory and customer communications requirements.

In announcing the partnership, Fazi Zand, VP, marketing and business development, observed that “The pace is quickening for entry to the usage-based auto insurance market. Insurers need to rapidly create innovative product offerings or risk losing customers to competitors. However, usage-based insurance presents new forms of handling and managing of realtime data. Furthermore, the integration of telematics and sensor technologies represents new challenges for existing systems and IT resources. The union of Exigen Insurance’s Exigen PAYD® solution and Evogi’s Intelligent Insurance^SM UBI solution provides a complete, effective, flexible, and ready for market deployment alternative.”

Bob Neeser, SVP, sales and marketing, The Evogi Group, added: “Telematics when tied to usage-based insurance provides insurers a host of opportunities to provide better policy pricing, risk management, claims reduction, and on-board services.”

To read the full announcement, click here.

To read a product brochure, click here.