Category Archives: Case Studies

Novarica Research Council Impact Awards: Nominating Committee Announced

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Matthew Josefowicz

The deadline for the 2013 Best Practices Case Study Compendium and Impact Awards is at the end of this month, and we’ve already received our first submission! We’re looking forward to many more by the end of the month.

I’m very pleased to announce the members of the 2013 Novarica Research Council Impact Awards Nominating Committee. These insurer CIOs will review all submissions and select the nominees for vote by the full council of 300+ members.

The committee members are:

  • Alexander Bockelmann, Fireman’s Fund
  • Don Desiderato, New York Life Investment Management
  • John Heveran, Liberty Mutual
  • Nimesh Mehta, National Life Group
  • Peter Moreau, Amica
  • Murali Natarajan, RLI Corp
  • Tony Paris, Pioneer State Mutual
  • David Shaw, Sammons Group
  • Samir Srivastava, The Hartford
  • Wayne Umland, Glatfelter Insurance Group
  • Richard Wiedenbeck, Ameritas
  • Andy Wood, Wilton Re

The submission form for the 2013 compendium and awards is online here, and you can download a summary of last year’s report here.

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December New Research Roundup

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Summaries of all reports are available for free downloads on our site. Some of our recent reports include…

Business and Technology Trends

  • Business and Technology Trends: Commercial Lines. Commercial market pricing is showing a decided recovery, leading commercial lines carriers to invest in core systems replacement, agent portal functionality, and business intelligence and predictive analytics.

(see full list of Business and Technology Trends Reports at http://www.novarica.com/sectorreports/)

CIO Surveys, Best Practices, and Case Studies

  • US Insurer IT Budgets and Projects for 2013. Modest budget increases, core PAS replacement projects, business intelligence, agent portal enhancements, and mobile and social media pilots are all on the 2013 priority list for insurer CIOs.
  • Best Practices Case Study Compendium 2012. These case studies, the fruit of the first annual Novarica Research Council Impact Awards, provide a useful set of examples of impactful IT projects. They offer insurer business and IT executives detailed examples across a broad range of diverse industry initiatives.

Novarica Market Navigators

Executive Briefs and Checklists

  • Minimizing Project Risk Checklist. Insurers’ core missions are tied to managing risk in a cost effective and predictable manner. This brief illuminates common factors that contribute to IT project failure and offers a checklist to reduce project risk.
  • Insurance IT Transformation Checklist. In order to survive and thrive in the future, CIOs need to facilitate and support business transformation efforts. This report provides a roadmap of things to consider for a transformational program.
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Novarica Research Council Impact Awards Nominees Announced

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Matthew Josefowicz

Today we announced the nominees for the Novarica Research Council Impact Awards, which will be judged by all 300 members of the Novarica Insurance Technology Research Council, making them the largest peer-jury awarded recognition in the industry.

The nominees were selected from more than 40 submissions of case study information by insurers, most of which will be included in a compendium published this fall. I want to thank the nominating committee of Research Council members for their work in selecting the nominees. Committee members Andy Wood (Wilton Re), Dan Simpson (Trustmark), Eric Bulis (SBLI USA), Larry Fortin (Millers Mutual Group), Mark Berthiaume (Chubb), Pete Moreau (Amica), Piyush Singh (Great American Insurance Company), Reuben Broadfoot (LifeMap), Sal Abano (Tower Insurance), Stuart Tainsky (PURE), and Tim Billow (ING) spent time carefully reviewing more than 40 submissions to make their selections.

The nominees for each category are:

Practice

  • Erie overhauled IT cost reporting by using PPM application to track all costs across 13 discreet portfolios.
  • CAMICO initiated the Open Innovation Program to allow employees to submit, vote, and support ideas to leverage employee creativity.
  • Allstate Financial established an enterprise-wide test environment which uses one algorithm to scrub data across applications.

Quick Hit

  • Great American created customer mobile apps to deliver self-service functionality.
  • Oregon Mutual deployed an iPad and cloud-based agency relationship management tool.
  • Zurich allows program administrators to upload commercial specialty business in real time from their agency systems.

Transformation

  • American Safety undertook an initiative to consolidate all underwriting units across the company into a single system.
  • A large multiline P/C insurer undertook a three year project to replace legacy policy administration systems with a modern configurable system.
  • Capitol replaced multiple legacy surety systems with a single modern platform and enabled online self-service for agents.

Expansion

  • Cincinnati Financial transformed how independent agents process business using ACORD XML Standards and real time from agency systems.
  • Patriot National created a web-based, real time rating and quoting portal capable of quoting companies in all states.
  • Allstate Financial enabled producers and customers to legally bind an electronic signature to a life insurance application via Internet.
  • PEMCO created SmartSearch, allowing CSRs to find customers without exact spelling or policy number, and The Hub, which offers a consolidated customer overview.

The full council is voting now, and the winners will be announced at our Event on Tuesday, October 30th in NYC.

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Novarica Research Council Impact Awards 2012

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Here’s an overview of our Impact Awards program. Deadline for information submission is June 30. Download the submission form here.


Novarica Research Council Impact Awards Information

The awards will be judged by all 300 members of the council, making them the largest peer-jury awarded recognition in the industry.

Nominees from for the award will be selected from a collection of case studies that we’re currently working on by a nominating committee of Research Council members, including Andy Wood (Wilton Re), Dan Simpson (Trustmark), Eric Bulis (SBLI USA), Larry Fortin (Millers Mutual Group), Mark Berthiaume (Chubb), Pete Moreau (Amica), Piyush Singh (Great American Insurance Company), Reuben Broadfoot (LifeMap), Sal Abano (Tower Insurance), Stuart Tainsky (PURE), and Tim Billow (ING).

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CIO Council Meeting Report Published and New Impact Awards Announced

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Matthew Josefowicz

More than 50 insurer CIOs gathered at the latest meeting of the Novarica Insurance Technology Research Council meeting last week in Providence, RI.Today, we’ve published a report that includes the materials presented at the meeting, plus summaries of the discussions. Current clients and council members can download the report for free. Non-member insurer CIOs are welcome to apply for membership here.

We’ve gotten great feedback from the meeting, including the following attendee quotes:

It gave me the opportunity to hear what others are doing, get some valuable lessons learned and gave me a second wind to continue to work through the relationship building process and governance issues. Well done!

The quality of the discussion and the thoughtfulness of both the attendees and presenters was high. The length of the meeting was just right. I liked having a chance to talk informally with people at the dinner the night before as well.

The Novarica Council event is the only place where the door is shut and CIOs from around the industry speak openly and honestly about how to solve real world problems…without being pitched hard by sales folks.

Novarica Research Council Impact Awards

Also, at the meeting, we unveiled our new Novarica Research Council Impact Awards, which will be judged by all 300 members of the council, making them the largest peer-jury awarded recognition in the industry.

Nominees from for the award will be selected from a collection of case studies that we’re currently working on by a nominating committee of Research Council members, including Andy Wood (Wilton Re), Dan Simpson (Trustmark), Eric Bulis (SBLI USA), Larry Fortin (Millers Mutual Group), Mark Berthiaume (Chubb), Pete Moreau (Amica), Piyush Singh (Great American Insurance Company), Reuben Broadfoot (LifeMap), Sal Abano (Tower Insurance), Stuart Tainsky (PURE), and Tim Billow (ING). For more on the case studies and awards, click here.

 

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Business and Technology Trends in Personal Lines

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Karlyn Carnahan


I published a new report today, Business and Technology Trends: Personal Lines, looking at recent technology initiatives by personal lines insurers and highlights top issues for this year.

With a continuing soft market, and very competitive conditions creating profitability pressures, personal lines carriers are focusing on growth strategies, expense reduction, and improving underwriting results. Top initiatives for personal lines carriers include business intelligence, policy admin systems replacement, claims systems replacement, and portal functionality for both agents and insurers. The report includes 30 examples from personal lines insurers.

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Case Study: Core Systems Transformation at Great American

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Great American’s core systems transformation is a multi-year re-architecting of core enterprise systems serving multiple P&C operating units to bring together best-of-breed components into a service-oriented environment.

The effort is transforming not just the technology environment, but the firm’s business processing capabilities, training requirements, and attitude towards the value of IT for a specialty lines carrier.

This case study, written in close consultation with Great American, provides an in-depth look at the in-progress initiative, the challenges faced and overcome, the effects, and the best practices that other insurers should note in planning their own significant IT efforts.”

This is the inaugural report in a series of case studies of successful transformative technology initiatives by insurers. The outline of the report follows Novarica’s 4 Ps Strategic Framework, which stands for “Pressures, Principles, Projects, and Programs.”

  • Pressures: What are the business pressures facing Company across all areas?
  • Principles: What are Company’s IT principles?
  • Projects: What projects will Company prioritize in the next 2-3 years? How do these projects address the pressures and follow the principles?
  • Programs: What projects will Company organize into larger programs in the next 2-3 years, and how will these be managed?

The 15-page report is available at www.novarica.com/case_study_GAIC.

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