With assets valued at over one billion dollars, this mid-Atlantic carrier is ranked in the top eight percent of all property-casualty insurance companies in the U.S.A. Since it was established in 1919, its agency base has grown to 1,200 independent partners and represents a nine-state territory. It relies on its network of agents to sell insurance products and service its customers. Firmly believing that investing in its relationship with agents will ensure long-term profitability, they focused on developing a dynamic interface with its agency base as part of its SEMCI (single-entry, multiple company interface) strategic initiative. By enabling online business transactions starting in 2000, its website manifested our client’s strong commitment to its agents. The Agency Interface portion of this wider initiative was intended to reduce redundant data entry for quotes and submissions. In the short-run, the client wanted to create a bridge between its policy processing and other internal systems and the agent’s agency management system. In the long run, they envisioned an interactive, two-way, real-time quoting and issuance capability with its partner agencies. The carrier hoped to expand this scope in the future to include transactions such as policy cancellations and automatic renewals.

Solution

We led the Agency Interface portion as well as participated in other significant portions of the project. This multi-vendor project encompassed insurance software vendors like Applied Systems and Allenbrook as well as in-house business and development staff.

We played a key role during the original design and concept of the Agency Interface project by leading brainstorming sessions, utilizing UML, and reviewing system architecture documents. We were the lead technical advisor on this phase of the project. We participated in the initial analysis and research on potential options for the clients specific needs. We documented its comprehensive research and participated with the management team in crafting the best solution to present to the executive steering committee. We also assisted with initial design and architecture of the new Allenbrook Product (Phoenix Conversion Services). We established an ongoing dialogue with the technical team at Applied Systems as their product matured from initial brainstorming to live production.

Much of the development work for the Agency Interface project was outsourced to vendors. During the development phase, we managed the project timelines, participated in weekly conference calls, reviewed, tested, and approved releases of software through the initial ALPHA release until the final production release. We also led the clients internal team during the construction of the in-house portion of the project, leveraging leading edge technologies (such as XML) for performance, flexibility, and usability.

Results

By providing project management, leadership and technical expertise, we achieved a reasonable production date for client’s state-of-the-art, high-tech bridge with agents. We contributed during the key phases of the Agency Interface project, including analysis and design, development, testing and roll-out. we played a vital role by “gluing” internal staff and the multiple vendors and managing all the internal and external dependencies. The Agency Interface project represented an important innovation in the industry. It offered agents a SEMCI environment (single entry, multiple company interface) using the latest electronic commerce technologies available in the marketplace. We made sure the client had all of its deadlines met by vendors, and the functionality it needed. The bottom line: We helped our client fulfill its vision of making it “easier, faster and cost-effective” for 1200 agents in 9 states to sell insurance and service customers.

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