In business since 1914, this specialty Renter’s insurance carrier serves over 11,000 policyholders in the Pennsylvania, Washington D.C. and Illinois. In efforts to meet the growing needs of the business and separate itself from the parent company, the management decided to implement the GENIUS system by Rebus. Like many system initiatives at most insurance carriers, there was a history of management difficulties such as rising costs and slipping live dates. Operational issues had gained precedence over strategic alignment and management only hoped for the realization of business benefits. The project beginnings did not include a project charter and project plan, thus setting the stage for mis-management of third party vendors and sub-optimal utilization of precious company resources. We were retained to set a better foundation for the implementation of the GENIUS system.

Solution

We conducted interviews with resources to determine their status, objectives and capabilities and followed it by developing a detailed project plan. Team co-location was enforced to monitor and facilitate greater productivity. Vendor contracts were re-negotiated to fit critical client objectives.

We successfully deployed a phased implementation of the GENIUS system with interfaces to bank and billing vendors. It also implemented Intelligent Text Processing to generate automated policy declaration pages. The implementation process included full conversion of legacy data into a format that was acceptable by GENIUS. Developing custom enquiries that reduced the time taken for retrieval of critical policy information enhanced customer satisfaction. Several reports were developed to provide management with greater clarity on business demographics. Last but not least, our consultants authored a comprehensive training manual on the GENIUS system and conducted complete training on all aspects of the system for the users.

Results

The biggest benefit to the client was that it gained complete independence from its parent company. In the past it was dependent on the parent company’s life and health system which proved unreliable for the P&C data that it generated. It also eliminated reliance on 2 full time IT staff leading to lower operating costs. Inspite of the initial problems, there was no interruption of services and the transition to the new system was achieved seamlessly. Several processes – generation of dec pages, commission tracking of agents – were automated leading to significant jumps in worker productivity and the perceived value received by customers and agent alike.

The client continues to generate new business at an even higher rate today and is well positioned for future growth. We continue to add value to the client by providing ongoing IT/IS support and helps keep their operating costs to a minimum.

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