2012 ICTA Insurer Nominations

Insurers Nominated for 2012 ICTAs

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Each year the nominations for an Insurance-Canada.ca Technology Award are a great mix of interesting applications, some of which are small in scope, others large. Some have been developed from the ground up, in-house or by external developers; others were provided as a package or a component thereof. They collectively represent the variety of ways that technology is being deployed today in the Canadian P&C insurance industry. Here are selected nominations – insurer category – from the 2012 submissions.

CAASCO (Technology by Imagesoft & Hyland)
CAASCO has invested in an imaging system many years ago, but it was no longer adequate to achieve the highest rated customer service among AAA clubs which CAASCO had earned. They selected the OnBase Enterprise Content Management (ECM) system from Hyland Software and ImageSoft to implement it. The conversion was accomplished in a limited time frame. The new workflow reduced or eliminated many production bottlenecks and new functionality streamlined and automated processes in several departments. The benefits have enabled CAASCO to attain new levels of customer service.

La Capitale/Unica (Technology by iter8)
During the consolidation of two operational policy admin systems, a plan was formulated in which over 10 years of historical records and over 2 million transactions would be migrated to the new Policy Administration System in one single rollover. With only 48 hours, translation speed was a priority. Existing services, such as rating and underwriting were to simultaneously continue operating and integrating with the new Policy Administration System. Full auditability was essential, across the entire book in one operation. Retrieval of additional information including claims, EDI keys, Audit and trace data necessitated accessing multiple data sources. tranl8, the data transformation solution from iter8 was used to handle the migration. The project was executed successfully over a three day weekend.

The Co-operators (Technology by Guidewire)
The Co-operators selected Guidewire’s InsuranceSuite to replace a number of disparate systems across their companies. While the greatest need was to replace its multiple policy systems, The Co-operators chose to start with ClaimCenter. Once The Co-operators was in pilot with ClaimCenter they began the PolicyCenter and BillingCenter implementations concurrently. As products are moved to the new Guidewire platforms they are being modified and enhanced to provide the desired commonality between companies, while also allowing for product and process variations among the companies. The Co-operators has numerous benefits, including better utilization of IT resources, to be gained from a single modern system.

The Dominion (Technology by OneShield)
The Dominion deployed OneShield Dragon, for the first line of business, in a multi-year initiative to replace multiple legacy policy administration systems and transform the way The Dominion does business. This transformation will facilitate the ease of doing business for the independent broker distribution network by enabling straight through processing, optimize and maximize efficiencies, improve data capture and deliver meaningful communication with policyholders. The ability to respond to the insured’s needs through the implementation of more flexible products will be enhanced. Richer data will support the enhancement of analytics reporting for the business. The first phase was deployed in September 2011.

The Economical Insurance Group (Technology by Pitney Bowes Software) *Finalist*
TEIG has deployed a web-enabled business location intelligence platform. The platform is leveraged by underwriters to quickly confirm and map a location, analyze current in-force policies, recognize key exposures (flood, earthquake, hurricane, crime, etc) and evaluate aggregate risk. The platform provides a centralized point of underwriting interface including address validation, geocoding, policy and exposure mapping and overall risk aggregation. The work and time to make underwriting decisions has been reduced and underwriting consistency improved. Catastrophe exposures can be readily assessed. Areas of business opportunity can be identified.

Intact (Technology services by imason)
The My Manuals project, to facilitate the creation and use of the most current versions of Intact Insurance manuals in one, convenient location by brokers and employees. With project objectives including the reduction of paper, more structured content, searchable and easy to find content, content appropriate to a user and the ability to time publication, the solution for Intact was designed and developed by a team from imason inc. in conjunction with the Intact project team. The technology used is Microsoft SharePoint 2010. The project has delivered significant savings which are ongoing.

Pembridge (Technology by Brovada and Applied)
The Integration of Applied’s WARP technology to send real-time authentication transactions in CSIO format with Brovada’s NexExchange technology to feed data from brokers to the Pembridge systems. This enabled Applied Systems brokers to use the Pembridge Broker Connectivity functions, providing faster service times and improved efficiencies for both brokers and Pembridge.

SGI Canada – Commercial Lines Quotes
Group submission with Cooke Insurance Group – Technology by PolicyWorks
SGI CANADA developed a straight-through processing solution for the upload of commercial lines quote submissions and download of the resulting quotations using CSIO XML standards. From within a Policy Works desktop application, a broker is able to send a full submission electronically to SGI without having to email the document or re-enter data into a portal, and SGI avoids rekeying as well. The result has been improved efficiencies and faster turnaround.

SGI Canada – Commercial Lines Real-time Rating
Extending the straight-through, no-touch processing solution, SGI Canada supports three new data exchange functionalities. Real-Time Rating (of small package commercial lines business) enables SGI Canada brokers using the Policy Works CMS to submit and receive a real-time rate on small business packages such as Energy Pak, Toolbox Pak, Trades Pak, and Value Pak. In-force Policy Download enables SGI Canada brokers to download the current state of any in-force policy directly into their Policy Works desktop system. Portfolio (Book of Business) Download allows SGI Canada brokers using the Policy Works CMS to download all current business, such as new applications and renewals, through a batch process directly into their Policy Works system. The CSIO XML standards and web-services are used.

SGI Canada – eDocs **Winner**
Group submission with Josslin Insurance Brokers – Technology by Zycomp and Mastercom
Using the CSIO Standards, SGI Canada developed a technology solution that allows the downloading of the Broker Copy of Policy Declaration Pages and Broker Memos as part of their daily EDI download transactions with no broker intervention. This reduces the amount of paperwork delivered to brokers in alternative ways, improves service to brokers and improves their efficiencies.

SGI Canada – Auto New Business (Technology by Brovada)
SGI Canada implemented NexExchange to accept incoming CSIO XML from brokers, validates using SGI specific underwriting rules, and notifies the broker of missing information and errors while enabling the broker to supplement the data by allowing them to answer SGI specific questions, Once complete, the data is passed to SGI’s GIS which returns a guaranteed premium allowing the broker to issue the policy in real-time. The broker can retrieve point of sale documentation electronically from within NexExchange, avoiding printing and mailing costs. The benefit is faster processing and service times and improved eficiencies.

Unica (Technology by iter8) *Finalist*
Group submission with Bowman & Gibson Insurance Brokers – Technology by Keal
Unica used iter8’s communic8 product to provide the interface between Keal Connect and Unica’s systems enabling brokers to perform Inquiry, New Business Upload (auto & property) and Manual Endorsement transactions. The solution was developed and implemented in only sixty days. The solution has reduced workload at Unica while providing better and faster service to brokers who are in turn experiencing dramatic improvements in workload and service times.

XL Group (Technology by Accenture)
To address emerging deficiencies and enable future opportunities XL Group selected Accenture’s Claim Components Solution with which to develop XL GlobalClaims which would operate in 20+ countries. The system was first deployed in Canada and three other countries in 2010 and claims were moved to the new system in phases. It will bring many benefits, including a common platform for claims company wide, access by a multitude of internal staff to real-time claims information, and the potential access by insureds and distributors through a claims customer portal.