Insurity Enhances Its Range

The addition of ePolicy's Java-based offering gives Insurity a full menu to answer the policy admin needs of commercial insurers.

Hartford-based insurance technology vendor Insurity has added Java-based policy administration solutions to its menu with parent company ChoicePoint's (Alpharetta, Ga.) acquisition of ePolicy Solutions. ChoicePoint announced on July 13 that it had "acquired certain assets" of the Torrance, Calif.-based P&C industry software vendor, including the RightRisk product line. ChoicePoint also reported that ePolicy's products would be offered through ChoicePoint's Insurance Decisions suite of business improvement products and services, marketed through Insurity.

Insurity's vice president and general manager, Tony Reisz, characterized the acquisition as complementing the vendor's existing products, which are built on Microsoft's (Redmond, Wash.) .NET development platform. "In addition to strengthening our market reach, it will help further our ability to address the growing needs of customers seeking customizable, tools-based solutions and best-in-class approaches," Reisz commented in a release.

That ChoicePoint should acquire another select insurance software vendor is not surprising, according to Craig Weber, a San Antonio, Texas-based analyst with Celent, which had predicted the move. What is interesting, in Weber's opinion, is that the vendor should pick up another policy administration provider in the commercial lines space. "They seem to be playing up the tool-based aspects of ePolicy, which is 100 percent Java," he says. "They can pretty much meet any need in the commercial lines space now."

Financial Stability

As a newer, smaller company, ePolicy is likely to benefit from the implementation and support resources afforded by its relationship with ChoicePoint/Insurity -- a benefit that will redound to ePolicy's customers. "If I were an ePolicy customer, I would be happy with the sale because it gives [the vendor] a level of financial stability that perhaps it didn't have," Weber notes.

The acquisition is good news for the industry as well, according to Weber, because it represents not the departure of a worthwhile vendor from the market but rather the strengthening of one. "I don't think it lessens choice in the commercial lines policy admin space, and that's what I would worry about -- seeing a vendor bought," he says. "It appears as if [ChoicePoint/Insurity] is buying an asset to run it; this is not two products consolidating, at least not at the outset."

Insurity says it will integrate resources between Insurity and the acquired ePolicy assets as circumstances warrant. "We have already integrated finance, HR, legal services and marketing," says Dave Pedersen, SVP, Insurity. "The ePolicy organization will continue to perform development, maintenance and support for its customers."

Anthony O'Donnell has covered technology in the insurance industry since 2000, when he joined the editorial staff of Insurance & Technology. As an editor and reporter for I&T and the InformationWeek Financial Services of TechWeb he has written on all areas of information ... View Full Bio