MiddleOak Policy Admin Revamp Kick-Starts the Business
While hammering out a commercial habitation expansion strategy in late 2010, Middletown, Conn.-based MiddleOak determined its legacy policy administration system couldn’t keep up. “The system’s capabilities were unable to keep pace with the business demand and was hampering our ability to grow as we desired,” recalls Sean Sweeney, senior VP of IT for the personal, commercial, and specialty P&C insurer. “It also lacked capabilities for handling large policies.”
MiddleOak (affiliated with Bloomington, Ill.-headquartered Country Financial, $15 billion in total assets) began its policy admin evaluation in 2011 with six contenders, which it narrowed to three. In the process, the insurer discovered advantages to skipping the initial wave of modernizations.
Sean Sweeney, MiddleOak
“Just a few years ago, new platforms required considerable customization,” notes Vern Abbott, MiddleOak’s VP of IT. “Now, such solutions contain tool sets enabling company-specific configurations that avoid the complexity of customization, which is especially critical for efficient maintenance and upgrades.”
After further scrutiny, PolicyCenter by Guidewire Software of San Mateo, Calif., rose to the top. “It provided a system we could maintain ourselves, enabling us to speed time to market,” says Sweeney.
Also, policy admin comprised only a portion of the overall initiative. Other key technology adoptions occurring concurrently included document and content management as well as rating and building valuation software.
“Each of those deployments was more significant efforts than our 20-person IT staff had undertaken before,” says Abbott. “This made Guidewire’s strong consulting services, implementation methodology, and knowledge transfer capabilities important considerations for selecting them as our policy administration partner.”
With a contract inked in January 2012, a core implementation team of about 20 business, IT, and Guidewire representatives was formed. The implementation team divided the project into two parallel tracks: one for design and configuration, the other for systems integration.
Over the life of the project, approximately 300 people would play a role, including about 15 agencies spread across the states designated for the first of three rollout phases. The core team also coordinated with the Country Financial IT organization, which invested in a new virtualized server farm to house MiddleOak’s various new systems.
Agile lends to success
In a first for MiddleOak, much of the PolicyCenter deployment used agile methodology. “During the early sprints specific developers and business analysts formed such tight bonds they wanted to continue working together,” Abbott says. “To help keep enthusiasm levels high, we formed micro-teams within the larger effort to accommodate these requests.”
By November 2013 the new platform rolled out successfully to the first four states. “Positive feedback from our agency network and our internal employees came in immediately,” says Sweeney. “This continued as we launched an additional 10 states in January of 2014 and another 18 in February, for a total of 32.”
Unsurprisingly, the initiative has been transformative. “Before, our discussions with the business centered on how long it would take to make even small adjustments. Today, with changes occurring within minutes instead of weeks, discussions are about how we leverage data and analytics -- which were unavailable to us before -- to take advantage of market opportunities.”
Additionally, re-engineering business processes and workflows end-to-end has boosted output efficiency and quality. “Employees who previously were dedicated to mundane tracking activities are now performing the higher-value work involved with risk valuation and underwriting,” explains Sweeney. “This gives them a positive career path.”
The new system has also impacted distribution heavily. “Although we expected about a 50% adoption rate for our automated underwriting portal, it’s now over 70% and continues to increase,” says Abbott. “So, as we look toward 2015, our primary enhancements are around agent entry and workflows to keep that momentum going.”
Anne Rawland Gabriel is a technology writer and marketing communications consultant based in the Minneapolis/St. Paul metro area. Among other projects, she's a regular contributor to UBM Tech's Bank Systems & Technology, Insurance & Technology and Wall Street & Technology ... View Full Bio
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