Bruce Jumps Fence to Fiserv

Having decided that his experience would be a big advantage on the vendor side, former Allmerica Financial Corp. (Worcester, MA) CIO Robert Bruce has joined Fiserv Advanced Insurance Solutions (AIS, formerly The FREEDOM Group, West Des Moines, IA) as its new president. "I've been in multiple, different CIO-type roles throughout my career and I've also managed business operations," he says. "What I really wanted to do was take my experience as an internal IT provider and run an IT company. The opportunity for me at Fiserv AIS is to be here on the other side of the fence: Instead of being a buyer, I'm now a provider of these IT services."

A division of Fiserv, Inc. (Brookfield, WI), AIS specializes in providing software and services to the P&C industry. Bruce says he was attracted to Fiserv, in part, due to the way the parent company operates. "Fiserv has a strong business model for their acquisitions," he says.

Of Fiserv AIS's products, Bruce says, "we're solving the types of problems that I encountered as a CIO in the insurance business." AIS is currently developing a Web-enabled, platform-independent version of its Claims Workstation, as well as a new Web-enabled, Java-based policy administration system, according to Bruce. But products are not the firm's exclusive focus, he stresses. "I see outsourcing being very important for us going forward; being an ASP is a key part of our strategy."

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