Automating Agents

Pacific Life Insurance Company (Newport Beach, Calif.; total assets of $87 billion) is replacing its 20-year-old mainframe-based DMS Management agent-commission processing system with Versata's (Austin, Texas) Web-based Distribution Channel Management (DCM) and Brokerage Software Suites to enhance the insurer's relationship with and management of independent agents by automating agent licensing and commission-payment processes.

According to Versata, the solution enables insurance companies to manage complex distribution channels. The suite contains National Insurance Producer Registry integration to automate licensing and distributor information, has the ability to link multiple identities to one agent for commission payments and can conduct mass agent transfers. "Versata's system will help us more effectively service our distribution partners, while [reducing] the cost of ownership," says Cameron Cosgrove, vice president, information technology, at Pacific Life, adding that the insurer also plans to consolidate agent calculation recognition into the DCM system.

Versata supplies not only the software, but also the hardware, databases, application servers and optional ASP-style hosting of the solution, which Pacific Life purchased in September 2006. --M.W.