West Bend Mutual Picks Oracle Insurance Insbridge Rating and Underwriting

The Wisconsin-based regional P&C carrier expects the system to improve efficiency, enabling getting new rating features to market faster and at lower cost.

Regional P&C carrier West Bend Mutual Insurance Company (West Bend, Wisc.) has chosen Oracle Insurance Insbridge Rating and Underwriting to support rating efficiency, flexibility and speed for agents providing quotes to their customers, according to an Oracle news release. West Bend Mutual underwrites homeowners, auto, business and personal insurance.

According to Oracle, West Bend Mutual selected Oracle Insurance Insbridge as its personal lines rating engine because of the product's intuitive, easy-to-use, rules-based interface, and for its scalable engine. The vendor asserts that these features make it easier for business users, such as actuaries and underwriters, to build and manage rates without IT support, in turn helping insurers respond quickly to market changes, effectively manage the lifecycle of a policy and meet regulatory requirements. West Bend Mutual's long-term plan is to use Oracle Insurance Insbridge across all lines of business, Oracle reports.

"Oracle Insurance Insbridge Rating and Underwriting will help us advance our mission of being the insurance company of choice for our associates, agents and policyholders," comments Jim Schwalen, vice president, personal lines and marketing, West Bend. "We expect the user-friendly system to improve our efficiency in managing our rating structures. This will allow us to bring new rating features to market more quickly and at lower cost, which benefits our associates, agents and policyholders.

"Since Oracle Insurance Insbridge is built on a service-oriented architecture, it will integrate easily with our other systems, including our policy administration system – jump starting our return on investment," Schwalen adds.

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