Dot-Com Vet Comes Home

Alan Harvey, who ventured into the online world to co-found the now defunct Claimsdesk.com, has returned to Allegis Communications, a company he co-founded in 1996.

Harvey is now vice president of sales at Allegis Communications (Seattle), a provider of recorded statement transcription services for insurers. "Part of the reason I came back to Allegis is because it had developed online services," Harvey says. "Insurers can submit orders online and search for documents."

Harvey describes his time at ClaimsDesk as "a tremendous learning experience." For instance, "the primary lesson is that with the lengthy sales cycle in insurance, you have to have funding that will match the process," he says. "ClaimsDesk ran out of time and funding.

"Also, insurers need to know the ROI before they invest," Harvey adds. "If you don't have the opportunity to demonstrate the ROI, it is hard to get the carriers to go along." Also, a vendor's "financial stability is critical for the top insurers, because if the carrier invests in you, it needs to know the technology will be there for the long term. It's impossible for a carrier to shut down operations, outsource to a vendor, and then have to re-start again when the vendor can not provide services," he adds.

At Allegis, Harvey says, the company has the financial strength to attract business and it plans to stay focused on its niche of the claims process. "We will have our hands full for the foreseeable future," he says.

Greg MacSweeney is editorial director of InformationWeek Financial Services, whose brands include Wall Street & Technology, Bank Systems & Technology, Advanced Trading, and Insurance & Technology. View Full Bio