North Waterloo Farmers Mutual Goes Live With Broker Download

For the first phase of the carrier's broker portal initiative, vendors playing key roles included iter8, Mutual Concept Computer Group, Applied Systems, Keal Technology, and Custom Software Solutions.

North Waterloo Farmers Mutual Insurance Co. (Waterloo, Ontario) has gone live with broker download capability for automobile and property lines, using Toronto-based iter8's communic8 broker connectivity software solution. The carrier has begun implementation of a full broker portal, according to an iter8 source.

The broker download phase of the initiative included other vendor partners, including Mutual Concept Computer Group (MCCG, London Ontario), Applied Systems (University Park, Ill.), Keal Technology (Concord, Ontario), and Custom Software Solutions (Virden, Manitoba). The carrier also worked with the Centre for Studies in Insurance Operations (CSIO, Toronto), the Canadian standard setting body for EDI and XML standards for personal and commercial lines.

The EDI Download phase involved the creation and CSIO standards certification of a download stream to all of North Waterloo Farmers Mutual's broker management systems. An initial priority of North Waterloo Farmers Mutual was to electronically provide complete policy information directly to the broker's BMS systems, according to iter8.

"Results to-date have exceeded our expectations" comments Josie Gaffney, vice president and CIO at North Waterloo Farmers Mutual, "our EDI downloads are trusted by the brokers, data quality is high, and the communic8 process is straight-forward and easy-to-use. We benefited greatly from the expertise and support provided by iter8 and MCCG."

North Waterloo Farmers Mutual began the project with download to help save brokers' time and money. The next phase will involve working with iter8 and MCCG to complete full broker connectivity by providing a modern connected broker portal " using iter8's collabor8 software solution, according to the iter8 source. North Waterloo Farmers Mutual brokers will be supported with single sign-on and single data entry for accurate, complete and eligible transactions with straight-through-processing, according to the vendor source.

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