Amica Shares Policy Admin Project Best Practices

Amica Mutual executives name business partner involvement as the most critical element of any major IT project, including policy administration replacement or modernization.

The weak economy and budget pressures have not detoured insurers' policy admin system projects -- primarily because of the importance these core systems have for any insurance organization's ability to compete, serve customers and stay in regulatory compliance. But that doesn't mean these projects are easy.

The first step is forging a partnership between the business and IT, which need to collaborate to identify existing functionality and determine project goals. The next step is to assess which approach (custom build, best of breed or package vendor solution) best meets functional needs and technical competencies.

The most critical element with any major project is getting the right people from the business fully immersed in the project. At Amica Mutual, we are capitalizing on the expertise of key frontline users of the system to ensure the success of our PAS project. They know better than anyone the limitations of the current system, as well as the way customers prefer to drive the process.

Any PAS replacement is going to be a huge undertaking. Selecting the appropriate methodology for your organization is a key success factor. The Agile Development methodology gives us the benefit of breaking the project down into manageable pieces with the ability to continually validate newly designed processes and user interfaces.