Shelter Insurance Brings Finances To The Cloud With Workday

The multiline insurer selected Workday Financial Management to improve self-service and create transparency across business lines.

Multiline insurer Shelter Insurance has just begun implementation of Workday Financial Management to transfer its financial operations into the cloud. The system was chosen to streamline financial data, enhance user experience, and support company growth.

“We could no longer work with an unsupported system,” says Tina Workman, VP of accounting at Shelter Insurance. The company’s antiquated legacy system, which hadn’t been updated in ten years, could no longer support Shelter’s growth or state-to-state regulations. Financial information was coming from multiple systems, which led to incomplete data and overwhelming manual calculations.

[ Read: Data Challenges Coming for Insurers in 2014: Deloitte. ]

Shelter chose Workday Financial Management, a cloud-based system from cloud applications provider Workday, Inc., to manage its finances. Cloud is new for Shelter, Workman says, but she believes it is the best choice for a long-term solution. Workday quickly updates company data in the cloud, in real time. It contains analytical capabilities, a simple user interface, and the flexibility to support company growth.

User experience played a critical role in Shelter’s decision. “The old system really didn’t have self-service functionality,” Workman explains. “We found [Workday] to be much more friendly to use for business partners.” With a cloud-based solution, Workman hopes to decrease company reliance on IT support and manual tasks while boosting concentration on business projects.

In addition to bringing data to the cloud, Workday will add mobility to Shelter’s business transactions. The insurer plans to use its new system on smartphones and laptops. Workman expects this will especially benefit executive management, who will be able to access key financial statistics without access to a desktop computer.

Workday will be deployed to all employees and Workman expects that they will quickly adapt. “The system is just like using the Internet or using Google,” she says. “I anticipate that the training will be minimal.” The system is expected to go live on September 1.

Kelly Sheridan is the Staff Editor at Dark Reading, where she focuses on cybersecurity news and analysis. She is a business technology journalist who previously reported for InformationWeek, where she covered Microsoft, and Insurance & Technology, where she covered financial ... View Full Bio