Unisys Clears Processing Path

Policy Administration
Having outgrown its Unisys Clearpath CS mainframe as a result of a rapid increase in business in 2004, North Star Mutual Insurance Co. (Cottonwood, Minn.; $172 million in direct written premium) has upgraded its IT platform to a Unisys (Blue Bell, Pa.) ClearPath Libra Model 590 mainframe-class enterprise server to cut policy processing time and enable the carrier to provide Web-based rating and other services to its independent agents.

Before the upgrade, North Star's policy processing time was between four to six hours, and the turnaround time for quotes ranged from 10 seconds to 10 minutes, according to Verlin Scheer, VP of information technology for the P&C carrier. Further, North Star Mutual was in the midst of developing its own real-time rating system for its agents, but its legacy mainframe could not support the new technology, says Scheer.

North Star Mutual selected ClearPath Libra in February 2005 over other solutions largely for the server's (Redmond, Wash.) Windows interface and because it contained a pay-for-use metering capability, allowing the insurer to have capacity on demand as business grows, according to Scheer. "The Unisys system allows us full processing power and gives us the capability to concentrate on improving our front- and back-end capabilities for agents," he explains.