Who's Buying What

Recent deals for technology software and services

Insurance Networking News, 04/01/2010

Ohio National, Sunshine State Sign with CSC

Falls Church, Va.-based Computer Sciences Corp. announced Cincinnati-based Ohio National Financial Services signed a 10-year contract to license two insurance software programs: CSC's Insurance Optics Business Analytics with Wealth Management Accelerator, and the Vantage-One administrative software with PerformancePlus. The software will be integrated into the systems currently in place.

"With a record-setting 20 years of consecutive life insurance sales growth, Ohio National maintains focus on operational discipline and risk management," says Al Bowen, SVP and CIO, Ohio National. "By selecting Wealth Management Accelerator to manage both asset accumulation and disbursement, and Business Analytics to predict trends and track key metrics, we are well positioned to respond to the changing demands of our distributors and policy owners."

In a separate deal, Sarasota, Fla.-based Sunshine State Insurance Co. signed a six-year extension of its business process outsourcing (BPO) agreement with CSC. Under the extension, CSC will provide upgraded technology to allow for updated support to Sunshine State's personal and commercial property business by delivering more autonomy in the underwriting process, according to a release. The technology is designed to allow agents to underwrite and issue policies at a more rapid rate.

"The Agency Link functionality has already been released to our first group of agents, and the response has been phenomenal. Many of them attribute their success to how quickly they can provide answers to their customers," says John Rogan, president and CEO, Sunshine State. "CSC's BPO services have also enabled Sunshine State to employ a virtual insurer model with a focus on delivering exceptional service. As we expand, CSC's BPO staff and systems can scale to meet our needs."

West Point Employs DRC

Pinellas Park. Fla.-based West Point Underwriters (WPU) will use the DecisionMaker Rating Enterprise from Honolulu-based Decision Research Corp. for rate comparison.

According to DRC, the DM Rating Enterprise Edition integrates three of its programs-DecisionMaker Rating, DecisionMaker Analyzer and DecisionMaker Assistant-into one program that allows users to manage and analyze market rates, and provides underwriting services.

"DM Rating Enterprise provides us the flexibility to support the wide variety of customized rate plans we offer," says Paul Clayson, CIO of WPU. "Because the solution places rate control in the hands of the business group, we can react quickly to external changes and adjust rates with minimal reliance on our IT resources. And, given that DRC's solution is built on an SOA foundation, we are also able to easily call the rating service from other systems."

Progressive Deploys SSP

Mayfield Village, Ohio-based the Progressive Group of Insurance Cos., will use the S4i administration solution from U.K.-based SSP, a solutions provider to property/casualty carriers.

SSP's S4i, a policy administration system, is designed to provide Web-enabled solutions with rapid investment return. According to the companies, Progressive is employing the solution to expand services to the Australian automotive market.

"In Australia, personal lines products, and particularly car insurance, are primarily sold direct through call centers," says Tom King, head of international operations at Progressive. "Our research suggests there is a market for an online-only product. We wanted a cost-effective, best-of-breed package that would deliver straight-through processing. SSP and S4i enable us to get our Australia program off the ground quickly and within budget."

MetLife Utilizes Ci&T

New York-based MetLife is using a new workflow application from King of Prussia, Pa.-based Ci&T, a consulting and technology outsourcing services company.

The new application automates critical processes involved in the sales and processing of new insurance policies for MetLife's individual, SMB and corporate clients, making it one of the company's most important systems.

As a provider of insurance policies to the global marketplace, MetLife must issue policies with the utmost efficiency, and ensure that these policies are processed in a way that generates the maximum possible revenue for the company. Recognizing this need, MetLife first approached Ci&T to develop an application that would provide the efficiency and speed necessary to process individual policies-from the initial sale to the analysis of the proposal to the implementation of the policy.

"When we invested in the implementation of a new application by Ci&T, MetLife sought an innovative tool that would allow the issuance of policies with significantly greater efficiency," says Fatima Primati, CIO, MetLife Brazil. "The methodology that Ci&T used in this particular project, based on the concepts of Agile and Lean IT, helped us to understand the vision of the project both as a whole at the outset, and incrementally during its respective stages."