Ask any chief technology officer, and you'll confirm that one ofinsurance IT's biggest headaches revolves around how to keep upwith a technology market that is evolving at a frighteningly rapidpace. No one wants to be left behind, but it's impossible keepup-to-date with every innovation on the market.

As a result, most carriers end up with several disparate systemshandling their various business processes. However, as IT isincreasingly recognized as an area that can actually drive businessgrowth, it becomes even more important that all a carrier's data istransparent and available across all systems.

Investing in a broad, all-encompassing business managementsystem might be the right choice for you, if you have a few milliondollars and months of installation and training time to spare. Butthe chances are you don't have such luxuries, and the legacysystems you've already invested significant time and money in workjust fine on their own. They simply need to be able to work witheach other.

Legacy systems are the arteries of an insurance company. Theycontain the crucial data that is the carrier's lifeblood, and theydrive the various processes that constitute the heart of thecompany's operations.

Why replace such systems when they are clearly more than capableof doing their jobs? A better option may be to extend both theirlifespan and their capabilities by using one of several integrationtechnologies. The following are factors to consider:

o When To Integrate, When To Replace?

There are several reasons why a carrier may want to replace itslegacy systems. In some cases, there may be a current lack ofunderstanding of the system, because it was implemented years agoand the IT personnel responsible for its installation have sinceleft the company. Documents and manuals may have long ago beenmisplaced. Or it's possible that the change simply comes from thedesire to improve quality and efficiency.

But do any of these reasons actually mean that you absolutelymust make way for new technology? Let's not forget thatimplementing new technologies throws up a whole new set ofconundrums that need to be addressed.

What about the inevitable downtime involved in making thistransition? What about the retraining of your staff on the newsystem? What about the final bill from the new system vendor?

If you're the one responsible for answering these questions,then perhaps you need to spend some time thinking about what roleyour existing IT investments can play in the new environment.

o Extending System Life Through BPI:

One of the main reasons why companies consider replacing theirlegacy systems is their lack of flexibility. Data is often trappedinside disparate silos--such as policy administration orunderwriting--and unavailable to other areas of the enterprise.

In today's economy, where customers demand instant access totheir information and organizations want a "360-degree view" ofeach customer, data silos are analogous to clots in the arteries.Insurers need to find ways to unclog the flow of information andshare it across every line of business.

This first step in sharing data is acquiring it from the datasilos. One technology that has proven very useful for this isbusiness process integration. BPI can be used to build connectionsbetween legacy systems and data silos, letting them shareinformation in a way they never could before.

Acquiring data via BPI starts with modeling the process. This istypically done using a graphical interface, similar to a flowchart. So, for example, if a carrier wants to build connectionsbetween its policy admin system and its claims system, it can mapconnections between those systems, specifying which data fields toshare (e.g., the customer's name, address, policy number,etc.).

The graphical interface of most BPI suites means that buildingconnections is much faster and easier than traditional hand-codingmethods. Development cycles which once would have taken weeks canoften be reduced to days.

BPI can not only acquire data, it can automate processes whichhave traditionally needed manual intervention. For example,updating a customer record typically requires manual re-entry ofdata into several disparate systems. BPI can be used to connect aWeb form to all the carrier's back-end systems.

When an employee enters the new information into the form, theinformation is automatically populated to all the appropriatesystems, such as policy admin, claims admin and CRM. BPI connectorssuch as these can let carriers extend both the lifespan andusefulness of their existing IT investments.

o XML--The Great Enabler:

Once the data has been acquired, the next step involves puttingit to work. Eminently useful assets in this process are extensiblelanguages such as XML, which is gaining traction as a way to shareinformation between carriers and agents, but can also be used toimprove communications within a carrier's operations.

After the information has been acquired from data silos, it mustbe presented in a context-appropriate view--for example, a policydocument or claims form. This can be done using XML templates.Document designers can control the layout of these templates usingXML style sheets and/or a graphical interface, thus formatting thedocuments according to the carrier's specifications. The finisheddocuments can be printed, e-mailed or presented via a Webportal.

In this way, the information is delivered to the right user, atthe right time, in the right format.

Ease of deployment is another advantage of using XML and BPI toextend the lifespan of legacy systems. XML or BPI solutions can beimplemented without any changes to the existing systems. This meansthat IT staff will not need a wealth of expertise or a deepunderstanding of the existing database's data dictionary.

Extending the usable life of legacy systems is critical toachieving a better return on the original investment, and justifiesa newer investment in integration solutions. This is especiallyimportant since many document-intensive companies have madeinvestments in large mainframe systems which absorb a significantportion of their IT budgets.

For these companies, integration technologies are important toextending the use of the information stored in their systems.

Legacy systems frequently form the core of a company's businesstechnology infrastructure. It's vital that organizations strive toget the most out of these essential components. Enablers such asXML and BPI provide options to help unclog those arteries andensure that companies stay fit, healthy and profitable.