The goal of Harleysville Insurance is one shared by many in thecompetitive world of property/casualty insurance: to be easier forindependent agents to do business with. "Generally, agencies dealwith multiple carriers, and their customer service representativesopt for a company that has a good product, good pricing, and goodtechnology," says Akhil Tripathi, senior vice president and CIO ofHarleysville.

According to Tripathi, it became evident to Harleysville acouple of years ago the carrier needed to replace multiple policyadministration systems it had been using for its commercial linesbusiness to make things operate in real time. The carrier wanted asolution that was Web based, he adds, and would facilitate accessthrough the Internet for its agents.

Harleysville offers multiple lines of insurance, andpredominantly the carrier operates in the commercial lines spacefor small and medium-size businesses. The carrier replaced fivemainframe-based systems with the single AQS/advantage solution. Theolder systems were put in place over the last 20-plus years asHarleysville acquired other regional companies. Those systems weremodified to some extent but still were more line-of-businessbased.

Harleysville began its search for a simple Web-based policyadministration system. It went through an evaluation processTripathi reports focused on ease of doing business, the ability tomodify the system without difficulty for new products and services,and the ability to do real-time rate, quote, and issuance. "Welooked at a half-dozen systems with a team representing productmanagers, actuaries, and technology people," says Tripathi. "Welanded with AQS at the end of the whole process."

One reason Harleysville liked AQS, notes Tripathi, was becausethe culture of the AQS team was similar to that of Harleysville interms of insurance knowledge, work ethic, and the ability to workwith the AQS senior management, including its CEO. "We felt notonly did AQS have a good product and good technology but goodP&C industry knowledge, as well," he says. "We wanted to makesure we had good visibility and support."

Although implementation is not complete, Harleysville beganusing the system in Pennsylvania, one of the largest of the 32states in which the carrier operates. "We've had positive feedbackso far from our agents and internal staff," says Tripathi. "Thefirst state is always the toughest. Now, we plan to roll outmultiple states simultaneously. We have two more states coming upin the next couple of months, and then we'll go to five states andthen seven. Based on our current plan, the implementation willcontinue throughout 2008."

Harleysville has developed proprietary capabilities, such aspredictive modeling and specific underwriting rules, so the abilityto modify the AQS solution was important. Since the system isdesigned for rating, quoting, and policy management, Harleysvillewanted to integrate its capabilities with those available from AQS.The insurer also deployed an underwriting rules engine that allowsthe business to select referrals. "Those kinds of changes and someof the workflow adjustments we wanted have enabled us to betteroptimize our operation," says Tripathi. "Those were the kinds ofthings we needed done as well as integration with our back-endsystems."

Tripathi has found none of the initial challenges to beinsurmountable. "We have an aggressive plan, and we are movingfaster than most of our peers," he says. "We drove hard in terms ofmeeting our time lines, commitments, and resources. Workingtogether as partners was a key." Harleysville was able to addresources to the team when it was required. "We shared the burdenand common objectives to get to the goal line," he says.

Typically for a carrier the size of Harleysville, most companieswould go through a two- to three-year implementation, so to go livein a 12- to14-month period was aggressive for Tripathi. "This is asingle system that processes all lines of business, and that's apretty exciting change," he says. "It's consistent to do rate/quotefor all lines of business for our agents and our internalusers."

The new systems should help Harleysville in both its technologyinvestment and with operational improvements, Tripathi believes. "Imanage business operations also, so we expect to gain someefficiency and for our agents to do more self-service," he says."We expect to have more chances to look at more business in thecommercial market than we were able to do in the past."