As CIO of the financial arm of one of the largest personal line insurance companies in the country, Michael Boyle is helping Allstate Financial reinvent itself.
"We have a strategic vision to reinvent protection and retirement for our customers," he explains. "When I came here five years ago, we were a life insurance company with a billion-dollar bank that also sold annuities. Today, we're transforming ourselves to be much broader than that. We really see ourselves as the company that can help middle America in its quest for long-term protection and retirement."
Allstate Financial offers life, health, retirement, and investment products and banking services to customers throughout the U.S. Boyle joined Allstate Financial in 2003 as CIO and vice president of technology. He oversees an IT department of about 900 people.
In response to the country's aging population, Allstate Financial made a strategic decision to refocus its products and services to reach middle-market customers, a demographic the company felt its competitors ignored.
"The decisions middle Americans face every day are important, and we think they have been forgotten by much of the financial services world," Boyle says. "Their version of retirement is not two deck chairs on a cruise ship in the middle of the Mediterranean. It's two lawn chairs in the backyard watching their grandkids play."
To address such customers, Allstate Financial is launching new products, revamping Web offerings, and implementing self-service applications. Boyle and his team partnered with other Allstate divisions to upgrade the financial services portion of Allstate.com, making it easier for customers to access information about Allstate's financial products and services. In addition, the company rolled out Retirement Snapshot (patent pending), a Web-based product that allows users to estimate how much money they will need for retirement. Future work will focus on increasing self-service capabilities for consumers and producers.
Allstate Financial also is implementing straight-through processing to improve efficiencies and lower costs. At its Allstate Workplace Division in Jacksonville, Fla., the company began using electronic applications, with electronic signatures, several years ago. Boyle reports the division captures about 65 percent of its applications electronically.
Allstate Financial has revamped back-office operations, as well, consolidating multiple administration systems down to three to streamline processes and improve customer service. On the distribution side, the company is in the middle of a multiyear project to implement an Internet-based sales management system for its sales force.
"We've been working hard to create a view of what the future needs to look like inside our organization so we can affect what is outside of it," Boyle contends. "To do that, we've had to do a fair amount of reengineering, which is not necessarily easy but can make a huge difference in the way we deliver our services."
Throughout his career, Boyle has grown accustomed to implementing technology to meet multiple business challenges. After earning his bachelor's degree in economics from the University of South Carolina, he moved to Little Rock, Ark., but had trouble finding a job as an economist. He eventually joined technology firm Systematics to develop bank profitability analysis software.
Boyle then worked at Republic National Bank in New York before joining Merrill Lynch as a project manager in 1985. During his 15 years with the global investment management company, Boyle gained experience in investment banking, research, capital markets, and mergers and acquisitions, among other areas.
In 2000, Boyle became head of global infrastructure technology and then CIO at Robertson Stephens, Inc., an investment bank. When the bank closed, he joined Allstate Financial as CIO. He asserts he feels fortunate to be in his current position.
"I face different challenges every day of the week," he says. "But I also get to do things that really make a difference in people's lives. Anyone who's that lucky feels blessed at the end of the day."
