Like the rest of the industry, GuideOne Insurance faceschallenges in today's soft market. In the eyes of Tom Fischer,senior vice president and CIO, IT's role during difficult times iseven more critical in helping the company respond quickly toprovide employees what they need when they need it.

“We're not sitting back and waiting for things to get better,”Fischer contends. “We're investing now at the proper levels to getdone what we need to do and to be where we need to be two or threeyears from now. We want to be ready when the hard market hitsagain.”

Part of that investment involves a multiyear project to convertthree commercial policy administration systems into one. GuideOneis in the process of implementing the AQS Access system, whichfeatures rate quoting, underwriting, and policy managementcapabilities. The new system will help the carrier reduce expensesand improve speed to market for new products.

“We have multiple systems serving our commercial business rightnow, so there's a lot of duplicate and triplicate entry going ontoday,” Fischer says. “Moving to AQS will allow us to streamlineour organization around a single system.”

Based in West Des Moines, Iowa, GuideOne specializes inservicing churches, private schools, colleges, senior livingcommunities, and individuals. The company, which employs about 750people, posted $565 million in net written premium in 2009.Fischer, who reports directly to the CEO, manages a $15 million ITbudget and oversees 105 full-time employees.

Fischer contends GuideOne's niche market offers uniquechallenges for IT. “We don't cover your standard office building,”he says. “Churches are unique buildings, with steeples, organs, andstained-glass windows that add to your risk exposure.”

As a result, Fischer says, GuideOne has deviated from ISOstandards in the past to better serve its clients, which createschallenges when trying to install new systems such as AQSAccess.

“Over the years, we've built up a legacy of changes,” heexplains. “We started with base ISO and have built on it fromthere. Now, we need to go back into our legacy systems to make surewe capture all the changes we've made and carry them over to ournew policy admin system.”

GuideOne, which is licensed in all 50 states, hopes to roll outthe new system in Missouri by early 2011. Once that rollout iscomplete, other states will follow. Eventually, the policy adminsystem also could service personal lines.

In addition to the AQS project, GuideOne recently launchedSafeChurch.com, an extensive risk management tool createdexclusively for churches. The Web site, intended to helpdifferentiate the company from its competitors, allows members toaccess numerous risk management resources on transportation andfacility safety, emergency preparedness, and financial safeguards.The site also offers online training modules and provides an avenuefor churches to conduct background checks on employees andvolunteers.

Other IT projects include a continued focus on enterprisecontent management and data warehousing. This year, Fischer and histeam plan to provide advanced workflow and imaging to commerciallines and take the company's ongoing data warehouse initiative tothe next level.

“This is an effort that never really ends,” he says. “We'refinally at the point where we have a really good warehouse ofinformation. Now, we want to get that information into the hands ofthe right people in a format they can really use.”

GuideOne also is working with a vendor to develop dashboards andscorecards. “We hope to have some level of dashboarding availableto members of management, so they can access quickly and easily theinformation they need,” Fischer says. “Our goal is to haveconsistent information across the organization, so everyone'slooking at the same data.”

Fischer, who holds a bachelor's degree in applied computerscience from Grand View College and an MBA from the University ofIowa, says his fascination with computers began when he took aprogramming class in high school. “I fell in love with thepossibilities and with the problem-solving that comes from usingcomputers,” he says. “It's a hobby for me now in addition to mywork.”

After college, Fischer joined Massey Ferguson, an agriculturalequipment manufacturer, as a programmer. From there, he went toPioneer Hi-Bred International, where he held a variety of positionsfrom programmer/analyst to project management to manager ofinternational IT operations.

In 2000, Fischer joined GuideOne as manager of agency automationand Internet development, eager to work for a smaller organizationwhere he could make a larger impact. He moved into variousmanagement positions before being promoted to CIO in 2007.