Speed-to-market and flexibility are common phrases heard wheninsurance carriers discuss the end of their legacy systems and thebeginning of a modern insurance platform.

"Eliminating redundancies and improving our accuracy andefficiency are important in order to be competitive," says TimSunderman, divisional assistant vice president for Great AmericanInsurance Co. "We have to write the right risk at the right priceand we have to manage our expenses appropriately."

The division that Sunderman works in for Great Americanspecializes in home builders' coverage throughout the United Statesand Canada. Such lines tend to be high volume and generate lowpremiums.

"We looked to eliminate redundancies from the daily processingand hoped to achieve increased accuracy for premium reporting andour location accumulation data," says Sunderman. "We were lookingto build an intuitive system that our agents could expect the sameefficiencies that we would experience from the system as well."

Great American had worked with software solutions providerOceanwide for seven or eight years before undertaking the Bridgesolution beginning in the fall of 2011.

"We used [Oceanwide's] Genoa system as a database," saysSunderman. "When they developed Bridge they presented it to us andwe knew it would fit our platform and business model. We alreadyhad time and money invested in Oceanwide, so it made sense tocontinue our relationship.

"There are always external vendors that promise the world," hesays. "Like anything, you tend to stick with the relationships thatyou have. We had already built trust with Oceanwide."

Requirements gathering began at the end of 2011 and, compared toother situations, Sunderman feels it was unique because GreatAmerican was one of their first users of the solution and bothsides learned a lot from each other.

"We wanted a highly customized solution and the Bridge systemoffered that," says Sunderman. "It's been ongoing over the last twoyears and we continue to build additional enhancements withit."

Sunderman believes the flexibility of cloud-based systems suchas Bridge works well as a carrier's front-end system. GreatAmerican wanted to establish the front-end system first to get theproduct to market quickly and then sort out the back end. Now, theintegration piece to Great American's back-end systems is beingworked on with Great American's IT team.

"It was one of those things where you set forth requirements andas you work through it you wonder if it could do other things,"says Sunderman. "[Oceanwide] was very responsive and attentive towhat our needs were. It took a little longer because of thecustomization. We basically helped them see what we needed andworked from there."

Great American went live with the Bridge solution in May of2012. "I don't know many IT systems that roll out and haveeverything you need on day one," says Sunderman. "Our approach wasto start small and work through it. We've been happy with theflexibility because we've been able to add additional coverages,policy options, building information, agent/broker information, and the referral process. These incrementalchanges have been built and overall it has been well received, notonly by the underwriting staff, but by agents and brokers aswell.

Speed-to-market and flexibility of the system were especiallyattractive to Great American, whose approach was to build a systemthat conforms to how they do business, not simply alter theworkflow to satisfy how a system operates.

"Cloud-based solutions like Bridge are going to lead to higheraccuracy, greater efficiency, and overall a more favorable userexperience," says Sunderman. "It's night and day compared to legacysystems in terms of flexibility and ease-of-use, not to mention theconfigurations they built into the system allow businessanalyst-types to go in and manipulate the system. In the past youneeded someone with many years of IT experience, or a programmer.The basic front-end function is able to be manipulated by someonewith a limited programming background. They can go in and make thenecessary changes."

As Great American goes through integration, the carrier's ITgroup is working with Oceanwide to find a way to get automaticfeeds from the system into the claims and policy managementsystems, explains Sunderman.

"This allows us to do things more efficiently," he says. "I lookat it not as a tool to replace underwriters, but one that willenhance the underwriting experience for us. We're a specialtyinsurer so we are always looking for unique solutions for ourclients. Oceanwide has the same approach. With their system it hasallowed us to bring greater value to our agents and brokers."