New Products Bring Rating Systems Into The Computer Age

Quoting insurance premiums is no longer a labor-intensive process that has to be done in an agent or insurer office using mountains of dog-eared looseleaf manuals. Recent rating innovations take full advantage of software and the Internet, so agents can develop quotes anywhere they can use a computer.

A number of new products and product enhancements have been introduced within the past six months or so. Some of the rating tools described are part of policy management systems that provide many other functions in addition to rating.

Atlatl Inc. is a Durham, N.C.-based personal lines rating specialist, according to chief executive officer Duke Williams. “Insurance companies provide our product to their agents so the agents can give clients the correct price at the time of sale,” said Mr. Williams. He noted that the companys Point of Sale rating product, available in Web-based and software versions, can be used by agents to quote personal lines coverages including auto, homeowners and watercraft.

The recent enhancements to the Atlatl product include the ability to use CLUE (Comprehensive Loss Underwriting Exchange), credit and motor vehicle reports in the rating process, Mr. Williams noted.

The ability to “reconcile” state-specific variations in data provided by these reports is a key feature, he added. Mr. Williams gave as an example of such variation a North Carolina motor vehicle violation known as “scratching off,” which is basically accelerating too quickly from a standing start. “As that precise violation may exist in no other state, our product would map to comparable violations in other states,” Mr. Williams explained.

“Prices [for the software] range from about $75,000 to $250,000 for coding a state based on the insurance company's rules, with discounts available for additional states,” noted Mr. Williams. “This is an end-to-end system that quotes, issues policies, archives and performs many other functions in addition to rating, he added.

AQS Inc.'s core rating solution, V3Galileo, is a “full commercial policy administration package, including rating and processing of new business, renewals, cancellations, endorsements, and other transactions,” said Conrad Garvey, vice president of sales of the Hartland, Wis.-based company.

The rating function uses Insurance Services Office rates and deviations, and also rates for specialty lines, said Mr. Garvey. He pointed out that the system can be tailored to meet the requirements of a carrier's agency force.

In the last six months, AQS has been concentrating on getting additional commercial insurance lines up and running. Virtually all commercial business lines in all states are now part of the system's automated workflow process, Mr. Garvey noted.

The product is priced on a per line, per state basis, with additional charges for customization, he added. No pricing numbers were provided.

Policy STAR, developed by Fiserv Advanced Insurance Solutions in West Des Moines, Iowa, is currently in beta testing with its first insurance company clients, noted Anne Fawley, director of marketing communications. “It is a complete Web-enabled policy administration system, including a rating engine,” she said.

She explained that the insurer enters its own rates and rating plans for any property-casualty line of business, and the system can then rate and issue policies, as well as process policy amendments, cancellations and renewals.

Price is of the product based on the amount of direct premium processed through the system, Ms. Fawley indicated. No price range was given.

Garvin-Allen Solutions Limited, based in Halifax, Nova Scotia, produces the Advanced Insurance System, an “all-policy solution” that includes a rating front-end, according to Rob Ivimey, president of the company.

The AIS product concentrates on specialty lines, including agricultural, farmowners and marine pollution written by insurers and managing general agents. Pet insurance and lawyers' professional liability is being added to that mix, Mr. Ivimey noted.

Other recent additions to AIS are an all-lines underwriting module and a workflow process. “Workflow allows the agent to electronically route all electronic documents, such as from rating to application to submission to underwriter. Documents can then be automatically sent back to the agent. The procedure varies depending on the type of routing desired,” Mr. Ivimey explained.

Prices for AIS start at $15,000.

IBQ Systems, based in Chelan, Wash., has a product called Q-Rater, which recently added all personal lines coverages and endorsements to its “complete online processing system,” noted Bruce Hopkins, vice president of business development. In addition, on the commercial side, automobile and businessowners coverages have been added.

Q-Rater also incorporates ChoicePoint solutions, including CLUE reports and the ability to obtain information on all licensed drivers at a certain location, along with data on vehicles (including vehicle identification numbers) at the location.

Prices charged to an insurer for Q-Rater start at $35,000 for auto and homeowners in one state, and $7,500 for each additional state. There is another pricing model for agencies, which pay $50 per month per carrier.

InsBridge Inc., based in Plano, Texas, is scheduled to release a new rating product, PricingManager, in the fourth quarter of 2003, according to vice president of sales Tom Mant.

PricingManager is a rating and underwriting “what-if” tool, notes a product description submitted by Mr. Mant. It permits insurers to test the impact of multiple complex rating and underwriting rules changes before those changes go into production. The price of the product has yet to be finally determined.

InsBridge all-lines rating products, already on the market, facilitate the creation and management of rating and underwriting logic without any programming, Mr. Mant noted.

Hartford, Conn.-based Insurity builds specialized policy processing systems for the insurance industry, said Dave Pedersen, vice president of sales.

Recent innovations of Insurity's Intellisys product include incorporating more underwriting controls into the rating process to determine pricing tiers, Mr. Pedersen noted. “For example, for auto and homeowners, the MVR, CLUE report and credit score can be factored into the final pricing.”

Insurity's parent is Alpharetta, Ga.-based ChoicePoint, which produces the CLUE reports. “We provide the data and the customer [insurer] determines how these reports are to be used and weighted,” Mr. Pedersen pointed out.

He said that prices start in the $100,000 range and can go into the millions, depending on number of states, lines of business, degree of automation and other factors.

SurePower 2000 is the Internet-enabled property-casualty insurance processing system of ISCS Inc., based in San Jose, Calif.

“Recent modifications in personal lines include rating online through Web-based input of client information,” noted Andy Scurto, ISCS president and chief technology officer. “Once the data is input, it can be underwritten and quoted by multiple carriers and managing general agents.” For commercial coverages, there is no underwriting and the agent can quote one company at a time, he added.

Cost depends on the many modules available and what functionsincluding claims, accounts receivable processing or full policy management turnkey solutionsare purchased, according to Mr. Scurto. He said prices start at about $150,000 for a base module.

New York City-based P & C Insurance Systems Inc. specializes in workers' compensation and surety bond rating, said Georgette Loizou, director of business development. “These are full-blown transactional systems that perform many functions relating to policy administration,” she noted. Clients include carriers and managing general agents.

The MPS Workers Comp product rates workers' comp for all 50 states, including guaranteed cost, retrospective and large-deductible policies, and even adds in the experience modification, according to Ms. Loizou.

“We recently added multiple rating tiers to the system, and on the pricing side, a money-back guarantee,” she said. “About three months ago, we started permitting smaller clients to have a 'pay as you go' pricing model, where they can pay an initial fee and then have monthly installments over a five-year period.”

There is also an up-front payment model, with a licensing fee depending on number of users and states. Ms. Loizou mentioned a $250,000 licensing fee, but stressed that the exact amount of the fee is highly dependent on what is being purchased.

R. L. Polk & Co. is a Southfield, Mich.-based provider of vehicle information used in the rating process. Account director Kevin Beasley describes the company's CVINA software as “the next generation of vehicle identification number decoding and rating.

“CVINA has powerful VIN verification and correction logic that allows it to detect transposition errors and other errors such as a zero being used instead of the letter “O,” or the number one instead of the letter “l,” Mr. Beasley noted. “It can be used in the rating of cars, trucks, motorcycles, trailers and other vehicles.”

Mr. Beasley added that CVINA uses ISO rating symbols and includes many types of vehicle-specific data, including gross vehicle weight and manufacturer's suggested retail price for medium and heavy trucks. “For insurers that don't use ISO symbols, Polk can tailor a version with company-specific rating symbols,” Mr. Beasley pointed out.

“Price depends on the number of users,” Mr. Beasley explained. “A price range would be $15,000 to $50,000 annually, which includes updates and customer support.”

Toronto, Ontario, Canada-based Tritech Financial Systems produces GIMS (General Insurance Management System), a rating engine for commercial and personal lines. In addition to rating, the system performs many other policy-related functions, such as underwriting, billing and claims management.

Kirk Symons, a spokesperson for Stargate Solutions, Tritech's U.S. sales representative, noted that the rate builder tool “allows insurance companies to manage their own rate revisions within established lines of business without any programming changes.

“Adding new lines of business can be accomplished with only minor programming changes, which are usually limited to creation of new screens,” added Mr. Symons.

Pricing of the GIMS product is based on a “needs analysis,” said Mr. Symons. He noted that a client that recently signed on paid $1.2 million for the complete package, of which $500,000 was a licensing fee. Purchasers can “turn off” features they don't want and receive corresponding price reductions, he added.

Reproduced from National Underwriter Property & Casualty/Risk & Benefits Management Edition, July 28, 2003. Copyright 2003 by The National Underwriter Company in the serial publication. All rights reserved.Copyright in this article as an independent work may be held by the author.

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New Products Bring Rating Systems Into The Computer Age

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