A glimpse inside the personal technology arsenal and strategiesthat empower todays leading insurance IT professionals.

BY G. BARRY KLEIN, CPCU, CLU

William Siegle
ACE-INA
Chief Information Officer

It clearly has been the highlight of my career, says BillSiegle, chief information officer of ACE-INA Holdings, describinghis role in the evolution of the venerable Insurance Company ofNorth America (INA) through several incarnations into what now isACE-INA.

In 1978, Siegle joined INA, one of the worlds largestproperty/casualty insurers at that time, in Philadelphia. It was agreat place to learn systems development, Siegle recalls. He wentto work as a systems designer in INAs data center. It was a verylarge data center, very cutting edge, and run by some verytop-notch people. He steadily moved up the ranks, and by 1990, hewas heading up all commercial lines systems.
Along the way, Hartford-based Connecticut General (CG) and INAdecided to merge. Combining all their initials (and many of theiroperations) in 1983, they became CIGNA, a major player in theemployee benefits and property/casualty markets. In 1991, Sieglemoved over to CIGNA International, becoming its chief informationofficer in 1993 and beginning a long period of extensive foreigntravel. CIGNA had operations in such far-flung places as Singapore,Australia, Japan, and Brazil.

Then, in 1999, CIGNA decided to exit the P&C business tofocus on its core health insurance (HMO) operations. It struck adeal to sell the INA operations to ACE Limited, a relatively newBermuda-based insurer. ACE was formed in 1986 to provide excessliability products, and the company grew rapidly through newproducts and several acquisitions, Siegle continues. It really wasa very unusual situation. Here you had a highly entrepreneurial15-year-old company with 700 employees buying a much larger210-year-old company with 9,000 employees. Siegle was given theopportunity to join the new ACE-INA as its first CIO.

Taking a Deep Breath

The decision might have been easy, but the transformation intothe newest incarnation of INA wasnt. INAs data center and core ITsupport functions, which by then had been integrated into CIGNAsshared-services model, were staying with CIGNA. ACE-INA could havebought services from CIGNA or set up all new operations. Instead,ACE-INA decided to go in a different direction. We took a deepbreath, he says, and we signed a multiyear agreement with IBMGlobal Services. Basically, we outsourced all our U.S. IToperations.

In retrospect, Siegle maintains the outsourcing decision was theright one. In addition to enabling us to achieve major costreductions, it allowed us to focus on our insurance business, notour IT operations, he says.

IT was only one of many areas where we made major decisionsduring the 1999 to 2000 time frame as ACE was integrating the INAacquisition, he adds. A lot of new underwriting talent joined thecompany, and we entered many new areas of insurance. Today, ACE-INAfocuses on writing many specialized insurance products, primarilycommercial coverages placed through brokers.

Although Siegle has been steeped in technology for a couple ofdecades, he began his professional life as an accountant. Born andraised in Philadelphia, he graduated from La Salle University in1971 and joined what now is Deloitte & Touche, auditingfinancial institutions and other large businesses. He quickly movedinto auditing IT operations after joining Girard Bank, which laterbecame Mellon Bank.

Tools Always Ready

Helping him to stay on top of the twists and turns of a dynamicjob are a couple of heavily used tools. I absolutely never goanywhere without my Thinkpad and my BlackBerry, he asserts. I usethe same machine, with a docking station at the office andbroadband at home, so I have everything I need, both business andpersonal, always with me.

Im very focused on our business operations and how technologycan help us improve our operations and our bottom line, he says. Hecites as examples several Internet-based applications beingdeveloped throughout ACEs global operations to aid the underwritingand acquisition processes. We had to concentrate on the integrationand establishing technology fundamentals in the first few years ofthe new company. Now we are [targeting] those applications thatreally can make a difference in our business.

Intently focusing on meeting the challenges of continual change,Siegle admits one of his frustrations is he really doesnt have thetime to play with technology to the extent he would like,describing himself as being much more of a user than a tinkerer.Nevertheless, its that very focus that may help ACE-INA to enterits next incarnation as a player in the global insurancemarketplace.