The policy, claims, and billing systems migration project at Grange began when Carlile first arrived. Two years into development, however, the project was put on hold after Carlile realized the application it was using was not as mature as he originally thought. The project was resurrected about a year ago with help from Insuresoft, a spin-off of Applied Systems.

Grange is rolling out the new system for personal auto in phases. Migration of policies in Idaho already is complete. Policies in Wyoming and Colorado will be migrated by the end of summer, followed by Washington, Oregon, and California.

In addition to improving efficiency and reducing costs, moving to a Microsoft-based client/server environment helps Grange attract experienced Microsoft developers and technicians. “We're located in Microsoft's backyard, and this will make it easier for us to hire employees with those skill sets,” Carlile notes.

A client/server-based environment also gives Grange a better capability to move forward with its IT projects.

“We are looking at rapid development and implementation of additional Web services, and a client/server environment provides a cleaner and easier path in that area,” Carlile says. “As we become more involved with object-oriented development programming, we'll be able to push the envelope more.”

That push includes finalizing the other projects such as the upload initiative, in which agents can upload applications directly into Grange's system, and the download project, which will allow agents to enter data transactions into their own agency management systems. Both projects are in various rollout stages.

“If we can't adapt easily to the changing needs of our agents through Web services and connectivity into our company, then we're not going to be competitive in the future,” Carlile remarks. “We want to be in a position where we at least can have parity with the larger insurance companies.”

Grange also is creating a multitier rating system for its auto and home policies and completing the implementation of an end-to-end business intelligence and data warehousing solution that allows employees to access data and analyze business trends.

Before Grange could move forward with any of these projects, however, Carlile says the carrier had to undergo significant change management and reengineer its business processes.

“We have been making fairly rapid progress in transforming the technology here,” Carlile acknowledges. “But that change in culture takes a lot of time and effort. Our challenge has been in keeping the business expectations and the applications expectations in alignment.”

Once the Big Five projects are complete, Carlile and his team will move on to other initiatives, including revisiting the benefits of speech recognition technology–Grange was a beta tester for Microsoft's Speech Server software–and working with Microsoft on its Insurance Value Chain initiative to provide straight-through processing for insurance on the Microsoft platform.