Peter Logothetis has been on the job for only a few months but has set lofty goals for himself as CIO of Winterthur U.S. Holdings.

For starters, Logothetis wants to help his company enhance its competitive edge by expanding Web-based, customer-facing applications for its commercial and personal lines products and services. Second, he plans to consolidate redundant applications and move the organization to a common systems environment. His third goal is to implement best practices in IT and more efficiently and effectively run the department.

“Winterthur has made a lot of progress in IT during the last few years, and I hope to build on that,” Logothetis explains.

Based in Sun Prairie, Wis., Winterthur is a holding company for two regional insurance carriers: General Casualty (also based in Sun Prairie) and Unigard (Bellevue, Wash.). General Casualty operates in 25 states in the eastern, midwestern, and southern United States, whereas Unigard operates in seven western states. Through the two brands, the carrier provides commercial property/casualty and personal lines insurance. A subsidiary of Switzerland-based Winterthur Swiss Insurance group, Winterthur's U.S. operations recorded direct written premiums of $1.5 billion in 2005. The company employs close to 2,200 people. More than 280 work in IT, primarily in Sun Prairie, with others in Seattle, Wash., and Montgomery, Ala.

Logothetis says his interest in technology began in high school when he took a computer science class. “At that time, I had a sense of its potential power and future impact on society in general and the business world in particular,” he comments. “I thought computer technology was something different and liked it immediately.”

After earning a bachelor's degree in computer science and business from the University of Illinois in Chicago and a master's in business administration from DePaul University, Logothetis worked as a systems analyst in the IT department at a large bank in Chicago. While there, he moved up the management ranks and ran several large IT groups and key projects. After 11 years, Logothetis accepted an opportunity at CNA Insurance, where he ran multiple IT functions, including the project management office.

After eight years at CNA, Logothetis joined Kemper Insurance as director of corporate systems, including financial, human resources, marketing, and statistics/actuarial. During his five years at Kemper, he installed a new enterprise financial system and data warehouse environment. Before joining Winterthur, Logothetis was vice president of Liberty Mutual's commercial and personal lines systems and helped the company build several Web-based applications.

That experience will come in handy as Logothetis oversees initiatives to expand Web-based capabilities, using Java and .NET technology, for all of Winterthur's product lines. This multiyear initiative should make it easier for independent agents to do business with the company.

“I've met with a lot of independent agents over the years, and they tell you very directly the reason they select one company over another is based on how easy [the carrier's] systems are to use,” Logothetis says. “Commissions and relationships help, but what really matters is how easy it is for agents to do business with a particular company.”

Logothetis' first-year agenda also includes beginning to consolidate redundant applications and moving to a common systems environment. Winterthur's regional companies currently operate separate systems for commercial and personal lines, billing, and other functions. “This will help us reduce maintenance expenses and free funding for other strategic initiatives,” Logothetis notes.

By implementing best practices such as the ITIL and PMO initiatives in the IT department, Logothetis expects to run the division more efficiently. “We're trying to adopt a more agile methodology as opposed to the traditional waterfall approach,” he says. “This also should help us build new capabilities in our project management office, quality assurance, and security and compliance functions.”

In addition, Logothetis is looking at predictive modeling applications to help the company more effectively mine data.

As someone who has been passionate about the power of technology since he was a teenager, Logothetis has tried to instill his enthusiasm for the field in other young students at DePaul, where he has been a part-time IT instructor since 1980.

“Computers have such a great impact, whether it's in insurance, education, medicine–pick your favorite area,” he concludes. “The opportunities in this industry are tremendous.”

Special Reports /

Winterthur U.S. Holdings' Peter Logothetis

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