Once upon a time, business solutions were known as IT solutions, technology was deemed too difficult for business users to understand, and the technology staff would tell department heads what the business users needed to gain more efficiency. Then came IT governance. Today, as governance matures, insurers find greater efficiencies and more controls are improving company performance and allowing business users to tell IT what is needed to make the business purr.

The pendulum had swung too far to the IT side of the house prior to IT governance initiatives, points out Bob Goldberg, CIO of Colorado Farm Bureau Insurance. "IT was implementing projects the business wasn't willing to support," he says. "They were IT initiatives, not business initiatives."

The control requirements for IT were not as stringent five years ago as they are today, according to Cynthia Saccocia, research area director with TowerGroup's insurance practice. Regulation has forced the business' hand on some of those controls. "As you started to peel back layers of exposure within an organization, the company began to uncover exposures in the technology areas," she says. "Now, governance has forced some things into IT that may not have been present in the past–better documentation and better controls."