Shortly after Hallmark General Agency became a subsidiary of Hallmark Financial Services in 2002, Gregg Birdsall arrived as CIO of the parent company. One of the priorities stated to him was the need to prepare Hallmark General Agency for growth but with a modest amount of additional overhead.

HGA, a commercial lines and nonstandard auto insurer, has been using a combination of solutions on the policy side and on the claims side, but the systems did not integrate well, according to Birdsall. "We needed to be more nimble, flexible, and in control of our own destiny," he says. "As we went to change the company, we wanted to make sure we had more control and flexibility to make the changes we needed to without incurring an overhead associated with what most companies would have when they are in multistate ISO environments."

HGA leaders put in extensive time creating an RFP to develop the infrastructure for its agent portal application, along with an assessment of the company's current operating environment from the operational, underwriting, claims, and billing viewpoints. "We needed more automation at the operational level," says Birdsall. "At the same time, we needed flexibility for change."

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