The biggest epithet (and sometimes epitaph) in insurancetechnology is undoubtedly “legacy.” Older systems needtechnologists who understand that technology rather than a staffthat sees the future of insurance in a different light.

While putting together his IT department at Torus in 2009, TorusAmericas CIO Justin Manley didn't have the constraints that many ofhis competitors face. Add in the fact that his bosses at Torus“always go after the best people,” according to Manley, and thestart-up company was able to lift the shackles off his IT team.

“One of the things I tried to do is not constrain myself byfocusing only on this [insurance] sector,” says Manley. “I lookedfor people in adjacent markets—financial services—where certaintechnical experiences could map well to what we were doing.”

Manley himself learned his trade in other markets. He began his20-plus years career in technology in the telecom industry beforemoving into financial services—but not insurance. He moved into theinsurance industry eight years ago.

“We were charged [at Torus] with building a 21st centuryinsurance company,” he says. “We did not hire people to build alegacy insurance company. I've been building consumerapplications—web-based, thoughtfully designed, straight-throughprocessing with minimal human contact if possible. That's wherewe've leveraged IT a lot to allow for traditional underwriting tooccur with focus and precision and not necessarily incredible humangrowth. We've been able to grow our top line by allowing computersto do things they might not have done in days gone by.”

Two of Manley's hires came to Torus from JetBlue where theymanaged the low-fare airline's online reservation system.

“They are very heavy in the technology we are using,” saysManley. “I look for hunger in people that have been in a positionfor a while but aspire to go higher and grow. If you are willing topay the right price you can find anybody.”

One of the challenges of being a CIO with a specialty commerciallines carrier is that it's difficult to achieve growth ascompetitors go after each other's customers. To make Torus standout, Manley believes the systems should enhance the nuances inunderwriting for all the different lines the carrier offers.

“We try to minimize the divergence of code and rules and theneed to have a system for every single line of business,” he says.We are trying to maintain the architecture where we have a carrierlayer, a line layer, and a product specific layer. Because westarted from scratch we established principles: One is the data isking, and the other is integration is the queen.”

All of the systems and transactions from a financial perspectiveare the same, explains Manley. There is a set of data that thecarrier captures and with the hub in the middle there is nopoint-to-point integration between any systems.

“Our claims system does not have any integration with the policysystem nor does finance,” he says. “It all goes through the middle.That minimizes number of interfaces and the complexity and allowsfor a growing carrier to not be inhibited by the growth of a policyadministration system if you need to get into a niche business atan accelerated rate of time. The definition of getting the datafrom that system to any other system is a defined interface. It hasallowed us to grow. All the systems get their data from thehub.”

In his work with Torus, Manley is most proud of the Escapebroker portal the carrier built in 2010 using Duck Creek (nowAccenture) software.

“We focused on usability and design,” he says. “When a broker isputting together a package for the insured they make sure all thecoverages are there. One of the last things they do is to get aquote.”

Torus looked at what its leading competitors were doing andtried to put together a better system.

“It could take you 12 minutes to get through that competitivesystem and brokers were asked a lot of questions that had nothingto do with rating,” says Manley. “You had to answer all kinds ofquestions before going into what a lot of people call the serviceblack hole.”

Manley's developers focused on how peopleinteract, the questions that are most important for rating andunderwriting, and getting brokers a price right away.

“That's what they want,” he says. “The moment [the transaction]falls out of the underwriting box, tell them. If you are not themarket for [the broker's needs], tell them. Respect that they aretrying to do business.”

Torus got its system down to four minutes, explains Manley, andone way it did so was by making an asynchronous call back to theserver and checking the underwriting rules and rating alongside theuser even as one question was being answered and the next questionwas being considered.

Also, if the transaction falls back to a referral, there is a UIindication that pops up and tells the broker that their answer willcause a referral.

“In other systems, you are locked and can't change your answer,”Manley says. “You can accidentally click the wrong answer and thesystems lock up. Our system allows you to make that change.”

Torus married the technology experience with the humanexperience, explains Manley. If a referral is made, brokers oftendon't hear back from the carrier for two or three days.

“The deal could be done by that point,” he says.

Torus has a 24-hour time frame to get back to the broker alongwith live chat functionality that has boosted a huge pickup rate,according to Manley.

The portal has been in place for three years, but Manley pointsout that the carrier is never satisfied with the performance.

“We built a software development team with over a dozen peoplededicated to the system and adding features,” he says. “When welaunched in 2010, it didn't have all the features we wanted. Likeall IT projects, it had the iron triangle of time, cost, andfunctionality.”

Torus worked a lot with brokers in the market and soft launchedthe portal even though it was only about 80 percent completed.

“We and allowed brokers to give us feedback,” says Manley. “Weknew what we wanted to do with the last 20 percent, but we wantedto make sure we had the priorities right. We were not building asystem for us, we were building it for brokers and we let themguide that last 20 percent. We've been refining and adjusting eversince. We're never done; it's always evolving.”