Going with the Flow

You dont need a crystal ball to see carriers are moving toward Web services, and Providence Wash-ington Insurance, a Rhode Island-based property/casualty insurer, recognized the inevitability. Ed Leveille, vice president, systems, and CIO for Providence Washington, says, Looking into the future, you could see our business moving toward Web services with our business partners as wellboth our independent agents and organizations such as IVANS and Dun & Bradstreet.

Providence Washington didnt feel building its own integration system would be the best course, so the company met with consultant Gartner to plan out a course of action. Over a span of about 12 months, Providence Washington used a search committee made up almost entirely of information services staff members and narrowed the field to three or four vendors, according to Leveille. Eventually the decision was made to choose Metaserver and its Business Process Integration (BPI) software known as P/C Carrier Integration Solution.

We chose Metaserver for three reasons, says Leveille. The transformation and load component was fairly strong in comparing it to the competition. The user interface for building the process flows through the various components and was very strong. Last, the ROI, based on our figures, was going to be very short with the Metaserver solution as opposed to the other vendors.

Accepting real-time electronic transactions from the companys independent agents can now be accomplished, thanks to the use of the Internet. This makes life easier for the information services people at Providence Washington, but Leveille claims the business side of the carrier drove the project. It was a business decision, he says. The business folks who work in conjunction with the agents felt the need to get these personal lines transactions done electronically versus the old way of faxing them in to the home office.

Leveille believes there have been two significant advantages to the new system. It has to do with quicker turnaround times, he says. The second was it was going to save a lot of effort on the agents side.

He points out this is not strictly a deal between Providence Washington and Metaserver, though. We also partnered with IVANS [using Transformation Station] and Software AG [using its database as a repository for transactions].

There are four pieces to the puzzle, says Leveille. They are all working nicely together. We started the first installation in September, and we should have this in pilot by the end of February, which I think is pretty quick.

The IVANS Transformation Station system has been especially valuable, according to Leveille. Its one of the easiest ways for us to get the data from the agents, he says. Providence Washington has approximately 500 independent agents it works with.

Getting any new system ready for operation is a challenge, particularly in the translation of XML into Providence Washingtons proprietary language. Its more of a business problem than a tool problem, Leveille says. Some of my people didnt know the needs of the legacy system as well as they should havemore codes, there was missing data.

Thanks to Internet technology, the cost of the BPI system was fairly minimal, according to Leveille, although he declined to discuss exact figures. The big savings on our part is we should have fewer data-entry people to physically enter the data, he says.

Having to deal with so many organizations has been a challenge for Leveille. With so many hands in the pot, amazingly we still have been able to stay so close to the original target dates, he says. I have a hard time staying that close to a project date internally. To do that with four different companies is amazing.

The goal for Providence Washington was to grow its business by making it easier for independent agents to work with the carrier. This will be accomplished by simplifying procedures, reducing the time it takes to issue policies, and improving customer service, according to Leveille. This addresses our need to create a flexible environment and provide opportunities to strengthen key agency relationships.

CaseFile
The Challenge: Determining the best strategy for integrating components.
THE COMPANY: Providence Washington Insurance
NET WRITTEN PREMIUM: $230 million
WEB SITE: www.provwash.com

The SOLUTION: P/C Carrier Integration Solution from Metaserver
WEB SITE: www.metaserver.com