Lone Star Solution

Normally, keeping track of business operations in one particular state doesn't sound like an especially difficult proposition. But if the state is the size of Texas and it's the only state in which a carrier writes personal lines coverage, the job becomes tougher. Such was the challenge facing Germania Insurance, according to Debby Nichols, manager of business intelligence. "We wanted to take our book of business and see where our concentration was," she explains.

Germania, with headquarters in Brenham, Tex., looked at a couple of solution providers. It took about three months from the time Germania wrote an RFP to when the vendors answered how their products worked in relation to the insurer's needs. "We saw MapInfo was going to do what we needed," says Nichols. "We also spoke with other companies that use [MapInfo] and decided that's where we wanted to go."

The Germania IT staff was able to handle the installation, Nichols reports, with minimal assistance from the vendor, which recommended only minor changes. MapInfo helped in the training program with a one-week training session.

Putting the product to use, Shelley Orsak, data requirements analyst for Germania, works with data, normally within a spreadsheet, she receives from business users and with the MapInfo systems. She runs the spreadsheets through MapInfo, tying the data to a table. "Sometimes we have to build queries and make a file for our AS400 system, bring that into MapInfo, and build a table off that," she says.

Business users have had a positive reaction regarding how MapInfo has assisted them, Nichols attests. "If you take a spreadsheet, you really can't see what you've got. But if you can place some of this [same] information on a map, you can see what's going on in certain areas–how much you've got here, what we have for property business compared with auto business, where we need to limit our concentration, or where the areas are in which we don't have any business," she says.

The mapping solution allows Germania to identify where the carrier's agents are located, Nichols notes. "This helps us determine where we want new agents," she says. The same holds true for the carrier's marketing representatives through-out the state. "This helps us see where they are located and where we need to disperse them to help the agents," she continues. "We try to get the agent closest to [insureds] so they can get the best possible service."

Germania also uses the system to track catastrophes coming through the state, such as Hurricane Rita, which struck the Gulf Coast in October 2005. "We track our concentration [of policies] to assess what kind of potential risk we have in that CAT area," says Nichols. After catastrophes occur, Germania uses MapInfo to assist claims adjusters in the inspection of damaged property. "We can see where the property is, give certain policies to [particular] adjusters, and keep them in one specific area," she says. In addition, Germania has called on MapInfo capabilities to conduct some territorial analysis for its personal auto line. "It helps us determine whether we need to split our territories to better provide rates in specific areas," explains Nichols.

Germania is considering going to a Web-based version of the MapInfo products to allow business users more access within the company, Nichols reveals. "We have quite a few people who would like to use it," she says. Currently, Germania is licensing the system to a specific number of desktops.

The heaviest business use remains in the area of policy concentration, states Nichols, which was not accessed easily before. The software allows Germania to establish a business plan by determining locations where it writes a lot of homeowners' coverage and where the carrier needs to build some business so exposure can be more even. "It helps us in ways we never had before," she concludes. "A spreadsheet doesn't do it compared with seeing everything on a map."