2012 Insurance IT All-Stars: Peter Moreau, Amica Insurance

Peter Moreau, vice president and CIO for Amica Insurance, has risen through the technical ranks in an IT career that started following his graduation from college. His technical background made new technology initiatives exciting for him, but as he has matured into an IT leader so has his focus.

Today, Moreau's excitement comes from creating a shared vision with Amica's business leaders and developing a plan that will fulfill that vision.

“Laying out the roadmap and seeing that plan come to fruition is exciting,” he says. “It changes your focus because most of what I need to do as CIO is coordinate resources and use them in a fashion that will benefit our policyholders. As a mutual company, we're in business to serve our policyholders. Everything we do—the timeframes we take to do it, how much we spend—is focused on making sure it is beneficial to our policyholders.”

Amica built its policy system from scratch using mainframe technology, and the system has been in place for over 30 years.

“It is a highly functional system,” says Moreau, “but has become more difficult to manage from a skill-set perspective. Universities are not producing Assembler or COBOL developers these days.”

(Read more about all our 2012 Insurance IT All-Stars: Thad DeBerry, Rich Pederson, Rick Roy, and Bryan Fowler.)

Amica's business leaders also sought increased functionality that, Moreau explains, would be best served from some of the newer systems available in the software solution marketplace. Amica chose the Guidewire systems, first with ClaimCenter, which they began with in 2005, and now with PolicyCenter.

“We completed a project called the Electronic Claims File which took a paper-driven claims process and automated the flow of information as well as the documents,” says Moreau. “That was our first major modernization project. Following that we began to assess our policy systems to see where we would go with those.”

The older Amica systems had been continually enhanced over the years, according to Moreau.

“Typically, we would add new function without taking a holistic view of the whole application flow,” he says. “The system has become difficult to use and it is hard to train people, so some of the drivers from the business view were to shrink training time and improve the ease-of-use of the system. From an IT perspective, the goals are related to skills advancement and systems knowledge transfer.  Moving our staff from legacy languages and processes to modern languages and agile methodologies better positions us to support these systems going forward where training and new skills are being driven. It's given us a chance to take a fresh look at the applications and skill sets—build them out on a modern technology framework.”

The newer systems give Amica a better perspective on the future, explains Moreau.

“Our older systems served us well but had the potential to hamper us from going forward,” he says. “Now we are putting foundational pieces in place that not only support our internal customers, but also support our customers on the website and mobile applications. We are putting things in place that will take us where we need to go in the next five to 10 years.”

As for future business plans, Moreau explains Amica is still formulating its mobile strategy. The initial focus of the carrier's mobile apps was on claims reporting with a few side benefits.

“We also launched a mobile website enabling some key transactions such as bill pay and ID cards formatted for the smaller user interface of a smartphone,” he says. “A key thing is that we are still tying back to our existing systems to support [mobility]. We do the integration work so the data and functionality go back into the core system. That positions us well going forward to support what our customers are expecting. They want the same level of service whether on the phone or on the web or on a mobile device.”

With a strong technology background, Moreau felt he needed a better grasp of the business side to be able to participate and add value to the conversations as he moved up in the management ranks. He achieved the CPCU designation to get a better understanding of how insurance companies operate and earned an MBA to obtain general business knowledge that went deeper into finance and leadership skills.

“Amica supported me throughout those efforts,” he says. “The company puts a heavy focus on developing employees. If you have a good employee base and treat them well, customer service is born out of that, especially for a direct writer.”

The biggest concern Moreau has for the future involves where Amica—and other insurance carriers—are getting future IT workers.

“If you look at the universities and who is graduating in the disciplines we focus on—more of IT with a business slant—the number of students has shrunk over the years.” he says. “And the competition between businesses for those students has been and will continue to be heavy. We are feeling it a little bit now, but I don't see it clearing for the future.  That's a concern shared by many CIOs.”

In recent years, Amica has addressed the issue by working with local schools and running an internship program, which is how the carrier traditionally gets many of its new hires. Amica brings in students in the summer before their senior year and works with them throughout the year.

The concern is heightened by what Moreau and others are calling the greying of IT.

“It will be a challenging time, but I believe we have the right management team in place, and our staff is receptive to the variety of alternative staffing options we are deploying to support all the projects we have on our plate,” he says.

An inside look . . . Peter Moreau

Peter Moreau started with Amica out of college, 26 years ago. He began his career in the technical services area, doing jobs such as mainframe systems support and networking.

“I focused more on technology and less on business applications early in my career,” he says.

Moreau moved into various levels of management—project management, team management, overseeing development areas—right up to his current role of CIO, where he landed two years ago.

Amica Insurance is a mutual company and a direct writer of personal lines products, licensed in 49 states. Moreau oversees 290 people in the IT department. The company operates 39 branch offices around the country, but all of the IT operations are run out of the carrier's home office in Lincoln, Rhode Island.

Frank Petersmark, CIO advocate for X By 2, had this to say about Peter Moreau: Peter Moreau has seen the good, the bad, and the ugly during his 25 years at Amica Insurance.  A veteran of the myriad of IT trends during this period, Peter has effectively guided Amica through the most relevant of trends for all insurers—legacy modernization.  The heartbeat of any insurance company is its core processing and Peter has kept Amica's eye on that ball.  Appointed as CIO in 2010, Peter has guided Amica through this modernization cycle, thus positioning the organization for continued competitive advantage in its markets.