2012 Insurance IT All-Stars: Thad DeBerry, Western World Insurance

Thad DeBerry is excited about the future of insurance technology because of the many opportunities that exist.

“There is so much untapped opportunity right now to improve the business,” says DeBerry, senior vice president and CIO of Western World Insurance Group. “Maybe more than anything else in the last couple of years, technology has the ability to transform an organization and change its future like nothing else. Having the ability to make and see that kind of impact and drive a company forward through growth and reach a new level of profitability is pretty exciting.”

Technology also brings with it huge challenges, according to DeBerry.

“Things are changing so rapidly, so taking that rapid technological change and applying it to real-world insurance solutions is a huge challenge,” he says. “There are cultural issues as well. Some segments of the insurance industry are staid and steeped in tradition, so it's a challenge to break through that.”

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

A carrier's integration of third-party data and services is the next big frontier in terms of the competitive space for excess and surplus lines (E&S) insurers such as Western World, explains DeBerry.

“We're trying to make a transaction seamless and encompass all the functions to make the transaction complete—from inspections to getting third-party data for vehicles or property, all the way through auto processing,” he says. “There is a lot of opportunity to make things more seamless and bring all the data onto one platform.”

Surplus lines typically falls behind the curve when it comes to technology, which DeBerry attributes to the nature of the business.

“It's not easy to plug something in and have it work,” he says.

Western World has been around for nearly half a century, but it was only four years ago that the carrier determined that change was in order.

“In 2008 we looked at the surplus lines marketplace and Western World's place in it,” says DeBerry. “What was fascinating about the detailed report we prepared was that one of the biggest drivers for where people place business through a wholesale distributor is ease of use. That's something that was never really considered, certainly for Western World and by and large for the entire surplus lines industry.”

Western World started on a technology upgrade and integration was one of the major keys to the project, according to DeBerry. In 2010, the carrier implemented the Western World Integrated Platform, a full-functioning underwriting guide with rules, rates, rate-quote-bind-issue, endorsements, renewals, and a portal for wholesale agents, which allows some of the functionality to be extended to their retail agents and even to insureds.

“When we built this, integration was the key,” he says. “We've got hooks into every underwriting function where we can expose our functionality through web services. It's seamless where our rating or our policy issuance can be dropped into an MGA's environment so they can leverage the maintenance we are doing and the logic that we've put together.”

The carrier also built in some upload/download of data into some of the common agency management systems, which DeBerry points out is more typical for admitted lines carriers than for those operating in surplus lines.

“Straight-through processing is something that admitted carriers have been much further along with for years,” he says. “We were able to bring a lot of that functionality and ease-of-use into the non-admitted world.”

Flexibility is the key to the new system, explains DeBerry. Western World built in the ability for MGA underwriters or Western World's underwriters to customize by risk and built the workflow around that.

For the most part, Western World built the new platform internally. A key to the platform's success was the amount of time DeBerry and the company's lead underwriter spent upfront talking with MGAs and working on the design. 

“We did a fairly extensive look at the vendor marketplace and there just wasn't anything that had the specific needs we were looking for,” said DeBerry, citing integration, underwriting, and the flexibility that the carrier required.

DeBerry, like many IT leaders, is concerned with the future management of the IT operation.

“Are there enough people to assume seats at the head of the table when it comes to technology and the insurance industry?” he asks “There are tremendous opportunities and a big need for us to prepare the next generation. Finding people who have enough of that technology experience and marry it with the business is hard to do. We're forced to change our resource pool a bit where the business analyst role is growing out of necessity. A lot of organizations are going that way.”

An inside look . . .

Thad DeBerry went to college to study business and it was his father that convinced him that computers were the way of the future. So DeBerry went to the Chubb Institute to learn the IT ropes.

“It was a great place to go to get started with a career,” he says.

DeBerry ended up in the insurance sector for all but two years of his business career. He was with Everson National when the CIO of Western World Insurance Group retired and DeBerry was selected as his replacement in May of 2003.

Western World is an E&S insurer operating in 48 states. The carrier also has a commercial auto book of business that it writes in 28 states.

“It was an interesting opportunity with an interesting organization,” said DeBerry.

Matt Josefowicz, partner and managing director of Novarica, had this to say about DeBerry:

“Thad DeBerry's work at Western World Insurance Group exemplifies the strong impact that technology can have on distribution and growth, even in unusual lines like E&S. The investment in agent/broker experience that Thad has driven over the past several years by integrating all new business and underwriting functions into a unified best-of-breed application has paid huge dividends in terms of increased business volume, tighter relationships, and even attracting new distribution partners to this midsize specialty insurer. Thad continues to innovate the agent experience, expanding his e-business system to iPads in 2011, and exploring additional ways to leverage third-party data to streamline the new business process.”