High-Risk Auto Insurer Races to Implement New Policy Management System

With competition increasing for nonstandard auto risks, companies such as Chicago-based Unique Insurance are realizing that they must step up their efforts to retain their customers. For Unique Insurance, that means new policy management software.

“Our representatives will become more efficient in handling claims, our customers will be more satisfied, and, in turn, more of them will renew their policies with us,” says Unique Insurance president Matthew Dutkanych. “The software will also help us to move more quickly into other states, and into other LOBs (lines of business).”

Founded in 1996, Unique Insurance specializes in auto insurance for high-risk drivers – typically, people who have experienced several accidents in a short period of time or drive sports cars or other vehicles that don’t qualify as standard risks.

Because of advancements in assessing risk and assigning price rates, this LOB has attracted new practitioners in recent years, making customer retention all the more important to Unique.

Unique first started moving toward a Windows-based policy processing solution six years ago, using software from a different vendor. “Unfortunately, the earlier implementation didn’t meet our expectations,” Dutkanych explains. “A long, dragged out deployment wasn’t going to achieve our goals. But the lessons learned from doing this exercise led us to Insuresoft.”

The company was looking for an out-of-the-box approach, with minimal customization, that would get the company quickly up-and-running with an easy-to-use and efficient policy management system. 

In Insuresoft’s .NET-enabled software, the master data objects and user interface (UI) controls are developed and maintained in the core product, while the look and feel is user-configurable, using visual inheritance on the Winforms side and cascading stylesheets on the Web application side.

“This architecture lets Diamond support a new level of business model polymorphism by forging an all-encompassing LOB model into a customized visual presentation for each client,” says Karen Zarobsky, a project manager at Insuresoft who is handling the implementation at Unique. 

The Diamond System also uses Microsoft’s Windows Communication Foundation (WCF) as the basis for its client/business communications. “As a result, Diamond is able to handle countless client Internet and intranet topologies and to implement multiple models of user authentication and security protocols ‘out of the box,’” according to Zarobsky.

Like Unique, some of Insuresoft’s other customers are also on the automotive side of the insurance industry. Ohio-based Buckeye Insurance Group, for instance, began implementing the Diamond System in 2000. Unlike Unique, which is already a Windows shop, Buckeye needed to convert data from an IBM AS/400 midrange environment.

By the fourth quarter of 2000, Buckeye had used the 4.x release of the Diamond System to implement one LOB in three states, with four LOBs implemented during the next two years. Then, in 2007, Buckeye started utilizing the claims and billings functionality and entered four additional states. Meanwhile, it took first place for “billing” in an Ohio and Indiana PIA agent satisfaction survey as well as fifth place for “ease of doing business” and “turnaround time.” Buckeye is now implementing release 5.x – the same release being used at Unique – which adds agent browser-based Web functionality and support for Microsoft’s .NET 3.0 Framework. 

Unique Insurance likes Insuresoft’s modular approach. “The Diamond System presents a viable .NET policy processing solution that will allow us to implement as many or as few components as we like. This gives us the ability to maintain a relatively low cost of ownership while closely monitoring our need for future technology investments,” Dutkanych says.

The system is also expected to give Unique the flexibility to make quick pricing changes which reflect risk while providing highly competitive rates, Zarobsky says.

While larger insurance firms often deploy Insuresoft’s software on their own, or together with an outside systems integrator, Insuresoft usually carries out the implementation for smaller customers such as Unique. The first phase of implementation at Unique began early this year and and was completed in February. 

Unique is using the Diamond Agency Web Portal, along with the Diamond policy, user-configured rating and underwriting, and billing and claims modules. The agency Web portal can be used with either the Diamond rating and underwriting module or an existing legacy system, according to Zarobsky. 

The agency home page provides a display for the agent of all policies and quotes available to a specific user. Agents can sort by policy status, last name, first name, or policy or quote ID. Another Web page, the vehicle page, can be used to collect data about vehicles, and to add new vehicles to a particular policy.

The portal also uses XML and Web services for integration with company-specific data and business results. After enough information has been captured at Unique, the next step is to deploy Insuresoft’s SQL Server-based Diamond Data Warehouse, Zarobsky says. Ultimately, the upcoming warehouse will be used for advanced management and financial reporting. 

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