The New Rules for Implementing a Policy Admin System

As seen in the July/August issue of Insurance Networking News by Mike Hernandez, Marketing Director of Insuresoft.

Insuresoft, a leading provider of insurance software, understands that insurance carriers of all sizes are facing IT decisions with a strange, unfamiliar set of rules attached-a budget. With this in mind, Insuresoft has positioned its product and service offerings to reflect this paradigm shift. While highly customizable systems can still be developed for any size carrier, the decision between going with an out-of-the-box system vs. creating an expensive, customized, lengthy in-house system has been trending toward implementing a pre-configured system especially during these budget conscious econmic times we are facing. Insuresoft has had implementations of its flagship policy admin system, The Diamond System, take as little as 90 days, resulting in the delivery of a fully functional policy administration system that includes underwriting, billing, rating, and claims.

GHS Property and Casualty Insurance Company based in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma recently faced a similar situation and successfully implemented Insuresoft's Diamond System.

The Diamond System is a fully automated and integrated policy processing system for both personal and commercial insurance carriers. It is a scalable, reliable, and cost-effective solution for carrying out all business-critical insurance processing functions. Its out-of-the-box approach to policy administration makes it an attractive and cost appealing option for carriers of all sizes.

"At the end of the day, the out-of-the-box offering that The Diamond System provided made the most sense for us," said GHS Accounting Manager Brandye McCart, "Diamond turned out to be one of the most complete policy admin systems available on the market."

In addition to GHS realizing the economic benefits that Diamond provided during implementation, GHS also rolled out the The Diamond System in a hosted environment through Insuresoft's collocation services agreement with AT&T. A cost effective and flexible option for customers, Insuresoft's hosted solution (ASP) assigns the optimal bandwidth that is needed to support network traffic and provides the optimal environment for the use of Insuresoft's Web tools.

"Diamond addressed all of our key requirements by demonstrating configurable product design and intuitive policyholder self-service options. Additionally we were impressed by Insuresoft's commitment to delivering the solution using the software as a service (SaaS) in a safe, hosted model," said McCart.

So far, GHS has implemented The Diamond System for one line of business in one state. The goal is to have 4 lines of business up and running by the end of 2009.

"We feel that The Diamond System's inherent functionality is well aligned with the business and technology needs expressed by GHS," stated Chris Blair, Vice President Product Management for Insuresoft. "We are delighted to refer to GHS as our newest Diamond partner running on our ASP."

Out-of-the-box does not mean out-of-the-way. Insuresoft business analysts and developers work hand in hand with customers to make sure implementations go smoothly every step of the way.

"The teams worked together to configure the system according to the requirements provided by GHS," stated Terry Brown, Vice President of Implementation Services for Insuresoft, "There was a lot of interaction that needed to take place between Insuresoft and GHS to make this happen. GHS committed to this initiative and as a result, the implementation went extremely well," continued Brown. And that makes everyone happy!

About GHS: GHS Property & Casualty Insurance Company is a subsidiary of Health Care Service Corporation, a Mutual Legal Reserve Company. Based in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, GHS derived its name from their parent company's corporate name, Group Health Care Service Corporation, A Mutual Legal Reserve Company.

GHS has its own board of directors and management, as well as separate marketing, sales, underwriting and claims departments. The arrangement coupled with the financial stability and longevity of Health Care Service Corporation provides customers with the confidence of knowing their policy is being serviced by an experienced property and casualty staff.

GHS Property and Casualty provides resident of Oklahoma and Texas with a wide range of individual, affinity and work site insurance products in addition to traditional auto and homeowners insurance.