E-Fusion Award recognizes innovative construction management program.

Arthur J. Gallagher & Co., a national insurance brokerage, has been named recipient of A.M. Best Co.'s first E-Fusion Award for its CIPWORKS project, which enables the company to centrally manage its construction wrap-up unit and provide greatly improved management reports to clients.

The award, presented at the National Press Club Sept. 30, highlighted A.M. Best Co.'s Annual Insurance & Technology Conference, "E-Fusion 2002: Unlocking the Value." The conference was held at the J. W. Marriott Hotel in Washington, D.C.

Peggy Patterson, managing director of the National Wrap Up Unit, accepted the award for Arthur J. Gallagher (www.ajg.com).

Using CIPWORKS to manage online such complex construction projects as the building of a new international airport, Arthur J. Gallagher was able to significantly reduce paperwork, improve accuracy, increase employee productivity and become more competitive. CIPWORKS allows the broker to manage all insurance aspects of large-scale construction projects, including contractor enrollment, payroll reporting, calculation of bid deductions and issuing of certificates of insurance. The judges were impressed that the brokerage put a digital form on what nobody thought they could get a handle on--there were so many pieces of information, said Lee McDonald,A.M. Best vice president and conference program chairman, when he presented the award.

"We worked very hard to develop this project. I also want to thank our friends at Insource Technology, who helped us," Patterson said. She also expressed specific appreciation to Steve Miller, project manager at Insource, and Barb Suttner, supervisor of administrative services at Gallagher, who was the first person she called from the Press Club to tell the good news.

CIPWORKS was put together in only eight months, Patterson said. The next step will be to interface the project with insurance carriers, most of whom can't use the system now because of their legacy systems, she said. After that, Arthur J. Gallagher hopes to expand the project to include online enrollment at construction sites.

"The two most impressive attributes that characterized all of the finalists were value to the business--the judges weighted that very high--and technological ingenuity," A.M. Best Executive Vice President and Conference Chairman Paul C. Tinnirello said.

Finalists

Abacus Insurance Brokers: Abacus developed the Abacus Program Management platform that enables retail and wholesale brokers to quote, bind, issue policies and certificates, process endorsements and accept credit card payments online. The system handles programs for personal articles floaters, special events, movie boats and short-term productions. These very small niche markets were business the company had to handle, but delays in the process for handling it made good results impossible. "It was like a pin prick, and we turned it into a needle;' said Leon Lewin, Abacus president. Prior to developing the project, the company had revenue of less than $90,000 per quarter for those lines; now premium is about $900,000 per quarter.

"We took a process that took days and weeks and made it efficient," and now companies want other types of insurance to be distributed this way, said Darren Lewin, a principal with Abacus. (www.abacusins.com)

Fidelity & Guaranty Life Insurance Co.: F&G Life's SalesLink allows agents to receive information via email subscriptions, check the status of pending applications, review commissions, obtain product specifications and interact with the company. F&G Life reports 900,000 hits a month and believes it has saved more than $1.3 million in annual software and distribution and fulfillment costs. "The cooperation of marketing and IT was critical to the development of SalesLink," said Mark Stone, vice president, corporate communications. "Marketing provided a focus and gave the Web team a better understanding of how the site would be used." (www.fglife.com)

One use the company didn't anticipate but that proved invaluable was to communicate with agents on and after Sept. 11, when the home office was shut down, Stone said.

Frankenmuth Mutual Insurance Co.: Frankenmuth Mutual's Insurance Business Issuance System is an agent-company interface that allows for real-time quoting, more accurate and timely underwriting and policy issuance. Agents can view electronic copies of billing and policy documents such as invoices and declaration pages through the system in printable format. "One of the biggest obstacles the site overcomes is the inefficiency of the underwriting approval cycle because of incomplete application information," said Phil McCain, information technology manager.

Then that increased efficiency leads to expense-reduction opportunities and improved customer service, which lead to increased profitability, said Jerry Webb, senior vice president of Frankenmuth Financial Group. "You can't separate all these factors," he said. (www.ffgrp.com)

GE Employers Reinsurance: REGAL, a project submitted by the U.K. offices of GE Employers Reinsurance, is an online quotation system that allows for the generation of life and health reinsurance quotes for customers 24 hours a day, seven days a week. It was designed for the specific needs of clients in Middle East countries who are generating quotations for group employee benefit programs. "The most difficult challenge we overcame with REGAL was the time-zone and work-week differences," said James Shepherd, head of e-business, GE Frankona Reassurance Ltd., London. "That's something you can't change. We also had to overcome the problem that often our clients in the Middle East don't have high-speed modems, so we designed part of our program to run on their desktops instead of online." (www.geercgroup.com)

Minnesota Life Insurance Co.: Minnesota Life's LifeBenefits allows participants in clients' group insurance plans 24/7 access to their life insurance benefits. Employees of client companies can enroll for multiple products, designate beneficiaries and perform other account management functions online. The system responds to client requests that the program be simplified as well as customized. "Customization was our biggest challenge," said Systems Manager-Jeffrey Fox. We don't sell vanilla."

Minnesota Life has not only various clients but also various plans within those clients. For example, one of their clients, General Mills, has 13 unions with 13 different plans, Fox said. (www.minnesotarnutual. com)