Rebuilding from within: Ohio Casualty Group's tech-savvy management team is banking on technology to make the company more competitive. (Technology Strategy).

Ohio Casualty Insurance Group is on a mission. Last year, Ohio Casualty Insurance Co., the flagship of six property/casualty companies that make up the group, tackled a new strategic plan with a major emphasis on re-establishing the role technology would play within the company. So far, the plan has led to improved delivery of new projects and applications, including a system for policy processing; restructuring of the information-technology department; steps to implement true single-entry multiple-company interface; and a stronger presence on the Web.

The transformation has shifted the focus from a more internal-based business to one concentrated on independent agents and information technology to leverage agents, platforms and systems in the future.

Setting Priorities

A critical part of developing the plan was setting priorities, said John Kellington, chief technology officer and a former principal and architect for IBM Global Services' national insurance practice. One of the top priorities was speeding up the process of launching new tech applications.

"When I first arrived at the company, it was obvious that we had an excellent operations staff and state-of-the-art systems for maintaining the department, but when it came to new technologies, we had the ability to develop them, but we weren't as organized in a way to roll them out," Kellington said.

One goal was to reduce the time to service for several projects. For example, Kellington and his staff accelerated the timeline for the development and deployment of P.A.R.I.S., a new policy-administration system, from an estimated four to five years to only 18 to 24 months.

Meeting staff needs by introducing new approaches, management structures and support systems was another priority. Kellington created a project office responsible for quick and high-quality delivery of each specific project and a program-management office that coordinated all the projects. These offices are also responsible for establishing a purpose for each project, Kellington said.

A new organizational structure was introduced to delegate human-resource activities to a few professional-development managers. "It's typical that managers become managers because they were excellent technicians or best-of-breed project managers," Kellington said. "They may not have liked the people-management aspect" of the job.

"By creating the [professional-development manager], we have managers that are focused on growing people and staff-consultation issues and other managers who are focused on delivering projects," he said. This helps the information-technology organization to be more fluid, because the professional-development managers' organization is moving staff to where they are needed most. The organization also is helping to resolve human-resource issues and develop the information-technology staff.

As part of his initial duties as the company's new chief technology officer, Kellington was responsible for ensuring that all departments involved in the technology plan were delivering results and meeting the goals of the mission.

Going SEMCI 

Over the next several months, Ohio Casualty plans to take on a new challenge it believes has not yet been met within the industry: single-entry multiple-company interface, better-known as SEMCI.

SEMCI--which involves using one system to enter data and communicate with multiple carriers and vendors for quoting, policy issue and inquiry--will help agents link to and conduct business with Ohio Casualty. Using its recently created P.A.R.I.S. system--an Internet-based system designed to support all business lines--as a platform, Ohio Casualty plans to achieve true SEMCI across its commercial and personal lines. Kellington believes the process also will aid in the company's overall technology operations.

"Several years ago, one of our agents said we've been two years away from achieving true SEMCI for the last 20 years," said Dan Carmichael, Ohio Casualty's chief executive officer and the former head of IVANS Inc., which provides e-business and networking services to insurance companies. Carmichael believes the onset of Internet technologies, combined with the development work being conducted at the company, makes the time right for implementing SEMCI.

Five commercial products have been rolled out through the P.A.R.I.S. system, which is currently being tested internally. The company plans to implement three more products over the next several months. Ohio Casualty already is seeing significant improvements in its productivity, turnaround time and accuracy as a result and believes that next year's system rollout to agents is when true SEMCI will actually be achieved, Carmichael said.

Ohio Casualty's P.A.R.I.S. system was designed to support extensible markup language, or XML, which is the programming language used for SEMCI. The system will receive XML messages--in accordance with standards set by the Association for Cooperative Operations Research and Development--directly from the agents' systems. Agents no longer need to re-key data when downloading information or logging on to the system. Instead, they can send and receive data from their own systems directly to the company system without having to set up separate mailboxes, browsers or personal computers. "We think it's in the best interest of independent agency systems to go this way," said Carmichael. While the future impact of fully deployed SEMCI remains unknown, both Carmichael and Kellington are optimistic it will bring added value to Ohio Casualty's information-technology operations.

"Carriers that fully support the SEMCI model will have a strong advantage in the market," said Kellington. One advantage is that proprietary front-end systems will be completely avoided. "However, this will be a challenge for many carriers, because the process is one of the more difficult things to implement in today's computer industry," he added.

The establishment of SEMCI is made more difficult by the numerous variations of products sold, the frequency with which products change and the fact that every policy written as a custom-made policy involves volume, complexity and change. However, having the right tools, staff knowledge and dedication to deliver the approach to its agents is driving Ohio Casualty to meet this challenge head on.

Web Advances

Creating a Web presence for its agents has proven to be another important step in the development of Ohio Casualty's comprehensive technology strategy.

In 1996, Ohio Casualty launched its Web site (www.ocas.com) with its independent agent force in mind. Last year, it revamped the agency-services section of its Web site as part of an overall company "ease-of-doing-business" strategy based on convenience and service for agents. The company continues to increase its e-business capabilities with independent agents to more effectively meet customers needs. In the past several months, interface and online-quoting abilities for agents have been improved through Web-accessed applications, with one agent touting the interface capabilities as the "best in the business."

One of the most recent enhancements to the consumer section of the Web site was the creation of an easier-to-navigate system that provides service applications and information organized into five broad categories, or tabs. The tabs, which include links for customer care, locating an agent, customer information, quotes and company information, make accessing highly demanded information as easy as a click of the mouse.

The company also has launched an online claims-reporting system for private-passenger automobile claims. It plans to eventually expand this service to include other lines of business. Another recent online addition allows agents and policyholders to query the billing and payment status information. Ohio Casualty also has plans to add other types of information and online-transaction capabilities to both the consumer and agency services sections of the Web site.

Meeting Today's Challenges

"One of the real challenges for our industry is knowing when not to buy technology,' Carmichael said. "It's easy to get wrapped up in the latest and greatest technologies, which we saw occur in the demise of the dot-coins, where everyone was chasing their tail and thought they had the solution." The challenge today, however, lies with a company's strategy and what users of services really need to foster productivity, acid value and support the strategy, he said.

Like Ohio Casualty's primary technology focus, there needs to be less concern paid to protecting a company's "kingdom" and status quo and greater emphasis on responding to customers' needs, Carmichael said.

"Being the best you can be at delivering a project is how you're rewarded," he said. Often, the greatest rewards are achieved by meeting deadlines, accomplishing the goal and providing opportunities to celebrate the accomplishments of each step in the process.

"Rather than just buying all the latest and best technologies and trying to plug it in and make it fit together, it's important to not lose sight of and begin with the customer and match up [projects] to what's feasible, realistic and affordable," he said.

RELATED ARTICLE: 2002 E-FUSION

Unlocking the Value

John Kellington will speak about Ohio Casualty's technology strategy at A.M. Best Co.'s 14th annual insurance and technology conference, "E-Fusion 2002: Unlocking the Value," which will be held Sept. 29-Oct. 1 in Washington, D.C.