From a technology perspective, its almost like the moons are aligning, muses John Kellington, senior vice president and chief technology officer at Cincinnati- based Ohio Casualty Group (OCG). We have ACORD and its XML standards, we have the Internet, and we have these things called Web services, and its all finally allowing technology to meet the demands of agents to make SEMCI [single-entry multi-company integration] a reality. He further asserts investments by a carrier in technology that makes it easier for agents to do business from within their own systems will yield rewards to the carrier of more business and less cost in addition to improved agency satisfaction.

Ohio Casualty writes auto, home, and business insurance through its member companies. Kellington is its top tech, since the insurer doesnt have a CIO. We de-cided to have the top technical officer carry the title of chief technical officer instead of chief information officer to stress our belief in the importance of technology to Ohio Casualty, its future, and its agents, he explains.

We have been working for a long time to improve our policy administration environment with a specific focus on improving the interface with our agents, he says. We heard Applied Systems really was going to push Transformation Station, and we wanted OCG to be a leader with that Web services technology. With our new technology platform, we were able to implement Transformation Station in only four weeks. He adds OCG also has worked with AMS and its TransactNow capability. SEMCI is very important to our agencies; we need to work hard to deliver what they need.