Then, in 1999, CIGNA decided to exit the P&C business to focus on its core health insurance (HMO) operations. It struck a deal to sell the INA operations to ACE Limited, a relatively new Bermuda-based insurer. ACE was formed in 1986 to provide excess liability products, and the company grew rapidly through new products and several acquisitions, Siegle continues. It really was a very unusual situation. Here you had a highly entrepreneurial 15-year-old company with 700 employees buying a much larger 210-year-old company with 9,000 employees. Siegle was given the opportunity to join the new ACE-INA as its first CIO.

Taking a Deep Breath

The decision might have been easy, but the transformation into the newest incarnation of INA wasnt. INAs data center and core IT support functions, which by then had been integrated into CIGNAs shared-services model, were staying with CIGNA. ACE-INA could have bought services from CIGNA or set up all new operations. Instead, ACE-INA decided to go in a different direction. We took a deep breath, he says, and we signed a multiyear agreement with IBM Global Services. Basically, we outsourced all our U.S. IT operations.

In retrospect, Siegle maintains the outsourcing decision was the right one. In addition to enabling us to achieve major cost reductions, it allowed us to focus on our insurance business, not our IT operations, he says.

IT was only one of many areas where we made major decisions during the 1999 to 2000 time frame as ACE was integrating the INA acquisition, he adds. A lot of new underwriting talent joined the company, and we entered many new areas of insurance. Today, ACE-INA focuses on writing many specialized insurance products, primarily commercial coverages placed through brokers.

Although Siegle has been steeped in technology for a couple of decades, he began his professional life as an accountant. Born and raised in Philadelphia, he graduated from La Salle University in 1971 and joined what now is Deloitte & Touche, auditing financial institutions and other large businesses. He quickly moved into auditing IT operations after joining Girard Bank, which later became Mellon Bank.

Tools Always Ready

Helping him to stay on top of the twists and turns of a dynamic job are a couple of heavily used tools. I absolutely never go anywhere without my Thinkpad and my BlackBerry, he asserts. I use the same machine, with a docking station at the office and broadband at home, so I have everything I need, both business and personal, always with me.

Im very focused on our business operations and how technology can help us improve our operations and our bottom line, he says. He cites as examples several Internet-based applications being developed throughout ACEs global operations to aid the underwriting and acquisition processes. We had to concentrate on the integration and establishing technology fundamentals in the first few years of the new company. Now we are [targeting] those applications that really can make a difference in our business.

Intently focusing on meeting the challenges of continual change, Siegle admits one of his frustrations is he really doesnt have the time to play with technology to the extent he would like, describing himself as being much more of a user than a tinkerer. Nevertheless, its that very focus that may help ACE-INA to enter its next incarnation as a player in the global insurance marketplace.