“We have an opportunity to be a leading insurance business while providing innovative technology,” he says. “We are focusing on leapfrogging what currently exists in the insurance industry.”

In June, he kicked off Project Apex, the company's technology road map for the future. The plan is to move Narragansett away from its current IT environment–which relies mainly on Allenbrook's Phoenix system–to a thin-client, cloud computing, green-IT model that allows accessibility any time and anywhere.

“We're building a new virtualized infrastructure that offers agility and scalability,” Anselmo explains. “We want to be able to scale the technology as well as the processes within the business without growing an infrastructure analogous to a traditional insurance company.”

The plan is to offer a system that allows agents to handle their own quote issuance processing, billing, and collections and to service their clients remotely through Narragansett's architecture. Anselmo will rely on agents' help and feedback as he builds the new systems, which are expected to be up and running by the first quarter of 2010.

“We want our partners involved upfront and have asked for their advice as we move forward,” he says. “We want to make sure this system is what they're looking for, so that once it's ready, they'll be raring to go.”

In time, Anselmo hopes Narragansett's cloud computing-based infrastructure will be able to provide added value to agencies that do not have their own IT departments.

“In addition to having an agile business-ready system that is scalable and responsive to our business needs, it would be advantageous to be able to provide our agents with access to an agency management system that can be directly linked into our system,” he says.

During the course of his career, Anselmo has worked in management roles for several insurance companies, including AAIC, AIU, KPMG Insurance, Clarendon Insurance Group, Praetorian Financial Group, and QBE Specialty Insurance. At several of these companies, Anselmo helped build IT departments from the ground up for startup organizations.

In 2007, while at Praetorian Financial Group, his team received the Computerworld Honors Award for servers and virtualization. Anselmo also shares patents for development of an imaging and records retention method used for paperless underwriting and an electronic auction system method and strategy, which NASDAQ currently uses internally.

Anselmo sees the opportunity to be part of a groundbreaking venture using innovative technology and building an exceptional team as a chance to bring his knowledge full circle.

“Here I am once again at a startup company with more knowledge today than I had five years ago, enjoying what I do,” he says. “Drawing from my experience and others on our team, I am confident this will be a great insurance company.”

Sharon Baker is a freelance business writer based in Charlotte, N.C.