* * *

Doug Allen's always been a team player–even in golf, which many observers consider the most individual of sports.

Now the vice president and director of IT at Columbus, Ohio-based State Auto Insurance, Allen was a member of the golf team at The Ohio State University that won the 1979 NCAA championship and sent several players to the pro tour.

“I learned a lot of lessons about being on successful athletic teams,” says Allen. “I learned how coaches are key to attracting and developing talent, how players must challenge and learn from each other, and how the support of the institution and the facilities they provide factor into what makes a championship team.”

Allen believes some of the life lessons he learned on the golf course at Ohio State have stayed with him as his career progressed at State Auto.

Growing up, he also had a passion for computer science, which was ultimately the degree he received from Ohio State. Thirty-one years later, Allen remains in Columbus, having spent his entire career at State Auto. Six years ago he was selected as director of IT.

CAREER STARTER

“From the beginning, State Auto has felt like the right company,” says Allen. “The relationships State Auto has built with its employees, agents, and business partners align with my personal values.”

During his State Auto career, Allen worked for a business unit that focused on agency management systems. He believes that experience helped him understand how carrier technology has to work seamlessly with agency technology.

“We pay a lot of attention to the effectiveness of our agent-facing technology and whether it adds value to our business relationships with them,” he says.

Allen relishes the team dynamics and takes pride in building a strong IT team.

“You have to constantly step back and look at where the team may have blind spots or weaknesses, and address them,” he says. “For the last several years we've had an IT-wide continuous improvement objective. It's fun to watch us mature as a group and deliver more value to the enterprise. I find many parallels to golf. You can feel as though you're on top of your game, but there are always parts you have to work harder at. The same is true in IT.”

SEAT AT THE TABLE

State Auto has experienced a great deal of expansion in recent years through acquisitions, including a recent move into specialty insurance lines. Allen has enjoyed the increased responsibility because he feels State Auto, from the CEO down, understands the value of IT and how it enables the business. “We always have a seat at the table and can feel the pulse of the organization,” he says.

“As part of our business growth and efficiency initiatives, we've developed an enterprise architecture discipline so we're better able to leverage IT investments across our growing footprint,” continues Allen. “We're focused on delivering new capabilities to the company and retiring business applications that don't line up with our architectural blueprints.”

COMPANY MATURES

In addition to building a stronger IT team, Allen has seen the company mature in governance and what eventually gets into the IT pipeline. “There is more rigor and accountability on the business side to make sure we're picking the right projects that align with our business drivers and the capacity of IT to address the projects,” says Allen.

“We've done a lot in IT over the past three years to understand where we're consuming our capacity. We have very good metrics about our Run, Grow, and Transform spending across all IT associates,” he says. “With good data, we make more informed decisions on starting new initiatives as well as stopping those that don't line up well.”

Other aspects of State Auto's game that have been sharpened recently are the overall IT delivery and core infrastructure, explains Allen.

“Our IT business office has evolved so project delivery, financial and asset management, and human capital development are done well,” he says. “We've also strengthened our core infrastructure so that the business has the modern foundation and capabilities to grow on.”

Allen says he likes the evolution of IT at State Auto and what the future holds.

“Most of all, I like being part of this team,” he says.

* * *

Everyone looks for their niche in life. For Mike Anselmo, senior vice president and CIO of the Narragansett Bay Insurance Company (NBIC), working with start-up companies and turn-around projects has become his forte.

“I like change,” he says. “I like to make sure companies are set up for growth.”

Anselmo explains he gravitates to those types of opportunities.

“I like coming to a company and try to put together a strategy and then execute it,” he says. “That doesn't necessarily mean changing staffs or removing legacy systems, but making it so companies become more agile and can set themselves up for a growth pattern.”

He believes NBIC already is headed in that direction.

“We have a really good push to grow the numbers and a lot of it is because of the technology we are building,” says Anselmo. “We are going to have the best policy administration system and the best IT architecture around. The stars are aligned. We have good capital, we have great technology we are leading with, we have a good team, we have a good product, and we have the backing of our board.”

Anselmo is the chief architect of the technology plan at NBIC and understands the pressure to get that right.

“If you don't have the architecture out there you might think you want to go in one direction, but it won't work,” he says. “Everyone has to be pushing toward that architecture and you have to push your team so they understand the big picture. Otherwise, in 18 months you won't be as agile as you thought you were going to be.”

SITUATIONS

Anselmo is a strong believer in education. In fact, while living in New Jersey, he served as an adjunct professor teaching technology at colleges. That has led him to become part of Situational Leadership training.

“I guess what's important to me is the multitasking thing,” he says. “I'm not just one type of manager. I believe I can lead, depending on the situation, and that's what you learn [with Situational Leadership]. With my background, I like to think I can train people or at least help them understand what needs to be done. With that training, it's important that the situational leader understands when it is necessary to direct and to coach, and what to advise.”

Another connection to education comes with his long-time association with Junior Achievement.

“I've been involved in Junior Achievement since the late 1980s in New Jersey,” he says. “When I took this opportunity [with NBIC], I was appointed to the Junior Achievement board in Rhode Island. Junior Achievement is special to me because I like teaching and training people. It's very fulfilling. One of the things I learned as a kid was they never taught us practical responsibility in school, so I try to go into that kind of session and put a technology question around it. We have some fun with it.”

Anselmo started with NBIC in February of 2009. His first task was to evaluate the situation. By June of that year he was able to present a strategy to the board of directors and the management on where the company should be going on a technology basis.

After receiving board and management approval, Anselmo kicked off the process known throughout the company as Project Apex.

“It's a technology transformation,” he says. “Because the stars were aligned with the technology, the capital, and our team, we can use technology to its fullest. The strategy was to go with a best-of-breed approach, and we selected a claims system and a policy administration system. We did a few of our own things, as well.”

OWN PLATFORM

Anselmo felt it was important for NBIC to move forward on its own platform.

“We couldn't grow as much as we would want with the [older] platform,” he says. “That set the stage for [NBIC] to grow, to hit some significant numbers in premium, which we are moving toward.”

The first step in the transformation was a new Web site and agency portal, which Anselmo describes as a single place for all of NBIC's agents to go to.

“It put everybody on one face plate,” says Anselmo.

Next up was a complete corporate financial program–general ledger, accounts receivable, fixed assets.

“We got rid of all our legacy systems,” says Anselmo. “It was all integrated.”

Next was a new data warehouse, which Anselmo explains is built into a better process.

“It's the actual data source for all our information,” he says.

In August, NBIC unveiled a new claims system.

“It's available anytime, anywhere,” he says. “Log onto the portal and you can access the system anytime.”

Next up is the biggest challenge for NBIC and Anselmo–the policy administration system.

“Right now the plan is for new business to be on it by Sept. 15, and after October we're going to do an agency migration,” he says. “What's nice about the system is we'll have seamless access. It allows us to do straight-through processing and it puts underwriting right in the hands of the CSR and the independent agent. [The system] allows agents to quote and issue a policy and make any changes right there. It reduces our expenses so our underwriters can focus on building the business, not processing the business.”

* * *

Many former CIOs eventually make a switch to the world of consulting, but the list of consultants who move into leadership positions with high-profile companies such as The Hartford is a short one.

Brian O'Connell, senior vice president and CIO of The Hartford Financial Services Group, might be at the top of that short list. He spent a quarter century with Accenture before joining The Hartford
in 2007.

“What I like to tell people is I think I have the dream job for somebody who spent 25 years in consulting,” says O'Connell. “We have a big transformation agenda, and I have the opportunity to do everything that for 25 years I tried to advise and influence clients to do. So in many ways what I did in consulting has prepared me well for my role and the situation here at The Hartford.”

O'Connell admits to being biased, but he believes the right kind of consulting background can prepare someone for an operational role in a company.

“The breadth of experiences I got in consulting gave me exposure to infrastructure, strategy, application development, and architecture,” he says. “It makes me well qualified to deal with those issues in my current role. I think it's an ideal kind of background to have.”

O'Connell understands there are people better at giving advice than managing people, but he doesn't feel he falls into that category.

“I have a passion for and love managing people,” he says. “When I was in consulting that was one of the things I most enjoyed about my job–managing teams and leading people. That fits very well with my current role because it's not just about getting my work done; it's about leading the organization.”

FINANCIAL TURMOIL

The financial turmoil surrounding the industry has been daunting, but O'Connell remains positive.

“What I like to say to people in my organization is a good crisis is a terrible thing to waste,” he says.

When he joined The Hartford in 2007, the company had one of its best years ever, according to O'Connell, but as the economic crisis unfolded, some financial flexibility at The Hartford went away.

“On the positive side it created a burning platform for change,” he says. “Whenever you are trying to drive change there's always a certain amount of resistance, and a lot of that resistance has been pushed aside, if you will, by the fact we have a platform to get these things done. That's helped to enable what we are trying to do and knock down some of the resistance you might typically face in this kind of situation.”

O'Connell explains there are several components to the IT agenda today, starting with simplifying the environment.

“The Hartford grew up as kind of an entrepreneurial company where the business is operated somewhat independently, and that included the technology functions,” he says. “Now we are trying to look at things more holistically. If we have three applications to do the same thing or two different types of infrastructure, can we simplify that to get to one? The simplification of the overall environment is the
top priority.”

The company also wants to modernize the environment.

“Today we are in a situation where there is new technology coming out at a rapid pace, particularly in the infrastructure space,” says O'Connell. “This provides for a great opportunity for cost savings and efficiencies and also an opportunity to make our company more eco-friendly. We are trying to use those technologies while we drive our simplification agenda to also modernize things.”

SATISFACTION LEVEL

O'Connell feels there was a fair amount of dissatisfaction with IT at The Hartford when he joined the company. He described the relationship between the business and the IT organization at that time as “not great.”

What he feels helped him, though, was he initially was brought to The Hartford to be in charge of IT at the life company. When he was asked to lead the enterprise, he also assumed leadership on the P&C side for nine months while looking for a new leader there.

“By working with the business leaders for the life and the P&C companies, I built close working relationships with both leaders,” says O'Connell. “That allowed me to build credibility and a solid relationship with both organizations and change the tone and the nature of the discourse that was going on.”

* * *

Greg Ricker gained 15 years of experience working in IT for Nationwide and enjoyed his time in the Midwest but yearned for a change in climate. When Strickland Insurance Group came calling in 1999, Ricker packed his bags and headed to North Carolina.

“One of the things that attracted me to the Strickland organization is they are very strong proponents of the entrepreneurial spirit,” says Ricker. “It's allowed us to get creative and not have some of the restrictions a rigid corporate culture imposes.”

Among the technology projects Strickland has accomplished over the last decade are straight-through processing, imaging, automated workflow, and rules-based processing.

“We did these years ahead of when our competition did them,” says Ricker. “I just read one of my competitors is just now going to a Web-based policy issuance product. We already have our entire agency force on a Web-based issuance product. It kind of motivates us that we have the flexibility and the opportunity to be creative. As a result, we're doing some good things.”

One thing that attracted Ricker to Strickland–along with the climate–is Strickland had just sold off its non-standard private passenger automobile business. In addition to taking that line off the books, the company that bought it purchased Strickland's entire IT infrastructure.

That meant Strickland was leasing time on the old platform until the company was able to get a new platform up and running.

“That's basically every IT guy's dream,” says Ricker.

BACK IN THE DAY

It was the late 1990s, and while every other IT department in the country was focusing on Y2K, Strickland and Ricker were putting together an IT road map.

“We were able to lay out what we wanted to do and the vision we had,” he says. “I took a three- to five-year IT road map to the owners of the company. We talked about how to fund it and off we went. Not having to do that legacy migration was a great opportunity for us.”

Because Strickland had sold off the non-standard business and the technology to go with it, the company had money available to invest.

“We were able to be creative with things,” says Ricker. “It almost was like a start-up company.”

The timing of the changes was “absolutely impeccable,” according to Ricker. The hard-market run from 2003 to 2005 triggered enormous growth for Strickland.

“We grew the company from $4 million to $100 million in five years,” he says. “There was no way we could have sustained that growth and created a profit each year if we did not have key technology components in place.”

Good timing gave Strickland the opportunity to succeed, but Ricker believes the key factor for the carrier was making the right decisions with technology. The company went with a real-time policy processing system, getting away from batch. Other changes included Web-based rating and a data warehouse.

The more recent financial issues facing the industry led to many insurers making cuts in IT spending, but Ricker claims Strickland kept its IT spending at a consistent level over the last three years.

“When the market started changing in 2006 we knew the cost of doing business with Strickland Insurance Group was going to be of paramount importance to the agents,” he says.

In 2006 and 2007, Strickland made a strong push to get Web-based rating to the agencies that would allow producers to obtain a rate quickly, not have to retain rate data or policy forms in their office, and instead rely on Strickland's systems to do that work for them.

“When we showed our agents it was easier, faster, and more efficient to rate, quote, and bind business with us, they started taking notice,” says Ricker.

KEEP 'EM COMING

More changes kept coming. Ricker believes Strickland was the first E&S carrier to have a Web service available for rating starting in 2008.

“At a time when everyone was trying to understand what Web services were, we offered agents the ability to have their Web site interface with us for 850 classes of general liability business,” he says. “We've kept our focus on the fact it is easier and cheaper to do business with our company, and we believe the agents are responding favorably to that. We haven't changed our pricing or our product. But no question the use of our tools is up significantly from what it was 12 to 18 months ago.”

Internally, Ricker is pushing to strengthen the carrier's data warehouse, which has been helping Strickland's actuarial and marketing staffs look at what is going on in an agent's office as well as determine what classes of business are profitable for the company.

“Online rating supplies us the leading indicator of what's going on in the agency office today,” says Ricker. “As an organization, we're doing a better job of looking at these indicators. From a strategic level, if we are having high hit-ratios on classes, why is that? Did something change in the marketplace? Is our product significantly different from what our competitor offers? We're going to build more tools that will look at how we can use the quote statistics and hit ratios to allow us to better run our business.”

Ricker is a believer in the philosophy where you get what you inspect, not what you expect.

“The more you peel away at these statistics, the more you are going to be able to improve your business,” he says. “I'm hoping we can remove as much of the guesswork from our business as possible.”

* * *

Wayne Umland joined Glatfelter Insurance Group at just the right time.

“When I got here [in 1997] the company had just changed its model for doing business,” he recalls.

Glatfelter had been a traditional managing general agency but decided to be more independent and to act more like a carrier with new partners. Among the first steps earlier in the 90s was the formation of an offshore captive reinsurance company.

“We're really more like a carrier,” he says. “When we have bad results, we feel it. We're not just getting commission income like a traditional MGA might.”

When Umland joined the company, he also discovered the infrastructure was not the best.

“We had really outgrown [many of the systems] by the time I got here,” he says. “I got the opportunity to transform this place and make it something completely different.”

Since 1997, Glatfelter has acquired three other programs and two other agencies and assimilated them into the infrastructure. The company has grown in terms of breadth of offerings and retail and wholesale operations, explains Umland.

With the mergers and acquisitions, Glatfelter made a decision to centralize the technology platform at company headquarters in York, Pa.

“The way we've done the acquisitions is we've moved business where we can at renewal onto our platform rather than trying to convert [the old systems] and make it fit,” says Umland. “From an infrastructure perspective it's been pretty easy because we haven't been saddled with a lot of legacy systems. We've been able to move all the back-office support and structure here to York and have the agencies and employees access it over Citrix or do things over the Web. We haven't had the legacy issues, which has made it a lot easier.”

SCARY TIME

The industry has gone through three major tests during Umland's tenure with Glatfelter. First came the Y2K scare.

“The Y2K fear had everybody shaking in their boots,” he says. “But it was a good exercise because it got people to realize the intricacies of what [systems] they had.”

Next came the post-9/11 stress on the industry, with issues such as putting terrorism coverage in policies and the need for disaster recovery/business continuity plans.

“It made us realize that as a small company if there was a disaster or a terrorism strike Glatfelter would be at the bottom of the list [for recovery] because we are so small,” says Umland. “We ended up building our own facility after an acquisition of an agency in Stockton, Calif. We built a completely redundant data center using virtual machines. It was a lesson for us as a small company to be less dependent on one of the national disaster recovery facilities and take care of ourselves.”

Glatfelter has an IT staff of just 50 people, which Umland explains stretches the IT department at times. “We've put a staff onboard that can take care of those things,” he says. “For a company our size we've been able to take care of some of the newer technology that larger companies have not been able to deal with yet.”

As for the more recent financial problems facing the industry and the country in general, Umland believes Glatfelter's position as a niche marketer has been fortunate.

“We've been strong in the market, we're good at what we do, and with one of our programs we have had a retention rate of up to 97 percent,” says Umland. “When you have that loyalty behind you and haven't taken advantage of your customers when the market was different, and then cutting price when the market flipped, you can maintain a consistent philosophy.”

For Glatfelter that philosophy is to sell the best benefits and the best products in their space, provide ancillary services to policyholders to help them get better at loss prevention/risk control, and remain steady with pricing.

“In this mosr recent market, revenues haven't grown as they have in the past, but we haven't been faced with making significant cuts,” says Umland. “We haven't had to face those tough decisions that other companies have faced as far as cutting IT staff or reducing capital spending.”

Glatfelter realized that if it expected to emerge strong out of the recession, the company needed to invest so it didn't have to play catch-up later.

“We continued to implement enterprisewide systems rather than cutting back on new initiatives,” he says. “I think we are better for it.”

NO MORE SILOS

Umland reports Glatfelter will spread out advances in imaging, electronic workflow, underwriting, and claims over the course of the next year. Glatfelter also completely redid the policy administration system with one from LexisNexis for its program business. In addition, the company formed an agents' technology council, combining a group of agents together to advise the carrier on what they want to see moving forward.

“Glatfelter had always looked at its programs as silos,” says Umland. “From a technology perspective, that doesn't really help. We formed the technology council with agents from all programs and built a producer portal. It has started to take off in terms of electronic functionality, download to agency management systems, and real-time upload.”

When Umland joined Glatfelter the IT department was an “afterthought,” he says, “and not a strategic partner with the business units. IT rarely initiated strategic projects. Over time, I think we have developed a clear alignment with the business units,” he says. “IT is now sitting at the table with the board. We're taking a lead in terms of bringing technological solutions to the business and showing [the business units] what they can do if they choose to do so. We're not dictating and we're not trying to strong-arm people into jumping into the 21st century, but when [business users] see the improvements that are possible it's pretty easy to sell them.”