Cornerstone National Insurance Company - Success Story
←
→
Page content transcription
If your browser does not render page correctly, please read the page content below
Success Story Cornerstone National Insurance Company
Success Story
Cornerstone Corners
Roger Walker, chief operating officer for Success with SurePower
Innovation Implementation
Cornerstone National Insurance Company
®
About Cornerstone National
Insurance Company
A division of Cornerstone Group,
Insurer Achieves Straight-Through Processing
Cornerstone National Insurance Goals and Consistency for Agents and
Company was founded in Missouri
in 1996, by a group of insurance Policyholders through Automation.
executives with hundreds of years of
combined experience in the business.
The company commenced writing
automobile insurance business in “When I tell people we’re just personal auto, they look at me like,
March of 1997, and expanded in
Arkansas and Oklahoma in early 2000. ‘How do you make it?’” said Roger Walker, chief operating officer for
In early 2006, the company began Cornerstone National Insurance Company (Cornerstone).
its campaign into Kansas and Texas.
Today its insurance brokerage division It’s a question many insurers have to answer, and fortunately, even with
also provides life, health, property margins in personal auto shrinking, Cornerstone is finding ways to keep
and liability coverage for personal and
commercial applicants. its Midwestern auto booking the black. In fact, today Cornerstone is a
thriving personal auto carrier writing business across four states, Missouri,
Results Oklahoma, Arkansas and Kansas.
• Exceeded 80% STP goal—currently
at 87% Established in 1997, Cornerstone looks to technology as a critical business
• More accurate rating—leading to enabler, and is continually exploring new, innovative ways of providing cost-
better relationships with agents efficient and prompt service for both agents and customers. The company’s
• Underwriting department can handle constant search for the best possible ways of doing business have led
5 times the volume of applications to almost inevitable changes, and during the company’s 17-year history,
• Increase in new business from more Cornerstone utilized two core administration suites before entering into a
agents long-term partnership with ISCS.
• Loss ratios lower since
implementation
• Much faster quote turnaround time
• Overall data quality improvement
“We’ve been through a couple of systems before, so
we didn’t do a formal RFP process, but we talked to
lots of suite vendors,” said Walker. “We saw demos “The fact that ISCS had a suite was
from several companies, and started to narrow it a serious determining factor.”
down according to budget. Finally, George Grieve of
CastleBay Consulting was brought in to help us get
to a short list of three companies, and ISCS rose to With this and so many other complex factors
the top.” contributing to a major system selection decision,
Following an analyst reference from Novarica and Cornerstone put together a solid selection
a discovery workshop, ISCS brought in a team team consisting of the “rock stars” from each
for an onsite demo of SurePower Innovation at department within the company. Individuals from
Cornerstone’s headquarters in Columbia, Missouri. IT, underwriting, accounting, product management,
agency relations and claims were all involved.
“The fact that ISCS had a suite was a serious
determining factor,” said Walker. “We just didn’t “In order to get a project of this magnitude done,
think we could pull off best-of-breed.” you have to have the right people championing it
internally,” said Walker. “I was the executive team
In addition to the fact that Cornerstone was looking member championing the project, and I had to sell
for a more modern suite offering, the company knew it to everybody else, and then the others helped
there were operational efficiencies to be achieved if sell it down the line. In order to keep the train
system maintenance by internal IT resources could moving along and on the right track, it has to be a
be minimized. companywide commitment…”
“We knew this project would be a monumental task
for the entire organization and we wanted to be sure Ensuring Implementation Success
our focus was on the implementation itself,” said
Walker. “By utilizing the hosted solution from ISCS, Cornerstone ultimately selected ISCS’s SurePower
we were able to have our IT resources concentrate Innovation Modern Enterprise Suite, which would
on working with our business units to ensure a be delivered via the ISCS SurePackage, the
successful implementation rather than worrying company’s complete managed cloud solution.
about updgrading hardware and software for the The implementation process began in 2011, going
new system.” live with Missouri and Oklahoma in May 2012.
ISCS Success Story: Cornerstone National Insurance Company 3Vance McCumber, IT manager for Cornerstone, not worthwhile or too costly based on the potential
indicates the company had never seen the need trickle-down effect of the changes within the old
for a project management office (PMO), and the system.
ISCS implementation fortunately didn’t change that
For that reason alone, IT was perhaps the
outlook.
department at Cornerstone most excited by
“For this project we didn’t have to worry about the potential afforded the company by the agile
the hands-on part of the implementation,” said methodology that ISCS uses to implement
McCumber. “We had very little business interruption. SurePower Innovation.
We were ready for a change and happy to start
fresh.”
With that in mind, McCumber indicates Cornerstone
“took advantage of all the resources and tools ISCS
offered” and “made decisions fast.”
“The best part about the new system was the
documentation and the blueprinting process,” said
Bill Corwin, IT specialist for Cornerstone. “It forced
us to document everything, and documentation of
the rules actually helped us avoid paving cow paths.
We went through every aspect of every business “The agile process helped us break this
rule. It helped us define our processes and re- implementation up into digestible chunks,” said
evaluate what we were doing. We learned a lot about Corwin. “We basically rewrote the book. Each sprint
Cornerstone as a company. Workarounds were was something new, and the manageable steps
discovered as just that, and now we don’t need to helped us get from A to B very smoothly. Often
work-around, we set up the system the right way.” software vendors are pushing what they want and
Prior to the ISCS/SurePower Innovation not seeing what we need, and ISCS didn’t do that.
implementation, McCumber indicates Cornerstone’s They were invested in our success.”
IT department was holding the existing legacy “It got a lot of people [within Cornerstone] involved,”
system together with the proverbial wing and a said McCumber. “And, everyone had ownership and
prayer. Changes were difficult and often deemed accountability.”
4 ISCS Success Story: Cornerstone National Insurance CompanyBuechter has also been pleased that this
“Now, there are fewer rejections implementation has created better goodwill with
Cornerstone’s agents.
and cancellations. Our agents are
“With SurePower Innovation, the answer they get is
happier that it takes less time to the final decision,” said Buechter. “Now, there are
get a policy issued.” fewer rejections and cancellations. Our agents are
happier that it takes less time to get a policy issued.”
Buechter and Walker estimate Cornerstone’s
Automation Offers Opportunities underwriting department can now handle five
times the volume of applications possible before
And, that success came fast. Cornerstone’s goal the SurePower Innovation implementation, and
during the agile blueprinting process was to achieve underwriters are able to dedicate more time to
80 percent straight-through processing (STP) and agents and policies that need help, the exceptions.
handle the remaining 20 percent manually. Since In fact, agents that were reluctant to engage with
the old system allowed for absolutely no automation Cornerstone because of limitations inherent to
or opportunity for STP, Cornerstone set goals the prior system are now sending more business
cautiously, and have been more than pleased with Cornerstone’s way.
the results so far.
“We’re currently running at 87 percent STP,” said
Changing Cornerstone Culture
Walker. “And, that is without relaxing any of our
established underwriting criteria.” Cornerstone learned a lot during the SurePower
Innovation implementation process. Agile, scrum,
“The beauty of it is we didn’t change the
project management, and testing were all utilized
underwriting guidelines, we just put them into the
by ISCS at Cornerstone, and these things are still
system,” said Heidi Buechter, underwriting manager
being utilized at Cornerstone today even after the
for Cornerstone. “We used flow charts for the
implementation is complete.
process and that helped everyone better understand
the process. It also helped with consistency for “We embraced the processes and learned a lot
agents, by making fewer things subjective based on that we have carried forward,” said McCumber.
the agent or potential insured.” “This implementation has changed the culture at
Cornerstone.”
ISCS Success Story: Cornerstone National Insurance Company 5“It’s been extremely beneficial for us to have used is so much better. We are definitely getting quotes
the agile development process,” said Walker. “We out faster.”
honestly didn’t know that much about it when ISCS
Brothers indicated in the old system a simple rate
brought it to the table. It pretty much means there
adjustment was an all-day affair.
are deliverables every 30 days or so, and remember
we’re in the ‘Show Me’ state. Ongoing deliverables “In the old system it was a manual process, so
let you show the progress of the implementation it couldn’t be done quickly,” said Brothers. “In
along the way.” SurePower, it is a basic change so implementing
a change is much easier. We went into this really
For Cornerstone, communication was another factor
hopeful for the ability to make complex rate changes
that differentiated this implementation than those
quickly.”
the company had experienced in the past.
“Not just one or two people funnel the information
and there is more direct interaction between ISCS Claims Not a Cost Center
and Cornerstone teams,” said McCumber. “It
For claims, perhaps more so than in any other
wasn’t uncommon for multiple people from ISCS
department, the ability to access and process
to participate on conference calls and interact,
information quickly is of utmost importance, and
which means things aren’t constantly getting lost in
therefore, claims naturally became a place where
translation.”
the partnership with ISCS is highly-valued.
“When our claims reps get a call, they must know
“The speed at which we can rate is quickly where they are, where they have been,
and where they are going,” said Scott Forrest,
so much better. We are definitely vice president of claims and corporate counsel for
getting quotes out faster.” Cornerstone. “SurePower helps alert us when a
claim is off track.”
With claims reps often carrying an open inventory
“We achieved top line growth from the system by of 120 claims prior to the SurePower Innovation
re-establishing relationships with agents,” said Neil implementation, Cornerstone had a lot invested in
Brothers, product manager for Cornerstone. “Price claims.
elasticity has also improved, as well as data quality
and data integrity. The speed at which we can rate
6 ISCS Success Story: Cornerstone National Insurance Company“Our claims reps were constantly shifting between Cornerstone’s Competitive
open claims,” said Forrest. “It was a very difficult
and complex process.”
Advantage
Cornerstone knew the automation that came with
One of the biggest differences Forrest has seen
SurePower Innovation could make a world of
since the SurePower Innovation implementation is
difference in terms of a competitive advantage.
how the actual claims management process works
today. Since the old system had no real claims “We are all about wanting to grow the company
workflow, Cornerstone’s claims reps were often left through the use of ease of doing business for the
tangled in manual processes. agents and the other side of the coin is that we
wanted to gain efficiencies with better technology,”
said Walker.
“We have been pleased to see Bottom line, SurePower Innovation helps
our loss ratio go down since we Cornerstone, and the company’s independent agent
implemented.” distribution network, close better business faster.
“If we’re doing our job right on the pricing, and
we’re making it easy for them [independent agents]
“It simply stored data,” said Forrest. “SurePower to give us the business we want, then it’s a win-win
Innovation is more sophisticated and more complex. for both parties,” said Walker. “We just had to give
It is taking more time to handle a claim, but it is them the system they expected and the customer
helping better handle claims and we have been service they wanted. That will put us over the top as
pleased to see our loss ratio go down since we compared to some of the other companies.
implemented.”
So far, according to Walker, “It’s been an
It’s a trade-off that Forrest finds ultimately overwhelming success.”
worthwhile. Forrest also emphasized other benefits
of the SurePower Innovation implementation that
Cornerstone has realized, including the reduction in
maintenance time spent by Cornerstone’s IT staff, and
efficiencies achieved through automation which today
are best reflected in lower overall operational costs.
ISCS Success Story: Cornerstone National Insurance Company 7Cornerstone National Insurance Company Success Story 100 Great Oaks Blvd. Suite 100 | San Jose, CA 95119 | 888.901.ISCS | iscs.com ISCS was founded in 1994 and offers the SurePower Innovation® pre-integrated, end-to-end policy automation system for property and casualty insurance carriers and MGAs. Customers can deploy SurePower Innovation on-premises or leverage the solution via the SurePackage™ managed-SaaS delivery model. ISCS has achieved 100% implementation success rates with both models. ISCS client locations range across the United States, and all products are 50-state capable. Headquartered in San Jose, California, the company has access to a high level of technical talent to complement its insurance expertise. In addition to SurePower Innovation, ISCS offers facilities for data warehousing as well as outsourced fulfillment and processing services. © 2014 ISCS, Inc. All Right Reserved. Trademarks contained herein are owned by ISCS, Inc.
You can also read
