PEMCO Gains Agility Through Policy and Claims Modernization

Paving the Way to Expansion

PEMCO Mutual Insurance, a regional provider of auto, home, boat, life and umbrella insurance in Seattle, Washington, had been considering expansion into neighboring Oregon for years, but technology posed a major roadblock.

It was increasingly challenging just to maintain the company’s legacy policy and claims administration systems.

“People with detailed knowledge of our legacy systems began to retire and they were taking their knowledge with them,” said Jeremy Yielding, strategic business contributor, PEMCO Mutual. “New people joining our workforce expected to have a modern user interface to interact with and an automated workflow — features that our legacy systems did not offer.”

PEMCO became one of the first companies to license Exceed and moved its homeowners and personal auto business onto the new system.

Transforming Processes

The new system brought immediate benefits to the company through greater automation and improved workflows. Prior to Exceed, the company’s underwriting staff touched about 28,000 units of work a year.

By automating processes, the company has reduced that workload to 3,400 units — an 80 percent reduction in manual underwriting. Manual processing of in-force policies was cut in half.

“The paper back-office workload has disappeared from our underwriting department,” said Yielding. “It’s been a transformational change. Now our underwriters can focus on what risk management really should be — agency analysis, risk selection and deployment relationship.”

The new system also improved the accuracy and speed of the new business process.

“Exceed gives us a stable platform that we are able to then leverage with our automated underwriting program,” said Yielding. “That has increased the quality of information going into the policy system and it’s reduced our cycle time.”

The company's claims program is also faster and more responsive.

“Once a call comes in, we expect an adjuster, if the claim needs that level of handling, to be in contact with a customer within two hours,” said Yielding.

“With automated claims assignment, we can tell you not only what your claim number is, but we can also give you the name and number of the adjuster who will be handling your claim.”

Another major improvement was the training time required for using Exceed. In the past, training on using the application took two weeks, and now that process has been compressed to 3 days.

“If we get into a storm or contingency situation, we can quickly train and install people to take the first notice of loss,” said Yielding. “That expands our flexibility and our staffing options.”

Expansion and Retention Made Easy

With new processes and tools in place, PEMCO embarked on its plans to move into Oregon in 2010 and sold its first policy there a year later. With its first major geographic expansion under its belt, PEMCO has the capabilities to expand again quickly and efficiently.

“If we have the desire to expand again, we have the expertise and the knowledge so that we can make those configuration changes quickly and easily,” said Yielding.

In the highly competitive property and casualty marketplace, Exceed gives PEMCO a competitive edge in winning and retaining customers.

Keeping Current

To stay current on continuous improvements and upgrades made to Exceed, PEMCO has become a key participant in CSC’s client community and the Exceed Operational Board.

“One of the true powers of the CSC network is that we can all get together, share notes and develop personal contacts between the different companies,” said Yielding. “We have a great relationship with CSC’s development directors, with the developers themselves and with CSC’s management. I have not seen this level of cooperation and commitment from other vendors.”