Colorado Casualty Strengthens Business Owner Policy Line with Web Access

Founded in 1980, Colorado Casualty quickly developed into a strong regional carrier of standard lines and commercial property and casualty insurance. The company conducted business primarily in eight Rocky Mountain States and began expansion into new market areas in 1992. Acquired by Liberty Mutual Group in 1998, Colorado Casualty is a strong regional property casualty in the western U.S. with a focus on small commercial markets.

Colorado Casualty wanted to grow its BOP (Business Owner Policy) business. The company reasoned that if agents could enter, inquire about and post new business owner insurance policies over the Internet, it would eliminate much of their paperwork, save them time and facilitate sales – encouraging more agents to choose Colorado Casualty more often.

Throughout the project, ease-of-use for independent agents was the primary goal. Because of the importance of "front office" impact online, the company put a great deal of emphasis on e-commerce expertise in its selection of a legacy system extension vendor. As a result, Colorado Casualty chose DataDirect because the provider was impressed with DataDirect's quick-to-market middleware technology that did not require changes to the underlying host system.

"DataDirect had the technical skills," states Colorado Casualty Vice President Ron Kienzle, "but we wanted to make sure they understood our agents and what they would expect of the site. We didn't just want it to be user-friendly, we wanted it to be user-seductive."

DataDirect ClientBuilder built an interface from Colorado Casualty's AS/400 policy application, which is on a PMSC Point System, to a Web site that would enable agents to complete policy applications online.

Not only is Colorado Casualty's new online interface easy to use, it provides independent agents significant time and cost savings in entering new policies. It allows policy applications to be entered into the back-end system in real time, eliminating the need for paperwork, faxing and data entry.

It also eliminates the need for in-house data entry by underwriters and reduces a multiple-day turnaround cycle to same-day service. This allows agents to give their own customers more responsive customer service -- for increased sales and improved customer retention.

Agents generate multiple quotes online without leaving Colorado Casualty's site -- eliminating the need for PC-based rating tables. ClientBuilder automatically generates completed policy applications, which are then printed by the agents off-site.

"We needed to enter the age of electronic commerce," adds Kienzle. "The DataDirect solution seemed the easiest, best and least expensive method of extending our legacy applications to our agents."