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General Information
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August 22, 2008
• Vol.30 Issue 34
Page(s) 5 in print issue
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Attachmate Streamlines The Updating Process
Insurance Company Uses Verastream To Bring Mainframe Data To The Web
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 Banks and insurance companies that have been around for a while typically have large amounts of data and mission-critical systems residing on mainframe systems. This can present a problem when you want to get that information into the hands of employees and partners on a rapid basis. By necessity, mainframe data is segregated. To gain access, therefore, you have to talk to the person in charge of the system to request specific files, database entries, etc. He or she then has to locate data or run the reports and transmit everything to those who need it. This can often be a lengthy process.
Take the case of Century-National Insurance (www.centurynational.com), a division of Kramer-Wilson Company Insurance Services, which has been around for more than 50 years. Its core systems and databases were built on a mainframe foundation. Over the last decade, a set of Web-based front-end systems evolved. The HP mainframes and the Web-based applications just didn’t play well together. Anytime a change had to be made to the Web site, for example, it would take quite a while to alter the underlying mainframe systems. Similarly, any time an insurance policy rating had to be changed, there would be a delay; valuable time was wasted while the mainframe was updated. Meanwhile, customers, agents, and brokers were left waiting for the latest data to be made available online.
“If the change was to our business rules or rates, both the host application and Web site would have to be changed,” says Lou Balicki, vice president of information systems at Century-National Insurance. “When multiple sources were used in calculating rates for the same transaction, each source had to be evaluated with the proposed changes and corrected if necessary. This ‘synchronization work’ consumed more resources and time and usually slowed down delivery.”
The insurance firm solved the issue of legacy integration using Verastream host integration software by Attachmate (www.attachmate.com). Through the utilization of Verastream, Century-National Insurance has cut down over a fifth of the time it had to spend on mainframe maintenance, has reduced overhead costs, and has decreased profit-killing administrative mistakes. It has also sped up brokers’ access to information, reduced paperwork, and eliminated redundant data entry.
“Since our deployment of Verastream, there hasn’t been a situation where brokers had to wait for rate or rule changes,” says Balicki.
 Changing The Rules
Century-National Insurance Company is based out of North Hollywood, Calif. Founded in 1956, the company supplies insurance throughout the Western states, including California, Nevada, Arizona, Washington, and Oregon. It is licensed in 38 states nationwide. In addition to providing property and automobile policies to individuals, Century provides insurance programs for mortgage lenders, banks, finance companies, credit unions, and savings and loan companies.
Prior to Verastream, Century-National Insurance had to follow a very lengthy process whenever it was time to change insurance rates or rules. According to Balicki, IT had to go through numerous steps that consumed valuable time.
“After the rates and rules were approved by the appropriate regulatory agency, the changed documents went to business analysts who would ‘scope and spec’ the changes to the various programming teams for the mainframe system, as well as the broker and consumer Web sites,” says Balicki. “In this convoluted environment, separate threads of analysis, development, and testing would have to be run, often iteratively by the analysts and programming teams.”
Once everything had been synchronized, the results would then be released to the business units for final acceptance testing and sign-off for deployment into production environments. This long-winded and manually intensive process put the company, its brokers, and its customers on hold.
Century-National Insurance needed a solution that would allow its staff to seamlessly transfer data stored on its back-end mainframe systems to a new Web-based application. Initially, it attempted to harness a terminal emulation application to streamline data transmission from its mainframes. However, problems arose that required regular troubleshooting. Thus, the company turned to Attachmate for a more comprehensive solution.
Verastream To The Rescue
The Verastream suite provides a range of mainframe, Web, and desktop modernization tools that speed the reuse of legacy applications. It acts as the interface between front-end Web applications and the back-end mainframe. Thus, agent/broker and direct-to-consumer applications can collect transaction information from the users, package it, and send it via Verastream to the mainframe.
“Verastream interfaces with the host application on the HP3000 mainframe to access the underwriting application and return back the rating information for either a quote or to issue a policy,” says Balicki. “Rating and rule information is now at a single source, making changes easier, and the Web-sold policy transaction information is uploaded via Verastream to the midrange system policy administration and reporting modules. This makes everything much faster and simpler.”
The flexibility of the program is allowing brokers to use the Web-based application to access homeowners’ insurance information from five of the six states in which the company operates. The company plans on deploying the solution to the final state, as well as creating similar Web-based applications to allow brokers to access information on personal automobile and earthquake insurance.
Increased Value
“Anytime I can bring a product or a value change with less time and resources is a big benefit,” notes Balicki. “Verastream allows for real-time transaction updates and information transfer, which brings more business value to our efforts.”
In addition, it increased the level of productivity in Century-National Insurance’s IT department. “In these particular product areas, I would say I have gained almost a 20% increase in work-value,” Balicki says. “This allows me to deliver other product enhancements to our systems product mix, both to my internal customers as well as our external clients, agents, and brokers.”
With the first wave of Verastream implementation complete, the company has moved on to the next phase. It is in the process of mapping its endorsement processes with Verastream so that agents, brokers, and customers will have the ability to process or request policy changes directly online and in real time.
Agent and broker systems will be completed first, followed eventually by customer systems. According to Balicki, “Use for Verastream with our personal automobile business is also in the planning stages.” 
by Drew Robb
Attachmate Verastream Integration Suite
Provides a complete range of mainframe, Web, and desktop modernization tools that speed the reuse of legacy applications; it uses a services approach to extend legacy data and logic to new users or new composite applications
“Anytime I can bring a product or a value change with less time and resources is a big benefit,” notes Lou Balicki, vice president of information systems at Century-National Insurance (www.centurynational.com). “Verastream allows for real-time transaction updates and information transfer, which brings more business value to our efforts.”
(206) 217-7100
www.attachmate.com
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