SEATTLE, June 2, 2008 (PRIME NEWSWIRE) -- IASA and The Ward Group are pleased to announce Midwest Family Mutual Insurance Company has been named the winner of the 2008 Technology Achievement Award for the company's implementation of CGI's INSideOUT. The goal of this winning project was for Midwest Family Mutual to deploy the majority of the company's staff to a work-from-home environment and to be able to be declared a "green" company.
The results of this project were judged by an industry panel as "innovative" and "delivering measurable business impact in the insurance industry." The distinguished industry experts who participated in the judging of the award submissions included Peter Marotta of ISO and the Insurance Data Management Association, Karen Pauli and Matt Macauley of TowerGroup, Carrie Burns of Insurance Networking News, and Jeff Rieder of The Ward Group.
"Midwest Family Mutual's use of imaging, workflow and automation is very noteworthy," said Jeffrey Rieder, CPA, CPCU and president of The Ward Group. "They not only had the vision of using innovative technology but also had the courage to change business processes that resulted in significant expense savings and greatly improved the efficiency of its employees. It was also impressive to see the forward-thinking strategy to reduce the company's use of energy resources even as policies and customers were added."
The Technology Achievement Award presentation will take place on Monday, June 2 during the 2008 IASA Annual Conference & Business Show in Seattle, Washington. Bob Goldberg, vice president of technology development for IASA and vice president of technology for Colorado Farm Bureau Mutual Insurance Company, will present the award to Richard Habstritt, senior vice president and controller for Midwest Family Mutual.
Prior to implementation of CGI's INSideOUT, Midwest Family Mutual wanted to be able to increase revenue per employee to $1 million, reduce the company's expense ratio, increase written premium, increase policyholder surplus, reduce paper usage by at least 50 percent, reduce employee work-related fuel usage, electricity consumption and natural gas consumption, and eventually sell the company's corporate headquarters and move into significantly smaller, more energy efficient headquarters.
The award-winning implementation has allowed the company to establish a paperless environment by taking advantage of full workflow and imaging in addition to web enablement, automated underwriting, rating, print policy, claims and billing and document management outsourcing for printing and mailing functions. Agents are now submitting 100 percent of their personal lines business through the web as a result of the implementation, and they are able to view their policyholder bills and declaration pages online. Additionally, employee satisfaction and productivity have increased significantly.
Other benefits Midwest Family Mutual realized through this implementation and by leveraging hosting platforms such as Citrix, Oracle 10g, and ESX/VMWare, partnering with CGI for document management outsourcing for printing and mailing functions, 3COM for Voice Over Internet Protocol (VOIP) services and Cushman & Wakefield for headquarters rental facilities that received the Energy Star performance rating of 94 out of 100 include:
* A reduction in the company's expense ratio from 33.5 percent approximately four years ago to 25.9 percent; * An increase in written premium by 55 percent; * Increased policyholder surplus by 70 percent; * A decrease in company paper usage by 65 percent; * A reduction in the company's annual electricity consumption by 155,000 KWH or 63 percent; and * A reduction in the company's natural gas consumption by 5700 therms or 76 percent.
Due largely to the company's decreased reliance on paper and need for storage facilities and office space, the company was also able to sell the 24,000 sq. ft. corporate headquarters and now leases 75 percent less space in a modest, energy efficient facility. Today, Midwest Family Mutual is able to turn policy and claims processing around in ten days or less versus the accepted industry standard of 30 days.
"Midwest Family Mutual has always had a culture of embracing, testing and effectively deploying technology," said Ron Boyd, CEO of Midwest Family Mutual. "Our Chairman William Laidlaw, who has been associated with the company for over 50 years, has provided this leadership and instilled this culture. This award is particularly gratifying since it is presented by our industry peers, and from such prestigious organizations as IASA and the Ward Group. On behalf of all our employees and the independent agents that represent our company, we are humbled and honored to receive this award."
The runner up for this year's award was a submission by Michigan Millers Mutual Insurance Company in cooperation with Optical Image Technology (OIT) for the company's implementation of OIT's DocFinity system. In 2007, OIT won the Technology Achievement Award in conjunction with their client Unitrin Direct.
About IASA
The Insurance Accounting & Systems Association, Inc. (IASA) is a non-profit, education association that strives to enhance the knowledge of insurance industry professionals, and participants from similar organizations closely allied with the insurance industry by facilitating the exchange of ideas and information. IASA is one of the insurance industry's largest, and most well represented trade association. IASA membership includes insurance companies of all types (Property & Casualty, Life, Health, Fraternal, HMO and others) as members, as well as companies serving the insurance industry, regulators and also organizations more broadly representative of the financial services industry, including banks and investment brokerage firms. Learn more about the IASA by visiting our website at www.iasa.org or by calling (919) 489-0991.
About Midwest Family Mutual Insurance Company
Midwest Family Mutual is a multi-line Property and Casualty Insurance Company headquartered in Plymouth, MN. The Company provides various Commercial and Personal Lines insurance products through approximately 500 Independent Insurance Agents in the States of Illinois, Iowa, Minnesota, Nebraska, North Dakota, South Dakota and Wisconsin. In the past 5 years, revenue for the Company has grown by 62% and policy surplus reserves have grown by 100%. The Company has been in business since 1891. For more information about Midwest Family Mutual, please visit the company's website at www.midwestfamily.com.
About CGI
Founded in 1976, CGI Group Inc. is one of the largest independent information technology and business process services firms in the world. CGI and its affiliated companies employ approximately 27,000 professionals. CGI provides end-to-end IT and business process services to clients worldwide from offices in Canada, the United States, Europe, Asia Pacific as well as from centers of excellence in North America, Europe and India. CGI's annual revenue run rate stands at $3.8 billion and at March 31st, 2008, CGI's order backlog was $12.04 billion. CGI shares are listed on the TSX (GIB.A) and the NYSE (GIB) and are included in the S&P/TSX Composite Index as well as the S&P/TSX Capped Information Technology and MidCap Indices. Website: www.cgi.com.