(Pool and fountain at Taliesin West, Frank Lloyd Wright’s winter home in Scottsdale, Arizona. Photo credit: Artotem.)

Despite a trend toward consolidation in the insurance software business, smaller companies serving both the P&C and life & annuities sectors continue to win contracts with innovative solutions. One such company, Vikaran Solutions (Chicago) further expanded its foothold in the workers’ compensation core systems market with the June 4 announcement that it had closed a deal with Synergy Coverage Solutions, a Charlotte, N.C.-based workers’ comp carrier and MGA to replace all its legacy core systems.

The Synergy contract announcement followed on the heels of another announcement by Patriot National Insurance Group on June 2, that it was selected by Nationwide’s Scottsdale Insurance subsidiary as the program administrator for workers compensation. Patriot, which also operates as a carrier and MGA, was Vikaran’s first customer, following the vendor’s debut in 2009 with a policy, billing and claims offering. Vikaran’s software suite is now enabling Patriot National to provide offerings to multiple carriers as a program administrator. The Vikaran/Patriot National relationship demonstrates the ability for carriers with specialized capabilities in lines such as workers comp to leverage the benefits of innovative systems to extend those capabilities to carriers who are not currently in that market.

Vikaran chose to begin developing its core system software for workers’ comp both because the market was underserved and because that line’s inherent complexities drove the development of what Vikaran founder and CEO Sandeep Mehta calls “a huge library of object to build other lines.” Vikaran is curently developing general liability and commercial auto capabilities, which will be followed by business owner’s policy (BOP) and property insurance, according to Mehta.

Synergy Coverage Solutions will implement all modules of the Vikaran WorkersCompExpert suite, including PolicyExpert, BillingExpert, ClaimsExpert, ReinsuranceExpert, QuoteExpert (Agency Portal), Customer Portal and the vendor’s Business Partner Portal. Vikaran says that the implementation will both modernize Synergy’s core system environment and offer Synergy’s agents, customers and business partners a higher level of efficiency, productivity and communication, plus strategic support for future business expansion and growth.

Bruce Flachs, president and CEO of Synergy says the company chose Vikaran’s suite for its robust, out-of-the-box capabilities. “We examined several solutions and picked Vikaran because this suite was best suited to help us achieve our business growth and efficiency goals,” he comments. “This selection strategically positions our company not only for growth but for new levels of efficiency and collaboration, as it allows the entire Synergy ecosystem of agents, customers, business partners and associates to operate within a common environment.”