(Image source: West Bend Mutual homepage.)
West Bend Mutual Insurance Company (West Bend, Wisc.) has moved its Duck Creek Policy and Billing applications to Duck Creek’s OnDemand software-as-a-service option to improve speed to market, customer experiences, and operating costs. The insurer has also committed to implementing the entire Duck Creek Suite via the On-Demand alternative.
Murali Natarajan, SVP and CIO of West Bend.
“Duck Creek’s offering of SaaS core systems is strategically aligned with West Bend’s aggressive digital transformation efforts, comments Murali Natarajan, SVP, CIO, West Bend. “Extending our current footprint of OnDemand products—Policy and Billing—to the full Suite is the next logical step to modernizing our core systems.” said Murali Natarajan, SVP and CIO of West Bend.
“Having all of our core applications running on the Duck Creek Platform will give us greater ability to use data as a competitive asset, introduce new products and change existing ones rapidly, and connect with the growing InsurTech ecosystem through Anywhere Managed Integrations,” Natarajan adds.
With inherent openness, configurability, and common functionality across Duck Creek applications, the Duck Creek Platform speeds and simplifies processes, fosters transparency across functions, and brings more and better information to bear on every decision more quickly, according to the vendor. West Bend’s adoption of the Duck Creek Suite expands its portfolio of Duck Creek software to include Duck Creek Claims, Duck Creek Underwriting Workbench, Duck Creek Insights (a powerful business intelligence solution), Anywhere Managed Integrations (pre-built, Duck-Creek-maintained connections to valuable third-party services and InsurTech partners), and more. The combined approach will give West Bend a complete and consistent view of all of their customers, regular updates and upgrades, and multi-level business intelligence—across all Duck Creek solutions simultaneously, the vendor says. West Bend reported its initial implementation of Duck Creek Policy and Billing and its use of the vendor’s Commercial Lines Templates in June 2014.
Karlyn Carnahan, Head, The Americas, Property Casualty, Celent.
Speed of Transformation
“In this increasingly fast-paced world, carriers are learning that the keys to successful digital transformation are speed of transformation, ease of integration with new digital capabilities, and the ability to use data more effectively,” comments Karlyn Carnahan, head of Celent’s Property Casualty practice for the Americas. “Cloud-first strategies are increasingly becoming the foundation for speed.”
“Digital ecosystems, such as Duck Creek’s Anywhere Managed Integrations, are gaining traction as simplified, faster ways of accessing new digital capabilities,” Carnahan adds. “And, of course, running all core modules from a single vendor can streamline the ability to capture, access, and utilize data more effectively.”
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