Goal:

Enhance the Argo Group Anchor Surety System to provide underwriters and executives with a platform to manage the newly created Contract Surety line of business.

Business Challenge:

Argo Surety serves a wide range of specialty risks in diverse industries such as: Industrial Equipment Services, Real Estate, Manufacturing/Coal Mining, Healthcare Insurance, Oil and Gas/Energy, Telecommunications, Banking, Retail, Technology, Municipal Solid Waste, Public Utilities and Transportation. Recently, Argo opened a new line of business to offer Contract Surety bonds to its clients. The current Anchor application was able to support some of the data points of the new business, but it also needed the ability to manage extra data elements not available (New Rates Structure, Extra Financial Requirements, Work in Progress Details, etc.). These points are vital to identifying the cost of the new premiums and managing the risk through the life of the contract bonds. The application also needed to be able to consolidate all the reporting to include the contract bonds and tie them to the current billing and accounting processes of the Surety division.

The Solution:

Y&L Consulting was selected to update the Anchor Surety application, after a discovery phase, in which high level requirements were identified, and a strategy was established to update the system. Y&L then proceeded to make the required changes in an agile mode, starting with changes at the Anchor account level to manage Contracts accounts, followed by changes at the Bond Level, including new rate structures and financial requirements. Changes were also made to the Authority levels and application permissions, to better manage access and underwriter Authority levels for the Contract Surety division users. Following this phase, the integration to the billing and accounting systems was done, and reports were updated to incorporate and allow users to search for information related to the new Contract Surety business.

Value to Business:

The updates to the Anchor application allowed the Surety division to start writing Contract Bonds without the implementation of a new system. The training of the underwriters was minimal, since they were already familiar with the main Anchor application processes, and the quick implementation of data points like new rates and financial information allowed the division to start writing contract bonds within four months of the project start. The integration of the Surety business within the existing application also facilitated the offering of new products to the accounts already in the system.

 

Client Reference:

Joseph Perschy

Director of Strategic Operations

Argo Surety

Argo Group

Key Services:

 

·       Enterprise collaboration portal

·       Enterprise architecture

·       Custom software development

·       Quality assurance

·       Project management

·       System integration

·       Reporting

Key Benefits:

 

·       Process improvements

·       Improved services to consumers

·       Easier access to data

·       Improved reporting accuracy and efficiency

·       Enhanced User Experience

Technologies:

 

·       HTML/CSS

·       ASP .NET

·       SQL Server

Executive Summary:

 

Industry: United States, Insurance, Specialty Insurance, Surety.

Business Challenge: Update the existing Anchor Surety System to manage the “Surety Contracts” Line of Business, merging it into the current system main structure.

Solution: Update the system to include new business processes and data elements to manage the new business line, while reusing most of the existing screens and flows, thus minimizing the creation of new areas of the application.

Business Value:

 

·       Efficient tools for accessing and managing Surety Contract accounts and bonds.

·       Centralization of all the Surety business processes under the same application.