Harleysville Insurance Continues to Enhance Ease of Doing Business

HARTLAND, Wis., Oct. 26 /PRNewswire/ — Harleysville Insurance is rolling out a new AQS/advantage commercial lines policy administration system that facilitates rating, quoting and policy issue processes in a real-time mode, and integrates predictive modeling for risk assessment with an underwriting rules engine. The new platform offers the company’s independent agency partners significant flexibility in doing business with Harleysville, while improving the insurer’s underwriting consistency and productivity. It also enables the Pennsylvania-based insurance company to add new and enhanced products to its portfolio, and will eliminate the expense of supporting multiple mainframe rating and policy administration systems.

The new commercial lines system was introduced in Pennsylvania — one of Harleysville’s largest commercial lines states — early this month. The rollout will continue in 2008 throughout the remainder of the 32 eastern and midwestern states in which Harleysville does business. The system is available to the company’s agents via accessHarleysville(SM), the insurer’s newly branded agent portal.


“We’ve made tremendous progress the past two years on the technology front as we’ve focused on making it easier for our agency partners to do business with us,” noted Akhil Tripathi, Harleysville’s senior vice president and chief information officer. “The AQS/advantage product line fits our needs, and I’m confident it will carry us into the future.”


Harleysville licensed the AQS suite consisting of AQS/advantage(TM), the policy administration system; AQS/advantage Integrator, a tool to manage the ETL process; and AQS/advantage Transaction Gateway, a means to administer unattended processing.


“The introduction of this new commercial lines system is a key component of our strategic efforts to provide unified technology and product platforms, and it complements the new personal lines policy administration system we launched in August,” says Tripathi. “With the implementation of these two new systems and our ongoing business transformation, we are positioning ourselves to win more of our agents’ best accounts,” says Tripathi.


Dave Kerford, AQS president and CEO, said, “Projects of this size and complexity cannot be successfully accomplished without a sincere commitment on the part of both carrier and partner to find the fastest and most cost-effective way to enhance the carrier’s relationship with its distribution channels. We at AQS are pleased to be that partner assisting in Harleysville’s business transformation. There’s more to be done and we look forward to our continued joint success.”


About Harleysville Insurance


Harleysville Insurance is a leading regional provider of insurance products and services for small and mid-sized businesses, as well as for individuals, and ranks among the top 60 U.S. property/casualty insurance groups based on net written premiums. Harleysville was recently listed as #23 in the InformationWeek 500, the publication’s annual listing of the most innovative information technology organizations in the U.S., and was the highest-ranked property and casualty insurer on the 2007 list. Harleysville Mutual Insurance Company owns 53 percent of Harleysville Group Inc. (NASDAQ:HGIC) , a publicly traded holding company for nine regional property/casualty insurance companies collectively rated A- (Excellent) by A.M. Best Company. Harleysville Group is a member of the NASDAQ Global Select Market, which represents the top third of all NASDAQ-listed companies and has the highest initial listing standards of any exchange in the world based on financial and liquidity requirements. Harleysville Insurance — which distributes its products exclusively through independent insurance agencies and reflects that commitment to its agency force by being a Trusted Choice(R) company partner — currently operates in 32 eastern and midwestern states. Further information can be found on the company’s Web site at http://www.harleysvillegroup.com/.


About AQS Inc.


Since 1979, AQS has provided leading policy administration solutions for commercial property and casualty insurance carriers. In addition to its innovative Web-centric product, AQS/advantage, integration solution, AQS/advantage Integrator, and self-maintenance solution, AQS/advantage Product Manager, AQS provides diverse professional service solutions to 35+ insurance companies throughout the United States. AQS/advantage supports all transactions for all commercial lines of business, in all states. The system is architected for scalability and leverages the Internet and innovative technologies such as Web services and .NET to automate and shorten the entire policy transaction lifecycle. AQS is a Microsoft(R) Gold Certified Partner.