Annual Gathering of Guidewire Community Draws More Than 250 Attendees Representing 11 Countries

Guidewire Software®, a leading provider of flexible core systems to property and casualty insurers, has concluded its annual user conference, Connections 2009. With the theme Your Future. Your Success, the two-and-a-half day event included best practice and knowledge sharing among the company’s customers, prospective customers, partners and Guidewire personnel.  With a 30% increase in attendance over 2008, the conference welcomed insurers from 11 countries, including: Australia, Canada, Finland, France, Japan, Mexico, New Zealand, Russian Federation, Spain, United Kingdom, and the United States.

The event’s keynote presentation was delivered by Mike Mullane, retired NASA astronaut and author of the book Riding Rockets: The Outrageous Tales of a Space Shuttle Astronaut. Mullane offered unique perspective on taking responsibility and employing courageous self leadership to accomplish challenging missions. Day two was keynoted by Guidewire’s Marcus Ryu, vice president strategy and products, who presented “The Never-Ending Task of Self Improvement”, focusing on the challenge of continuous performance improvement in insurance core operations. 

The conference program included over 30 break-out sessions designed to appeal to the varying interests of business and technical audiences. In addition to overview and roadmap sessions for each Guidewire product (claims, billing, policy/underwriting), the program offered panel discussions and case study presentations with Guidewire carrier clients sharing their experiences.  Panels included:

• Workers’ Compensation Medical and Disability Management in ClaimCenter (with Missouri Employers Mutual, PMA Companies, and Work Loss Data Institute);
• Implementing BillingCenter (with New Mexico Mutual, Sentry, and Texas Windstorm Insurance Association);
• Implementing PolicyCenter (with Sentry and Kentucky Farm Bureau);
• After Go-Live (with Auto Club of Southern California and Rosgosstrakh);

Case study presentations included: Zurich Japan (with implementation partner Ernst & Young); CNA (with implementation partner, Capgemini); Donegal; Missouri Employers Mutual; Montana State Fund, and New Jersey Manufacturers. The program was rounded out with additional sessions on a variety of business and technical topics of interest to the Guidewire community.

Connections 2009 was sponsored by Guidewire alliance partners: Ernst & Young, Capgemini, PricewaterhouseCoopers, CastleBay Consulting, HP, and Thunderhead – who were on hand to discuss their services/solutions with attendees and to lead roundtable discussions on a host of topics.

“We thank our customer and partner community for a very successful and inspiring conference,” said John Raguin, chief executive officer, Guidewire Software.  “With so many of our Connections’ participants sharing experiences and views, we are able to offer a great learning opportunity for our customer family as well as the Guidewire team.”