Merastar Insurance Company in Production with Guidewire ClaimCenter

Merastar Insurance Company, a specialist in employer-sponsored personal automobile and homeowner's insurance, and Guidewire Software®, a leading provider of solutions to property and casualty and workers' compensation insurers, today announced that Merastar has fully deployed Guidewire ClaimCenter® for all Merastar's lines of business, replacing the insurer's legacy COBOL-based system.

With completion of the nine-month, on-time, on-budget ClaimCenter project, Merastar's 40 adjusters have migrated from a cumbersome and out-of-date green-screen legacy environment to a real-time, web-based claims system. The workflow inefficiencies, design inflexibility, and scheduled batch processing of the old system no longer supported Merastar's needs, much less their anticipated growth. The new ClaimCenter system brings Merastar better and broader access to claim information and an overall improvement in claim handling, including payout accuracy and reduced closure times.

"With the flexibility and power of Guidewire ClaimCenter, we've been able to implement our ideal claims process rather than having to force-fit the process to technology as we had done with other systems," said Scott Harris, vice president of claims, Merastar Insurance Company. "For the first time, our entire management team and key stakeholders have an up-to-the minute and complete view into our claims handling process, allowing managers to proactively oversee their team's workloads and giving other stakeholders ?view-only' access to keep everyone current on claim status."

Guidewire ClaimCenter also enables Merastar to:

• View claimant policy coverages at-a-glance', without needing to decipher coverage codes;

• Create diary entries automatically, improving productivity and efficiency, and reducing errors;

• Enter more detailed claim information, resulting in better decisions;

• Provide 24/7, secure, online access to consolidated claim files, improving adjuster efficiency and greatly reducing service delays.

"Our ClaimCenter implementation went very smoothly, especially given that the project required multiple complex integrations to our existing systems," said Ken Lytle, chief information officer, Merastar Insurance Company. "The Guidewire team was extremely knowledgeable and easy to work with. They went the extra mile from day one and ensured complete knowledge transfer to our staff, preparing us well to manage our new environment going forward."

Guidewire ClaimCenter is the leading end-to-end claims system for property and casualty and workers' compensation insurance. ClaimCenter's flexible business rules enable claims organizations to optimize and monitor the claim process. Claims executives can define, enforce, and continually refine their preferred claim handling practices. ClaimCenter's modern technology architecture, web services support, and web client enable lower total cost of ownership in most any environment.

"We thank Merastar for choosing Guidewire's ClaimCenter solution and for their confidence in our team," said John Raguin, chief executive officer, Guidewire Software. "Merastar, like many other insurers today, recognized that their legacy environment was holding them back rather than supporting their business objectives of growth and higher quality customer service. Merastar took action and is now enjoying the benefits of their ClaimCenter decision."