Montana State Fund Reports Successful Guidewire Implementation

Montana State Fund (MSF), the state's largest workers' compensation insurer, and Guidewire Software®, a leading provider of solutions to property and casualty and workers’ compensation insurers, today announced that Montana State Fund has successfully deployed Guidewire ClaimCenter® for its end-to-end claims handling needs. ClaimCenter has replaced MSF’s in-house developed legacy claims system and has delivered significant sustainable business benefit to MSF. ClaimCenter has been instrumental in helping the company reduce its average TTD (Temporary Total Disability) duration from 43.5 weeks prior to deployment, to 29.6 weeks with ClaimCenter.

Montana State Fund (MSF) is a public entity that operates as a competitive state fund, providing coverage to nearly 28,000 employers in the state. The company recognized the limitations of its core legacy systems including the inability to support MSF’s strategic business vision while keeping pace with increased claims handling complexities and regulatory requirements. In addition to potentially putting MSF at a competitive disadvantage, the legacy systems could not easily integrate with modern applications; real-time operational functionality was non-existent; and the cost to maintain the older technologies was becoming cost prohibitive.

Guidewire ClaimCenter, a leading web-based claims management system, was deployed to enable MSF achieve its strategic business objectives; provide better claims service to its policyholders and their injured workers; and to improve MSF’s overall claims handling capabilities. Now in production with 211 MSF users, ClaimCenter handles an average of 9,674 active claims.

“Our ClaimCenter implementation was one of the smoothest roll-outs of a major system by our organization.” said Al Parisian, chief information officer, MSF. “We have been in production with ClaimCenter for some time now, and can appreciate the significant benefits the system offers.” He adds, “We have seen a positive impact on our claims metrics and a dramatic reduction in our turnaround time for many types of system change requests. ClaimCenter supports our adjusting processes and allows good people to be even more efficient and effective.”

Some of the additional benefits MSF is realizing from ClaimCenter include:

• MSF adjusters have the ability to capture and access more and better quality claim data which has led to improved decision-making during the adjudication process;

• MSF has gained a real-time view into adjuster workloads, claim data and status;

• ClaimCenter’s modern architecture and intuitive user interface actually serve as a recruiting aid to help MSF attract new adjusters and IT talent;

• ClaimCenter’s rules engine enables the MSF IT team to readily make system changes in-house; and

• The system’s flexible and well-designed architecture provides the technology foundation on which MSF can future proof its claims handling system.

“We couldn’t be more pleased with the successful outcome of this project and how it is helping us run our business better,” said Layne Kertamus, vice president, Insurance Operations, Montana State Fund. “ClaimCenter provides us with the tools to make better and more informed decisions, while providing us real-time visibility into our processes; we are a much more flexible organization as a result.”

“Montana State Fund has a commendable commitment to achieving operational efficiencies and providing superior customer service to businesses and injured workers in Montana,” said John Raguin, chief executive officer, Guidewire Software. “We are pleased that Guidewire and our ClaimCenter solution are contributing towards these objectives.”

Guidewire ClaimCenter is a 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. In addition, a modern technology architecture, web client, and web services support enable lower total cost of ownership in any environment.