Guidewire’s ‘Connections 2018’ Annual User Conference Showcases New InsurancePlatform Product and Enhancements to More Than 2,100 Attendees

The 14th annual user conference welcomed leaders and innovators in the Property & Casualty insurance industry to explore new enhancements to Guidewire InsurancePlatform™ across all product families

FOSTER CITY Calif. , October 26, 2018

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Guidewire Software, Inc. (NYSE: GWRE), provider of the industry platform Property and Casualty (P&C) insurers rely upon, recently hosted its 14th annual user conference, Connections 2018, in Las Vegas, Nevada. Connections 2018 provided a forum for the Guidewire community – customers, partners, and Guidewire employees – to come together to learn, collaborate, and network.

Chief Executive Officer Marcus Ryu opened Connections 2018 by sharing his perspective of the influence of technology on the transformation of the P&C insurance industry, as evidenced by the release of Guidewire InsurancePlatform™ 2018.2, customer success stories, the growth of Guidewire Marketplace, and the new Analytics and Data Services business unit. Marcus also discussed how Guidewire is continuing to execute on its mission of providing the industry platform insurers need to adapt and succeed in a rapidly-changing insurance marketplace, through the delivery of mission-critical applications, the services insurers need to implement these applications on-premises and in the cloud, and providing a partner ecosystem that can readily integrate into the platform to lower cost, effort, and complexity.

Following Marcus’ keynote, Guidewire’s Chief Product Officer Ali Kheirolomoom, Lead Engineering Manager for InsuranceSuite Denise Videtta, Head of Platform Ecosystem Anirban Bardalaye, and Chief Technology Officer Ray Kreisel continued the theme of fulfilling Guidewire’s mission to provide an industry platform for P&C insurance, recapping the company’s progress over the last year, and sharing its plans for the future. On the last day of the conference, Eugene Lee, Vice President Commercial in Guidewire’s Analytics and Data Services business unit, moderated a panel of customer executives who discussed the unique data and analytics strategies taking place within their respective insurance companies.

The event also featured keynote sessions from Guidewire customers, who discussed industry issues and themes. These presentations included:

  • A panel consisting of Debbie Smith, Vice President of Business Solutions Delivery, Aviva Canada; Tammy Craig, SVP, CIO, Commercial Lines & Agency, Nationwide Insurance; and Marc Beaujean, Member of the Management Committee, P&V Group shared their experiences on challenges women face in insurance and technology industries

  • John Nagle, CEO & Managing Director, icare, led a discussion on customer-centric aspirations and the role of technology in achieving success

  • Kathleen Tierney, President, Berkley One, shared how start-up organizations can use technology to create best-in-class products and services enabled by Guidewire InsuranceNow

In addition, more than 120 hands-on workshops, expert panels, and educational breakout sessions were held during Connections, many involving or led by Guidewire customers. These sessions provided the opportunity for customers such as AF Group, American Modern, Amica Mutual Insurance Company, Atlas Financial, AXA Belgium, AXA Services, Co-operators, Insurance Australia Group, Nationwide, Pekin Insurance, PMA Companies, PZU, Rockford Mutual Insurance Company, Suramericana, TDC Specialty Underwriters, The Commonwell Mutual Insurance Group, Tokio Marine North America, Wawanesa Insurance, Zurich Gruppe Deutschland, and Zurich North America to share their experiences, lessons learned, and best practices.

Guidewire also honored winners of its customer Innovation Awards program for the 12th consecutive year at the conference. Individuals from customer project teams who went above-and-beyond the call of duty during their product implementation projects were also recognized with the third annual ‘Hero’ award.

“We congratulate this year’s Innovation Award winners, and individual project heroes for their extraordinary work above and beyond the call of duty,” said Brian Desmond, Chief Marketing Officer, Guidewire Software. “Every year we are awed and inspired by the stories our customers share about how they are using Guidewire InsurancePlatform™ to increase speed to market, improve engagement with policyholders and agents and lower operating costs in a rapidly changing marketplace. We thank our customers and partners for helping to make Connections such an enjoyable and useful experience.”

Connections 2018 was sponsored by the following Guidewire PartnerConnect™ Consulting and Solution partners: AWS, Athenium Analytics; Betterview; Blackcomb Consultants; Capgemini; CastleBay Companies; Centric Consulting; CGI; Cognizant; Cynosure; Deloitte; Enterprise Rent-A-Car; EY; FRISS; Hubio; Hyland, IBM; ISO; Insurance Technology Services (ITS); InsurPay; Larsen & Toubro Infotech (LTI); Loss Control 360; Mitchell; Octo Telematics, ; Polonious; Prelude Software; PwC; Quadient; Salesforce; SBI Technology; Smart Communications; Sollers Consulting; Symbility; Tata Consultancy Services; V-NEO by GFT; Verisk Analytics; Vertafore; and WeGoLook. All sponsors were on-site and discussed their services/solutions with attendees. Platinum sponsors (indicated by ) participated with customers in presentations, and other sponsors moderated roundtable discussions.

Connections will take place again November 3, 2019 – November 6, 2019 at Gaylord National Resort and Convention Center in Washington, D.C.