«‘Lift and Shift’ gave us a modern Guidewire core system, faster and more affordably than we ever thought possible. Being the first to prove this model—with PwC and Guidewire at our side—was an opportunity to lead. Now others can follow.»
Lisa Wharton, CIO, Columbia Insurance
Columbia Insurance
Columbia Insurance has redefined the industry playbook for core system transformation. Facing a decade of project stalls due to the immense financial and human capital required for a traditional build, Columbia Insurance sought an alternative. In partnership with Guidewire and PwC, the insurer pioneered the "Lift and Shift" delivery model of InsuranceSuite on Guidewire Cloud—a strategy leveraging a proven, preconfigured instance that allowed Columbia Insurance to begin from an advanced foundation rather than a blank slate.
“Instead of starting from scratch, we lifted pre-built, production-ready configuration from a previous implementation—a mature, field-tested Guidewire instance—and shifted it into our environment,” says Lisa Wharton, Chief Information Officer. “By going this route, we proved core modernization doesn’t have to be slow, costly, or disruptive to deliver real business value for the small commercial market.”
The benefits Columbia Insurance experienced in this break from traditional implementation was astounding:
While speed was a major benefit, the journey was truly focused on building a better long-term experience for agents, policyholders, and Columbia's team. “The shift wasn't just about code, but about enabling the business,” emphasized Keith Maciejewski, Sr. VP and Chief Underwriting Officer. "We weren't just looking for a new system; we were looking for a way to actually deploy business strategy without the 10-year wait."
While the "Lift and Shift" model covered the core InsuranceSuite, Columbia also had a vision with its digital strategy to create a visible, modern user experience for agents. That is where Jutro Digital Platform came in. The ultimate aim for using Jutro was to achieve "full self-service," allowing agents to drive the underwriting, claims, and billing processes with minimal carrier intervention. "Jutro really gave us the ability to start to innovate,” noted Maciejewski. “We needed a technology that was going to enable us to not only think through what our needs are today, but also for the future."
To further enhance this experience, Columbia Insurance leaned into the Guidewire ecosystem to streamline operations. By integrating One Inc, the insurer modernized its payment infrastructure to offer policyholders secure, efficient digital options. Columbia also leveraged pre-built integrations from SmartCOMM. “That was a huge save for us,” noted Wharton. “Using these existing integrations was a massive efficiency gain saving us thousands of hours that would have otherwise been spent on manual configuration.”
The business impact was immediate and measurable. "The 'Lift and Shift' gave us a foundation that was already battle-tested,” emphasized Maciejewski. “We weren't the ones finding the first-round bugs; we were the ones reaping the benefits of a mature system on day one." This reliability allowed Columbia Insurance to achieve implementation goals with only 150,000 hours, compared to the 400,000-hour industry average.
Crucially, this model protected the company’s strength: its people. "This approach preserved what matters most—our people and their ability to partner with agents to protect policyholders," Wharton noted. "Overall, the approach reduced the level and duration of disruption typically experienced in large-scale core business system transformations."
