Harleysville Taps AQS

To reduce time to market for new commercial lines products and provide ease of use to its agents, Harleysville Insurance (Harleysville, Pa.; $3.7 billion in total assets) will implement AQS' (Hartland, Wis.) Web-based AQS/advantage suite. "This is part of a long-term strategy to make it convenient and easy for the agent to submit new business for us," says Harleysville CIO and SVP Akhil Tripathi, who adds that it also "will strengthen our ability to launch products."

Based on a Microsoft (Redmond, Wash.) .NET platform, the suite will enable agents to submit business over the Internet. Components of the solution include AQS/advantage, a policy administration system; AQS/advantage Integrator, an integration solution that incorporates ACORD standards; and AQS/advantage Product Manager, a self-maintenance tool that utilizes ISO's integrator system, an electronic method for delivering rate rule updates.

Faced with changing agent expectations, Harleysville began searching for a Web-based system with rating capabilities in April 2005, selecting AQS/advantage last month. Tripathi says the carrier hopes to complete the implementation by this time next year. Given the product's customizable architecture, which allows lines of business and states to be added quickly, Tripathi adds that he expects the suite to "eventually support all of our commercial line products."