FBL Financial Signs With CSC

FBL Financial Group, the West Des Moines, Iowa-based holding company of Farm Bureau Life Insurance Company and EquiTrust Life Insurance Company, has licensed CSC's (Falls Church, Va.) Legal Solutions Suite (LSS) software for its property and casualty, life, annuity and mutual fund operating subsidiaries, according to a press release.

FBL will leverage LSS to streamline and manage collaboration with outside counsel for its Farm Bureau Life subsidiary and affiliates Farm Bureau Mutual Insurance Company and Western Agricultural Insurance Company. It is expected that the effort will help the company manage legal expenses and ensure compliance with fee arrangements, according to the release.

"By automating with LSS, we expect to streamline a costly paper process while improving transparency and consistency in legal matter planning and bill review," Noel McKibbin, vice president of claims at Farm Bureau Mutual, said in the release. "We also look forward to gaining management insight from having the litigation activity and expense data in electronic form."

LSS is a Web-based enterprise application that simplifies the litigation billing process, tracks adherence to company guidelines by outside counsel and promotes best practices in managing legal matters, according to CSC. The solution suite integrates with existing accounting, case and claims systems and includes a business analytics component that can create customized reports from system data.