National
Grange Mutual's Joel Gelb
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National Underwriter
Technology News - August 2002
by: G. Barry Klien
Joel Gelb, the new CIO at National Grange Mutual (NGM, also
known as the Main Street America Group), got there just in time
to oversee the largest IT project in the company’s long
history—a new policy processing system.
“It’s our ‘gorilla’ project,” Gelb
explains, referring to the multi-year, multi-line and multimillion
dollar initiative. NGM is automating its commercial lines first,
even though personal lines has more premium, “because we
believe we can get more bang for our buck in that area.”
Work had already begun before he got there, but Gelb says he has
no problem with what had been done. “For the most part,
they made the same decisions I would have.”
Castek is the core system for NGM’s project. The company
is designing its own browser front end to attach to the system.
Where it can, NGM is tying into its current systems (such as general
ledger and stat reporting) that are mature and working well. It’s
also putting in a number of new systems and integrating them into
the process. CGI (formerly ISI) is providing its Ratabase rating
technology, for instance; Adaptik, the user interface and some
other functional items. CastleBay Consulting is the project manager
responsible for tying all the pieces together.
Meanwhile, NGM isn’t waiting for the rollout to provide
enhanced functionality for its agents. “We’ve improved
the reports we give our agents,” he says, “and we’ve
dramatically improved the agent-only section of our Web site.”
As an example, he says, agents can now go online and actually
endorse their auto and homeowners policies (some things get bounced
to underwriters, of course). NGM has also signed up for IVANS’s
Transformation Station, so that agents using an Applied, AMS,
or DORIS system will be able to do straight-through processing
from within their agency management system.
Gelb didn’t intend to go into insurance, or even into business,
at first. “My early background is actually statistical analysis,”
he says, speaking of his days as a doctoral candidate and research
faculty member in the Department of Psychology at Columbia University
in New York City. After getting a bachelor’s degree from
State University of New York and a master’s from Johns Hopkins
University, he decided to shift gears and use his skills in the
business world. What better industry for statistics than insurance?
Gelb’s first foray into insurance was in the reinsurance
arena, spending over 11 years at Swiss Re. He started as a program
analyst and worked his way up to officer/director level, running
an applications area. From there, he moved to a primary carrier,
spending five years at GHI, a health insurance company. In 1997,
Gelb got his first position as CIO, moving into the property and
casualty side of the business. He spent over three years with
Frontier Insurance Group, a carrier specializing in the volatile
market of selling tougher risks through wholesale insurance agencies.
“Frontier was great,” Gelb says, “but it got
into serious financial straits. Fortunately, for me, NGM was looking
for a CIO right at that time.” He made the move to Keene,
N.H., where NGM is based. Gelb now oversees about 125 of NGM’s
1,000 employees.
NGM, a mid-sized ($500 million-plus premium) regional carrier,
writes primarily in the New England and eastern states. It works
exclusively through a network of about 1,200 agents in 16 states
and has long been one of the staunchest supporters of the independent
agency system. Not surprisingly, the company spends a lot of time
on agent-oriented initiatives—even internal projects, like
the new Castek policy and claims processing system that’s
being installed, are agent focused.
This article orginally appeared in the August 2002 issue
of National Underwriter
Technology News. Reprinted by Permission.