ICMIF member Portage Mutual (Canada) announced it has successfully deployed a new online platform that will speed up the claims management process in its personal, agricultural and small business lines. The P&C mutual provider partnered with software provider Guidewire to implement the new claims management system to all lines of business at each of its regional offices, in the first phase of its Legacy System Replacement strategy.
John Mitchell, President and CEO, Portage Mutual said, “Our strategy was to stay as close to out of the box as possible, only making changes when it was essential to our business. That strategy was instrumental in completing the project on time and significantly under budget. User feedback about ClaimCenter has been positive, highlighting the system’s easy navigation, reduced training time, and ready access to client information.”
Portage also recently selected PolicyCenter, BillingCenter, Client Data Management, Rating Management, and Reinsurance Management as its new systems for policy administration, underwriting, billing, client data, rating, and reinsurance management. With these selections, the company is now a full InsuranceSuite customer. Portage also selected DataHub and InfoCenter as its enterprise-wide data management and business intelligence systems. Portage will be following the same strategy to implement these products as ClaimCenter: making only those changes essential to run its business.
Mitchell said, “The implementation of PolicyCenter and BillingCenter will complete the second of our three-phase Legacy System Replacement strategy. The final phase will involve transitioning from our legacy back-end financial and reporting system to Datahub. Once all of our data is transformed into DataHub, our data management capabilities and insights will be significantly enhanced. These new systems will enable us to improve our ability to compete in an evolving market.”
“We congratulate Portage on this significant milestone in its evolution and are humbled by its continued trust in the Guidewire platform,” said Mike Polelle, Chief Delivery Officer, Guidewire Software. “We applaud the company’s commitment to providing its policyholders with financial security for their assets, and look forward to working with the customer and its partners to deliver the cloud foundation for its future.”
As a 100% Canadian-owned mutual insurance company, the success of Portage Mutual depends upon serving policyholders with fairness, and showing genuine concern for their security. The mutual insurer does this by providing reasonably priced, flexible insurance products and by supporting brokers with exemplary service. The Portage la Prairie Mutual Insurance Company (Portage Mutual) was organised on 2 October 2 1884, based on the underlying principles of security, integrity, hard work and personalised service. Over the years, the mutual insurer has made a lot of changes in the way it does business, expanding its property and casualty insurance products and services to offer agricultural, auto, condominium unit owner, contractor, disaster planning/recovery, home business, office, realty, residential, retailer, and tenant insurance packages, and built a reputation as one of the most responsive P&C insurers in Canada. But the underlying principles that guides the company -and the friendly, small town style of doing business- remain the same.
Portage’s products are provided through a network of more than 500 independent insurance brokers supported by its Head Office in Portage la Prairie, Manitoba, as well as by Branch Offices in Edmonton, Bedford, and St. Catharines, Canada; and Claims Service Offices in Brandon, Dauphin, Saskatoon, and Winnipeg, Canada.
