Baldwin Mutual Insurance
Mutual insurer triples employee productivity and streamlines quoting process with BriteCore
Breaking free from legacy system demands to focus on business agility and growth
Baldwin Mutual had a strong history of IT investment, but its latest move had come up short. The company had rewritten and improved an older system, but the rewrite was expensive, difficult to maintain, and not user-friendly. Everything outside core data in the system was processed manually on paper. It was common for agents and policyholders to wait a full day to access policies.
After a leadership change, Baldwin Mutual began a search for a new modern core insurance system. At first, the company was disappointed as legacy policy administration vendors offered on-prem systems that required expensive upgrades. Other smaller vendors had promising solutions, but they were unproven with few customers.
In contrast, when evaluating BriteCore, Baldwin Mutual immediately recognized the benefits of a modern, cloud-native approach to delivering its policy administration system and appreciated BriteCore’s large and active customer community. Following a rapid and seamless implementation, Baldwin Mutual went live on the BriteCore Platform.
After transitioning to BriteCore, Baldwin Mutual realized substantial business benefits. Time to quote and bind was reduced by 50%. Productivity increased significantly. Following a restructuring, and normal attrition, the company supported the same level of written premium with one-third the employees. BriteCore’s cloud-based platform freed the Baldwin Mutual team from the burden of maintaining IT systems and servers.
With BriteCore, Baldwin Mutual has a renewed focus on the health of the business. BriteCore’s modern and intuitive agent experience has accelerated the onboarding of new agents. BriteCore’s cloud-based capabilities and anywhere, anytime access enable Baldwin Mutual to serve policyholders without disruption. As it looks to the future, Baldwin Mutual is focused on continued growth, new market opportunities, and new products to meet policyholder and agent needs.
Baldwin Mutual Insurance: Serving Alabama's Property & Casualty Needs Since 1921
With over 100 years of serving the Alabama community, Baldwin Mutual Insurance Co., Inc.’s team of insurance experts is proud of the protection they’ve secured for thousands of clients over the years. Continuing its legacy of outstanding service, the company offers dwelling fire, manufactured home, farm, commercial, personal, and premises liability throughout the great state of Alabama.
Moving past in-house system challenges to cloud-based capabilities
Baldwin Mutual had been diligent about investing in its IT systems over the years. However, the latest version of its policy administration system was insufficient for the company’s needs. The company had rewritten an AS/400 program in Ruby on Rails on Linux. While it was an improvement, finding developers to maintain the system was challenging and licensing was expensive. The system’s UI was still a dated green screen.
Everything outside the core data in the system was managed manually on paper. In fact, there was so much paper, Baldwin Mutual established a team dedicated to filing and retrieving hardcopy documents. Even with this team, it was still common for policyholders and agents to wait up to a full day to locate policies. The inefficient manual processes and delays frustrated their agents and policyholders alike.
The company tried to make process improvements by adding third-party document management and workflow systems. However, integrating multiple systems was challenging, and an ongoing series of large storms and catastrophes overwhelmed the Baldwin Mutual team with paperwork and stalled their efforts.
Finding a vibrant platform and community with BriteCore
After a leadership change, improving the company’s business systems became a priority. Baldwin Mutual began searching for a new policy administration system, but they were disappointed. The Baldwin Mutual team felt like they were being forced into replacing their old system with yet another on-premises system, with many established vendors mandating expensive upgrades every few years. Some smaller vendors sounded promising, but they had few customers and were unproven.
Then, Baldwin Mutual discovered BriteCore in the solutions expo at the annual NAMIC conference. Baldwin Mutual immediately recognized the value of BriteCore’s SaaS model with its subscription pricing and continuous upgrades. BriteCore also had a large and active customer community of mutual insurers. The opportunity for collaboration and mutual support within the BriteCore community was a key deciding factor.
In a matter of months, after a rapid and seamless implementation, Baldwin Mutual went live on the BriteCore Platform.
Opening doors to new market opportunities, products, and growth with a new platform
Upon implementing the BriteCore Platform, Baldwin Mutual realized substantial benefits.
Reduced time to quote and bind by 50%
BriteCore’s intuitive agent portal was easy to learn and use. Agents could quote new business the same day and bind the policy immediately after inspection, shaving days off the process and reducing the workload by more than 50%.
Increased employee productivity by 3X
Automation and streamlined workflows within the BriteCore platform enabled Baldwin Mutual to be highly efficient. Following an internal restructuring that was performed after the BriteCore deployment, and with subsequent normal attrition, Baldwin Mutual supported the same level of written premium with ⅓ the prior employee headcount.
Improved focus on business growth and operational excellence
BriteCore’s cloud-based, fully-managed platform has freed the Baldwin Mutual team from the burden of system and server maintenance and enabled them to devote their full attention to improving and growing the business.
Baldwin Mutual relied on key integrations to automate business processes directly from the BriteCore platform, including:
- payCloudio: provides a one-stop payment services solution.
- Sage Intacct: provides cloud accounting software for companies of any size.
With the company running smoothly on the BriteCore Platform, Baldwin Mutual has a renewed focus on the health of the business. BriteCore’s modern and intuitive agent experience has accelerated the onboarding of new agents. The platform’s cloud-based capabilities and anywhere, anytime access enabled Baldwin Mutual to serve policyholders without disruption through a global pandemic and two hurricanes. As it looks to the future, the team at Baldwin Mutual is focused on continued growth, new market opportunities, and new products to meet policyholder and agent needs.
