Meet Mississippi Windstorm Underwriting Association

Business Benefits

• 12-month implementation of a full suite, including migration and integration of data
• Easy integration with existing systems for faster, more accurate response

The Story

The unique requirements of government or municipal-funded self-insured groups often include “doing more with less.” Such may be the case with the Mississippi Windstorm Underwriting Association (MWUA). Established by its state legislature to help provide adequate coverage for windstorm and hail insurance for the coastal areas of Mississippi, the not-for-profit organization serves as the insurer of last resort for that state’s coastal property owners who are unable to obtain coverage in the open insurance market. MWUA is also known as the “wind pool,” and is operated and managed by specialized staff of the Mississippi State Rating Bureau.

Considering MWUA’s location, claims history, and business model, being able to ramp up during weather catastrophes was paramount. So the insurer replaced its custom-created self-managed insurance management system (which proved expensive to maintain from both a hardware and software perspective), with a cloud-based, all-in-one software solution, Guidewire’s InsuranceNow. A move to a modern, cloud-based system meant MWUA could auto-scale to meet policyholder demands during weather catastrophes.

“As we looked for an all-in-one (policy, claims, and billing) solution, we wanted something that was cloud based, so we wouldn’t have to maintain hardware and software,” says Joe Shumaker, Manager of MWUA. “We also wanted a solution that could scale up and down to accommodate the influx of field agents after major tornados and hurricanes.”

Deployment of InsuranceNow was completed within 12 months, including migration of existing policy data and integration with the new system.

“We have integrated it with our accounting system, as well as with vendor systems,” Shumaker said. “For example, we are saving substantial time with mortgage notifications because we were able to integrate the application with InsuranceNow, so everything is done electronically. This has cut the cost of our mortgage notifications tremendously.”

With InsuranceNow up and running, MWUA knows that during a CAT event the system can handle requests from an average of 200 users to 2,000 users as insurers, agents, and policyholders access the self-service portal to view policies, check coverage, and after the storm, check on claims status.

And knowing the organization’s core policy, claims, and billing apps are maintained by a SaaS model gives MWUA peace of mind. “At the end of the day, our system needs to be up and running. It’s our data and our policies in force, so we need to be able to control that, identify adjusters and field operatives, and provide the prompt, thorough, and fair claims service that the claimant is expecting. InsuranceNow auto-scales to meet all of these needs.”