EIS Group , a global provider of insurance core systems, today announced the availability of ISO rating data within the company’s policy administration software system — PolicyCore™ — through integration with ISO Electronic Rating Content (ERC). Insurers using ISO ERC in PolicyCore will be able to accelerate the introduction of new insurance products and make product changes more quickly, significantly reducing the time and cost of product configuration and maintenance. ISO is a Verisk Analytics (Nasdaq:VRSK) business.

Maintaining rates, rules, and forms is a complex and labor-intensive process for U.S. property and casualty (P&C) insurers, many of which use ISO as a resource to help stay on top of loss cost trends, new product forms, and regulatory changes. The integration of ISO ERC gives PolicyCore’s rating and product management tools direct access to ISO circular updates. The solution simplifies the update process by enabling insurers to adopt new revisions quickly to keep products up-to-date in the market and to accelerate the implementation of new ISO-based insurance products. EIS Group is an ISO Electronic Rating Content Associate.

According to a recent Novarica research paper, insurers using electronic — rather than manual — means to handle ISO changes have, on average, achieved a 39 percent reduction in overall work hours, a 38 percent reduction in overall cost, a 58 percent decrease in work time for IT modification, and a seven-month improvement in being current with ISO circulars.

PolicyCore with ISO ERC provides time and cost reduction and operational benefits to insurers by:

• Decreasing the risk of coverage, pricing, underwriting, and reporting errors with ISO-interpreted updates;
• Enabling centralized management of ISO content from within PolicyCore;
• Automating the processing of multi-state content and state exceptions;
• Enabling company deviations of rates, loss cost multipliers, algorithms, and coverages;
• Implementing and maintaining company-specific deviations while consuming ISO updates; and
• Identifying changes from previous ISO versions and modeling the impact on company deviations before going into production.

“We’re very pleased to have EIS integrate ISO ERC into PolicyCore,” said Mark Sheehan, assistant vice president of ISO Rating Solutions at ISO. “We believe ISO ERC-enabled vendors provide tremendous advantage to P&C insurers.”

PolicyCore with ISO ERC provides greater visibility into the process, and grants users complete independence to update and manage ISO content and deviations without reliance on vendor schedules. This ability allows greater differentiation in the market and prevents premium leakage. In addition, PolicyCore’s powerful rating engine and product configuration tools are able to leverage the ISO ERC data to deliver an enhanced level of error proofing, traceability, and testing of ISO updates before implementation.

“Integration with PolicyCore underscores our commitment to commercial lines insurers seeking greater speed-to-market and product agility,” said Steve Forte, vice president of product marketing for EIS Group. “Our introduction of ISO ERC, coupled with the rollout of preconfigured commercial auto, property, and liability products earlier this year, gives insurers a very powerful, modern, and flexible commercial lines solution.”