Georgia Farm Bureau Mutual Insurance Company

CGI’s mentoring and knowledge transfer key to automating the insurance application process at Georgia Farm Bureau

Only two years ago, the Georgia Farm Bureau Mutual Insurance Company (GFBMIC) was one of a handful of insurance companies in North America still using a paper process to handle automobile insurance applications.

The company is part of a grassroots voluntary agricultural organization, the Georgia Farm Bureau, whose membership consists of 325,000 farm families throughout the state of Georgia. And as with any voluntary organization, cost-cutting is a necessity that sometimes stretches the limits of what’s possible!

This cost-consciousness led GFBMIC to use its own primarily DOS based COBOL programmers to design a web-based tool that would automate the application process. Before long, it became clear that they needed to contract the services of a consulting firm that could not only assist them in developing this Application Generation (“AppGen”) product, but also turn their technical staff into fully functioning object oriented web developers.

Enter CGI, whose Atlanta office was a little more than an hours’ drive from the client in Macon.

The Challenge
Taking the client’s AppGen design, CGI’s challenge was to help GFBMIC develop the product and deploy it at insurance agents’ workstations in 158 Farm Bureau locations. The anticipated result? Agents would simply key in driver and vehicle information and automatically receive a quotation. No paper, faster service and fewer errors.

However, as the project progressed, CGI discovered that certain elements of the design needed to be re-configured in order to comply with object oriented development standards. Also, an unexpectedly high staff turnover at GFBMIC required more on-site work from CGI resources.

The Strategy
The project was planned and managed using the Rational Unified Process, an iterative development methodology that allows implementation of an effective solution over multiple cycles. As well, CGI followed its own successful Project Management Framework, assigning a team of eight expert technologists, with a mix of skills, who had worked on multiple projects in the past.

Because knowledge transfer was an important aspect of this project, the client’s technical staff was involved in all aspects of the development and implementation process. CGI resources were there to provide technical leadership and guidance and to assist with coding guidelines, standards and procedures. Throughout the project, both the client and CGI management teams emphasized the importance of partnership.

In order to transition GFBMIC’s primarily DOS based COBOL programmers into object oriented web developers, CGI offered employee evaluation and classroom training sessions. Even more valuable was the one-on-one mentoring relationship the CGI consultants successfully developed with the client’s technical staff. Not only did this require a high level of technical expertise on behalf of CGI consultants, but excellent communications skills, such as listening, questioning, validating, and suggesting alternative approaches.

The Technology

• The CGI team demonstrated ingenuity and creativity in solving some very complex technical problems. In all, the project involved working within some 17 hardware and software development environments: Visual Basic, HTML, XML, ASP, Microsoft Host Integration Services, COM Transaction Integration, Mainframe COBOL II, Web, CICS, TSO, VBSCRIPT, Win2K, Access 97, Crystal Reports (Web Component), UML, Rational Rose, Visual Interdev and Visual Source Safe.

The Results
Timeframes were extended due to scope changes and unanticipated staff turnover at GFBMIC. Through CGI’s technical expertise and guidance, the client was able to build the required in-house web-development expertise to continue with the project on its own.

“Georgia Farm Bureau contracted with CGI not only for development services, but for mentoring and improvement of the skills of our staff,” said Randell Lack, Director of Information Systems at GFBMIC. “CGI has delivered as promised and we will benefit from our partnership with them for many years to come.”