Introduction to PolicyCenter

PolicyCenter is a web-based underwriting and policy administration system designed for personal and commercial line insurers in the property and casualty insurance (P&C) industry. In PolicyCenter, producers and underwriters can submit applications, renew policies, and manage policy changes. Auditing is available for certain types of policies. PolicyCenter provides access to agents, and supports producer relationships and underwriting risk assessment. Typical users, such as underwriters and producers, can create and manage policies, service accounts, evaluate risks, view policies, create activities, and handle inquiries. PolicyCenter also provides access management tools for viewing groups and repurposing workloads.

PolicyCenter stores information about a policy and manages a set of processes that, if completed successfully, result in changes to the policy. Examples of policy changes are: creation of a new policy, renewal of a policy for a new term, or cancellation of a policy. As a result of each policy transaction (such as adding an additional driver to an auto policy), the system determines the price of the transaction. If successfully completed, PolicyCenter forwards this pricing information to a billing system. The pricing information is also important for reporting to regulators.

In PolicyCenter, you can tailor your products. Before you can use PolicyCenter to manage policies, you must first define your product line. In other words, what products are you going to offer? Products are the first level of the product model hierarchy. Insurers or agents sell these products (such as personal auto or workers’ compensation policies) to customers. Each individual policy is an instance of a product. Therefore, personal auto, businessowners, and workers’ compensation are all products.

While PolicyCenter comes with certain lines of business, it is flexible. You can customize the default lines of business to meet your business needs. You can also create your own lines of business in Guidewire Product Designer. (PolicyCenter includes Product Designer.)

How do you configure PolicyCenter? Use Guidewire Studio as the integrated development environment (IDE) to configure PolicyCenter to meet your business needs. In Studio, you can control workflow, policy transactions, PCF screens, typelists, rules, and Gosu.

How are lines different from products? For example, general liability and commercial property are both lines. If you represent a business, you can buy a general liability product, which just includes the general liability line. Then you can buy a commercial property product, which includes just the commercial property line. However, you can also buy a commercial package product, which may include both the general liability and commercial property lines. Commercial package is a multi-line product, as opposed to a monoline product. Conversely, an insurer can sell multiple products, each of which includes the same line or lines. A product can be targeted to a particular group. For example, an insurer can offer a commercial package for shopping centers, one for hotels, and one for universities.

How do you manage policies? You create and manage policies through a web interface. On this virtual Desktop, you create policy transactions (or jobs) that process policies in various ways. Through policy transactions, you can submit, issue, change, renew, cancel, reinstate, rewrite, and audit policies.

Types of policy transactions include: submission, issuance, policy change, renewal, cancellation, reinstate, rewrite, and audit.