COUNTRY Financial® Project Leveraging DigitaLab Interns Selected by 50+ Insurer CIOs for Novarica Impact Award
July 7, 2020 (BOSTON) — COUNTRY Financial® will receive an Impact Award from the Novarica Insurance Technology Research Council, a peer community of hundreds of insurer CIOs. More than fifty CIO council members reviewed dozens of case studies to select the winners for the 9th annual awards.
COUNTRY Financial leveraged its DigitaLab, a partnership with the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, to move two apps to new strategic cloud platforms while developing student intern talent. The project saved nearly $40,000 in vendor costs and enabled platform consolidation.
“Novarica’s research shows that more than half of insurers say talent is a top challenge, but many have difficulty prioritizing it against other pressing needs. COUNTRY’s Impact case study shows how insurers can cultivate talent for recruitment while simultaneously leveraging it for innovation and delivering real business results,” says Matthew Josefowicz, President/CEO of Novarica and moderator of the Council.
“Utilizing our DigitaLab partnership to re-platform to the cloud allowed our interns to innovate and contribute nearly 550 hours of programming and technology implementation, which is a key reason they look to us for an internship experience,” said Brad Hildestad, Chief Information Officer at COUNTRY Financial. “Their work assists us in delivering faster solutions to our clients and positions COUNTRY Financial to successfully scale our work during weather-related claims when our clients need us most.”
COUNTRY Financial’s case study, along with case studies of seven other winners, and more than 20 additional cases considered for Impact Awards, was published this week in Novarica’s 9th Annual Impact Case Study Compendium, online at https://novarica.com/compendium2020/. Novarica has published more than 220 case studies through this program since 2012.
About the Novarica Impact Awards
The Novarica Research Council Impact Awards are the largest purely peer-juried awards in insurance technology. CIO council members vote annually to recognize the efforts of their peers to use technology to drive business value in digital, data/analytics, core systems, and IT operations. No vendors, consultants, journalists, or members of the Novarica team participate in the selection committee, making the Novarica Impact Awards distinctive in being a purely peer-juried award.
The Novarica Insurance Technology Research Council is a free, moderated, knowledge-sharing community of more than 300 insurer CIOs and senior executives. In addition to recognizing successful initiatives through the Impact Awards, members participate in anonymized studies and private, vendor-free events. More information at https://novarica.com/council/
The Council is managed by Novarica, a research and advisory firm that helps more than 100 insurers make better decisions about technology projects and strategy through published research, advisory services, strategic consulting, and special programs. https://novarica.com/
About COUNTRY Financial®
COUNTRY Financial serves about one million households and businesses throughout the United States and offers a full range of financial products and services from auto, home, business, farm and life insurance to retirement planning services, investment management and annuities.
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