Inside the Tower TSA – IT’s four-year journey to specialty

In 2010, OneBeacon sold its personal lines business to Tower Group, Inc. The sale was the second of two pivotal moves our company made (the first being the sale of nonspecialty commercial lines in 2009) toward completing our long-time goal of becoming a specialty company. The sale allowed us to focus our energies on the unique needs and opportunities represented by our various specialty industry segments.

But what you may not realize is that the sale was not fully completed on July 1, 2010. Tower did not have the internal systems and structures in place to support the immediate transition of our book of business, so a Transition Service Agreement (TSA) was created to outline the assistance Tower needed, and which a team of OneBeacon employees across our IT, Finance, Billing and Claims groups would provide.

The work on this TSA wrapped up this past June, four years after the sale.

A large undertaking
From the beginning, there was a very detail-oriented approach to the TSA, which very clearly outlined and framed the specific process for requests and services between Tower and OneBeacon. As is typical of a service agreement, the structure consisted of documented services, with additional needs submitted as new requests by Tower, which were subsequently fulfilled by the OneBeacon team.
Scott McClintock, OneBeacon’s Chief Information Officer explained, “In order to facilitate a seamless transition after the sale, Tower decided to use our systems as they worked to develop their own. This included an entire operations platform – underwriting, billing, claims, producer management and various reporting systems – that all eventually needed to be transitioned off our own network. It was a huge undertaking on both sides.” The TSA framed the relationship well so day to day efforts generally ran smoothly. Yet at the end of three years, Tower requested an extension, which ran through June 30, 2014.

On the homefront
In the midst of the large-scale work with Tower, our IT team remained dedicated and focused on realigning our technology capabilities to the needs of our go-forward specialty business. Side by side, priorities were managed to ensure smooth operations to provide our now front and center specialty units with the service and support they required.
Due to the nature of the sale and the TSA agreement, a reduction of staff accompanied each phase of completion. “A lot of dedicated people worked very hard to support and service this agreement,” said McClintock, “Amidst what was a difficult situation for many, it was handled with the upmost professionalism and efficiency.”
“People could have simply picked up and left, but that didn’t happen,” added McClintock. “We had an incredibly loyal employee base who worked to complete the project to the satisfaction of the TSA and their own high standards. That is just a testament to the quality of our employees here at OneBeacon.”

Moving forward as Specialty
Today, although there continues to be some post-TSA support work, the team has successfully transitioned the bulk of the systems off of the OneBeacon network. In total, 135 legacy systems have been sunset with another 15 scheduled for elimination by the end of the year. And while for many employees the sale ended at its announcement four years ago, the truth is that this summer marked the final completion for many. Most importantly it marked a significant milestone, where our specialty focus is reflected internally just as it positioned externally in the marketplace.