EDISON, N.J.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--FAST, a leading provider of componentized software for the life and annuity industry, announced today that Catholic United Financial, a fraternal insurance organization located in St. Paul, MN, has recently gone live on FAST’s cloud-based insurance platform to provide state-of-the-art new business support for all life and annuity policies. Catholic United Financial is using FAST to replace legacy mainframe and other software as part of a process modernization effort. As part of the solution FAST will be managing the entire infrastructure on the cloud, further reducing cost and risk for the insurer.
The FAST platform will help Catholic United Financial support a fully electronic straight-through processing model that includes illustrations, electronic applications and signatures, underwriting, and electronic delivery for policies and other documents. Catholic United Financial believes that the robust point-of-sale solution will help modernize member services and streamline policy issue. The platform is also set to deliver policy administration efficiencies to the home office as part of a second phase which also will convert all of the organization’s existing policies, allowing them to turn off legacy mainframe systems. FAST’s service oriented architecture provides an easy expansion path as Catholic United Financial grows, adds products, and integrates with other partners in the future.
Mike Ahles, Senior Vice President and Secretary/Treasurer at Catholic United Financial, said “The FAST solution aligns nicely with our business objectives, primarily being to grow our membership. As a fraternal benefit society, we had to make sure we selected the right partner and I am excited about the prospects for our business as we work with FAST.”
“FAST offers exactly what the market is looking for: a componentized modern insurance software platform that is quick to stand up, easy to maintain and dramatically decreases the risk normally associated with such projects,” said John Gorman, COO of FAST. “Mike and his team have been true visionaries when it comes to running core systems on the cloud. We look forward to a long working relationship with Catholic United Financial.”
“The cloud-based SaaS model is the logical next step for insurers who are looking to focus on their core competencies rather than maintaining an expensive internal IT organization,” said Tom Scales, research director in the insurance practice at Celent. “I expect we will see many more carriers adopting an approach like this in the near future.”
About FAST
FAST, which stands for "Flexible Architecture, Simplified Technology", is a privately-held company located in Edison, NJ founded by the former leaders of NaviSys. FAST focuses on solving the challenges our financial services and insurance clients face as they seek to modernize their systems environments or completely replace legacy systems.
About Catholic United Financial
Based in St. Paul, MN, Catholic United Financial is a life insurance and financial products company serving 84,000 Catholics in the Upper Midwest since 1878. As a not-for-profit, Catholic United transforms its profits into purpose, bringing together members, employees and volunteers to pursue their mission through local community grants, post-secondary education scholarships and more.
