Farmers Insurance Group Inc. has hired Paul Wilson as its new chief information officer, and his priorities will include overseeing emerging technologies projects and accelerating product delivery, both of which could help drive competitive advantage for the company, he said.Mr. Wilson, who will begin his new role on Aug. 30, succeeds Ron Guerrier, who left Farmers earlier this year to become CIO at Express Scripts Holding Co. Mr. Wilson was most recently CIO and Group IT leader at Westfield Insurance, and prior to that he spent almost 28 years at Progressive Casualty Insurance in several technology and business roles.
At Westfield and Progressive, he was responsible for overseeing the replacement of legacy IT systems, such as policy and billing systems. He also worked with the chief digital officer and other business partners to update and improve online customer service features. And, he worked to advance the use of agile software development.
At Farmers, Mr. Wilson will oversee about 1,400 IT employees. One focus of his role will be to use innovative technologies to improve customer experiences. Artificial intelligence and data analytics are two key areas that could be used to improve employees' jobs and also to speed up and improve the claims processes for customers, he said.
Fast, easy interactions are key for customers who have become accustomed to the ease of use and personalization of e-commerce. For example, Mr. Wilson says he won't buy from a website that doesn't make it easy to see as many reviews as he can on a product, and to quickly order and check the status of orders, he said. He's "pleasantly surprised" when a company knows enough about his past purchase behavior to suggest a product or service he might like, he said.
"Level of effort matters in today's world, and I want to build and support anything we can that's focused on delivering that kind of experience for folks and to accelerate delivery of new products and features," he said. "I strongly believe that is a competitive advantage for an organization."
The ability to automate mundane processes for employees through artificial intelligence so that they can spend time working on more complex problems is one area of interest, he says.
Artificial intelligence and automation could help make the claims process quicker for customers and take out much of the routine work for its more than 10,000 claims employees, said Rehan Ashroff, director of innovation lab and new ventures at Farmers, in a previous interview.
Mr. Ashroff will now report to Mr. Wilson, and previously said that one of his goals is to streamline the claims process so that customers can get claims resolved in hours instead of having to wait for a claims adjuster to visit them in person, assess the damage, and report back days or weeks later
Mr. Wilson said he expects to "build on and enhance" on work at the company's innovation lab, which was founded in late 2016, and currently includes about 20 proof-of-concept projects that use technologies such as AI, chatbots, virtual reality and drones.
He cautions that, when it comes to innovation, it's important to look for a business problem that technology could help improve, rather than getting distracted by the technology itself.
"It's important to focus it like that as opposed to going out there and falling in love with the next shiny bright object," he said.