Quick Silver Systems

Sean Pitcher and his contribution to the insurance sector has been a real game-changer. Back in 2000, he was working as the Vice President of IT at an insurance company, where he witnessed issues in the existing policy and claims administration systems that were seen across many different solutions being sold at the time and still being sold today. This steered Sean toward starting his first company, Maximum Processing Inc, where he created the Stingray System. Over a 16-year period, he built that company to have over 28 successful installations from small shops to billion-dollar insurance companies. Stingray was purchased through M&A in 2016 where the company had grown to include over 125 employees across multiple locations. The experience sharpened Sean’s expertise in the field and helped him see where further improvements could be made.

During Pitcher’s entrepreneurial journey with Stingray, he observed several other challenges in the insurance landscape that were still unaddressed. He noticed that insurance carriers are often charged a large amount of money for the license and implementation of systems. Moreover, carriers are not given access to the development source code, which forces them to be vendor-dependent for performing ongoing modifications. In response to these challenges, Pitcher founded Quick Silver Systems to optimize the policy and claims processing for the small to mid-sized insurance carriers who are often budget-constrained but need the full set of features offered by million-dollar systems.

Pitcher and his team have built an automated, web-based system called “Mercury Policy & Claims Administration System” for the P&C insurance carriers from the ground up. This system provides end-to-end customizable solutions for rate, quote, bind, backend-processing like cancellations, renewals, reinstatements, billing, document imaging system, etc. On the claims side, they cover first notice of loss, validation and verification of policy coverage by the date of loss, automated reserves, check payments, and check printing processing. They enable automated integration and delivery of the system features so no client is left behind using old “versions” of the system. Among many features the system offers, one is VIN look-ups for all US vehicles made after 1991.

Based on the client’s needs, Quick Silver Systems can fully tailor a system. They give clients complete control over their screens to later expand or improve their system on their own if they choose to do so. The need to rely on several vendors, have multiple licenses, and invest millions of dollars are virtually eliminated. Quick Silver Systems additionally puts their own money on the line by assuring clients zero cost for any bug fix; bug fixes are always free.

The Mercury System being 100% web-based can be leveraged from any location, on any device, by policyholders, agents, and company employees 24/7. “We are a one-stop-shop for insurance carriers looking to automate any line of business; providing a web-based and fully customizable system, for rate, quote, bind, backend processing, and claims processing, while reducing costs during implementation and eliminating our client’s need for multiple costly licenses,” mentions Pitcher, founder and CEO of Quick Silver Systems.

Mercury Systems has a broad array of features that address the specific needs of a full-featured policy and claims solution and includes all of these features as a part of the core system at no additional charge. For example, SMS messaging, a full document imaging system, workflow, image acquisition for a cell phone, dynamic reports and letters, data import capabilities, ad hoc reports in 5 different formats, inbound and outbound APIs, and many more.

The Mercury System also features dynamic screens, enabling flexible screen interactions created with a simple drag and drop user interface. These screens collect only the required data and optimize complex data collection scenarios. For example, in the first notice of loss, the screen may display a question asking for the customer’s police report. If the question is initially answered as “no”, the screen automatically and dynamically eliminates additional police report questions since it intelligently knows these additional questions do not apply. The system also enables interactive document production displayed in the browser and producing .pdf output matching the forms and letters filed by the carrier. These dynamic screens are particularly helpful for users who don’t have extensive insurance expertise being highly intuitive while intelligently enforcing the insurance company data collection guidelines.

To further illustrate, Pitcher mentioned the story of a client selling Equine insurance. This client wanted to automate a manuscript type policy while improving their control over the rating process and the many forms and documents that are produced with this type of policy. Quick Silver Systems transformed these processes with an end-to-end automated process utilizing the dynamic screens, dynamic automated document creation, and workflow of the Mercury System.

Quick Silver Systems works in an automated agile development environment that enables code modifications or bug fixes to automatically push to user acceptance testing. Their system deploys automated validation and testing of all code with atleast 80 percent of the functional code lines tested and requiring a 100 percent pass rate. These tests are then followed with automated user tests that require a 100 percent pass rate as well. Continuous Delivery allows developers to make a code modification and for the client to see it in their test environment measured in minutes instead of days or weeks.

Quick Silver’s Mercury System focuses intensely on ensuring authentication of client access into the systems. Every user has a system-login with individual access by rights. Implementing multi-layered security with banking grade SSL encryption behind the firewall, they also have many additional protections built into the core system such as SQL injection protection, buffer overflow protection, and session hijacking protection among others.

To keep client engagement flexible and easy, Quick Silver Systems simplifies their contracts and keeps them short and to the point. They start documentation sessions in the initial phases and provide matching systems to get clients’ feedback as early as possible in the process. Additionally, they provide ongoing support to the clients with Service Level Agreements and Up Time Guarantees with 24/7 monitoring of the various systems and their status.

Quick Silver Systems’ Mercury System has fit perfectly with the world speedily moving towards online facilities amidst the pandemic. Online purchases of policies have been beneficial for carriers that are positioned to service clients 100% online. Also, the work-from-home culture, where every user can securely log in to their corporate systems from a remote device with no interruption to their processes, has helped secure more companies who support a remote work environment. Moving forward, Quick Silver Systems wishes to leverage their industry knowledge to continue to expand the features that best serve the P&C insurance industry. Meanwhile, their out-of-the-box customizable solutions are expected to serve the small to mid-cap carriers, particularly non-standard auto, commercial package and workers-comp—but offer the ability to write any P&C line of business.