25 Best Places to Retire-Columbia, SC (CNN Money)

     The history of insurance technology in Columbia began, arguably, in 1869 with the founding of Seibels & Ezell, an insurance agency.  Given that General William T. Sherman and his army had burned Columbia to the ground in 1865, there could not have been much property to insure in those days.  Nonetheless, Messrs. Seibels and Ezell began a company that would eventually become known as Seibels, Bruce and Company and that still exists today, well over a 130 years later.  The Seibels founding was relevant to insurance technology because it spawned a long, notable, and ongoing legacy of innovation in the insurance business.  The first notable achievement in this regard was Edwin G. Seibels' (1866-1954, and son of the founding Seibels) invention of the vertical filing cabinet.   Here's an excerpt of the "Filing Cabinet" article on Wikipedia:

     "The vertical filing cabinet (vertical file cabinet in the United States) more or less as in use today was invented by Edwin G. Seibels in 1898.  He was working in his father's insurance office and realized that the then current system of folding papers into envelopes and storing them in pigeon holes could be improved if the folding was dispensed with. The documents could then be stored in large envelopes (hangfiles) vertically, in drawers."

     The vertical file was but one of Edwin Seibels notable innovations.  He grew the company to global proportions from its Columbia base.  A summary of his achievements, including the particular role of the University of South Carolina, can  be found in this article accompanied by a 5.5 minute video clip, produced in conjunction with his induction into the South Carolina Business Hall of Fame in 1990.

     After World War II, an Arkansas G.I. worked part-time at Seibels, Bruce while obtaining an undergraduate degree, and then an MBA.  His name was Roy L. Faulks.  He rose through the ranks to become the company's senior financial officer.  In the late 1960's he hired another USC student (who also went on to receive a bachelor's degree and then his MBA) named Larry Wilson.  Through Faulks' sponsorship and Wilson's leadership, in 1972 Seibels, Bruce developed the Policy Management System - an integrated policy and claims administration system that took advantage visual data display (prior systems had been based on punched cards or magnetized tape).  The company began marketing the system to other insurers in 1974.  PMS became a separate division of the company in 1976 and by 1980 there was an IPO for the Policy Management Systems Corporation (PMSC). 

By the mid-1990's PMSC had become the largest company of its kind - that is, focused on computer services for the global insurance industry.  The company achieved revenues of $650M, had 6,000 employees in 30 countries,  and was traded on the New York Stock Exchange.  It was acquired by Computer Sciences Corporation (CSC) and still operates today as the largest part of CSC's Financial Services Group.

    Throughout PMSC's growth in the 1980's and 1990's, other insurance technology firms began setting up offices in Columbia to take advantage of the growing pool of insurance-technology-savvy employees.  There were also entreprenerial start-ups as individuals saw opportunity and embraced the risk of a new business venture.  Acrosoft is a notable example, but there are others. 

     When CSC acquired PMSC, Larry Wilson left to become involved in venture capital.  He eventually affiliated with FirstMark Capital (fka Pequot Ventures) and through them spawned a number of Columbia-based insurance technology companies, including Eagle Eye Analytics and Dovetail Insurance. 

     This history is titled incomplete because it is, of course, still being written.  In fact, it's more exciting portions have yet to happen.  It is also called incomplete for more pragmatic reasons. First, many important names and events have been omitted, not because the author deems them unimportant but because he's ignorant of them.  Readers are invited to submit suggested revisions to info@InnovationInInsurance.com.  Second, there are major story lines which are not Seibels-related which should be included.  Perhaps most notable among them are the story of how Columbia has come to be place where more health insurance claims are processed than anywhere else in the U.S., and probably the world.  Joe Sullivan, CEO of Blue Cross Blue Shield of South Carolina (BCBSSC), and his successor Ed Sellers catapulted their firm into a major force in insurance claims processing.   BCBSSC now processes over 2 million health claims a day, and is ranked in the top 3% of data centers worldwide (see more here).     

Again, we solicit our readers' help to make Release 2.0 of this history more comprehensive and more accurate.  See suggestions to info@InnovationInInsurance.com.

Columbia is one of the leading centers of insurance technology in the world with some 30 employers and 8,000 to 10,000 insurance technology professionals.  Those numbers are growing and in order to keep pace, more than 50 employers and educators gathered on the northeast campus of Midlands Technical College's Enterprise campus in the Carolina Research Park on Columbia's north side for a Talent Summit on May 7, 2008.

The event was organized by the Columbia Insurance Technology Consortium (CITC), chaired by Pete Ashi, COO of Columbia-based T.M. Floyd & Co.  with the support of Neil McLean of New Carolina, South Carolina's Council on Competitiveness, a public-private partnership focused on growing the state's economy guided by strategist Michael Porter's economic cluster study of the state (scroll down to South Carolina Competitiveness Initiative: A Strategic Plan for South Carolina for a link to the full 116-page report).  The Greater Columbia Chamber of Commerce has also been supporting CITC efforts.  Blue Cross Blue Shield of South Carolina sponsored the event (other companies involved or invited to the meeting can be found by clicking here).

The agenda and panelists were assembled to expand and invigorate the dialogue between employers and educators.  Neil McLean gave an opening presentation which outlined the history of insurance technology employers working as an economic cluster as well as an explanation of how economic clusters benefit all the companies involved as well as the surrounding economic community.  The economic impact of the CITC on South Carolina's economy is documented as significant when measured by jobs, payroll, or any other meaningful metric.

One of the recurring themes of the day was the importance of high-quality internship programs.  Employers need to provide them in order to attract the best and brightest of today's students.  Without internship programs, local employers are at a disadvantage at graduation time because larger employers in largers cities are much more well known to students seeking choices.  And it's not enough to just hire interns.  Top students are discriminating in their choice of internships.  In order to make sure every insurance technology employer is aware of what constitutes a high-quality internship program, the staff of New Carolina provided "best-practices" internship program guidelines.

In addition to employers and educators, several students joined the proceedings with an interest in the varied opportunities offered by insurance technology careers.  Eddie Jones of Fiserv pointed out to them that A. M. Best reports that insurance industry jobs in the US are, counter to broader trends, up for the second straight month,  Fortune magazine suggests that students include in their career searches industry-specific sites in addition to broader mainstays such as CareerBuilder.com and Yahoo! HotJobs.  In turn, students suggested to insurance technology employers and educators that much more could be done to inform students of opportunities in this industry. 

Kaye Shaw, Coordinator of the Midlands Regional Education Center, described to employers how they could tell their story to the K-12 educational community through the Personal Pathways to Success program.  This innovative program, created by South Carolina's Education and Economic Development Act of 2005, allows businesses to having speaking opportunties with students, host teachers to tour businesses and learn about the industry, serve on an advisory board for a nearby regional education center, host internship programs, and, in the case of the CEO, serve on the CEO Roundtable.  There was widespread acknowledgement that such programs are necessary to inform students of the opportunities in insurance technology.  Even with thousands of such jobs in Columbia, the industry remains hidden from student and educator views.  Ms. Shaw offered a concrete way for employers to begin to change that current reality.  There's more information at www.scpathways.org, including specifics about how employers can get involved.