Business News: Clara Analytics, Legion Claims Solutions, Duck Creek Technologies

Clara Analytics Hires CEO

Clara Analytics, a data analytics provider to the commercial insurance industry, has appointed Gary Hagmueller as chief executive officer as the founder of the company steps down from the helm to take over the role of chief product officer.

Hagmueller’s appointment comes on the heels of a number of executive hires as the Silicon Valley insurtech firm prepares for growth. The company last week announced a partnership with Aon to offer a product that aims to reduce litigation in workers’ compensation claims.

“Given that $330B is spent annually on claims operations and settlements, this is a massive market ripe for disruption,” Hagmueller said in a prepared statement.

Clara Analytics said Hagmueller has focused on building artificial intelligence and machine learning applications for the enterprise market during a 20-year career in technology.

Hagmueller comes to Clara Analytics from Ayasdi, “an enterprise AI pioneer,” where he most recently served as chief operating officer, the company said. He led efforts to turn the firm into a vertically focused AI application developer and built the financial services and health care teams that ultimately resulted in the company’s sale to SymphonyAI Group.

Prior to Ayasdi, Hagmueller was chief financial officer of Zuora, Inc., a cloud-based subscription management platform provider. He has also served as CFO of KnowNow, COO of Vinfolio (acquired by Revolution Capital), and senior director at RouteScience Technologies (acquired by Avaya). Earlier in his career, Hagmueller was director of corporate development for NorthPoint Communications, where he helped drive its IPO. He came to NorthPoint from Verizon, where he led a business development team in the enterprise offerings group, the company said.

Lakshmikanthan said he is thrilled to be shifting his attention back to his passion for developing products.

Earlier this summer, Clara Analytrics announced the appointment of Pramod Akkarachittor as vice president of products. Last September, the company announced that Medicare set-aside expert Kim Wiswell joined the company as vice president of managed care operations. Additionally, the company named Tom Ash as senior vice president of sales and business development and appointed Ruth Estrich to its advisory board.

New Catastrophe Claims Response Firm Launched

Two veteran claims professionals have teamed up to launch Legion Claims Solutions, which will manage catastrophe insurance claims, environmental and industrial claims and government disaster recovery programs.

Mike Worley, previously head of Worley Catastrophe Response, serves as chief operating officer of Legion. Steve Brown, owner of Brown Claims Management Group, is chief executive officer.

Legion said in a press release that the industry veterans have “considerable experience on large-scale deployments in response to major catastrophic events.” The company also offers claims implementation services and underwriting support processes, a specialized large/complex loss unit, basic and advanced training, and inside desk adjusting services.

Worley has led teams that coordinated large-scale disaster and insurance response efforts nationally, including major hurricanes, earthquakes, and most notably the BP oil spill claims response in 2010. In contrast, Brown and his company, while having catastrophe experience, have focused primarily on multi-lines daily insurance claims services for over 25 years, Legion said.

Duck Creek Teams with Milliman

Duck Creek Technologies announced that it has expanded its offerings through a new relationship with Milliman, Inc.

Boston-based Duck Creek said Milliman’s Datalytics-Defense product provides insurers with deeper understanding of their litigation bills and effective cost-benefit analyses of their defense strategies. The platform incorporates data-mining algorithms to provide carriers with tools to better manage their defense costs and develop a best-practice approach towards claims management, the company said.

Duck Creek said the Datalytics-Defense product extends the capabilities of its Duck Creek Claims product by allowing carriers to use analytics and algorithms to detect patterns in attorney billing practices. Duck Creek and Milliman have jointly developed an Anywhere Enabled Integration, now available on the Duck Creek Content Exchange, for insurers looking to expedite implementation through Duck Creek’s Anywhere API program.

Milliman is an actuarial consulting firm to the health care and financial services industries, based in Seattle.