Ventiv Technology

1 4 | 360º Aon eSolutions other boards; however, each board will be able to better identify risk exposures and address them accordingly." "We set up extensive security and data controls to meet USIC's needs," said Linda Fallacaro, project manager on the Aon eSolutions Professional Services team. deAling with prOJeCt COmplexities "Our overall project was very complex. As a consortium of 13 school boards, no one board initially wanted the responsibility and burden of maintaining the system for the entire consortium," said Groves. "A hosted solution was chosen so all our members would equally share in the cost, and a third-party would be responsible for ongoing software maintenance and updates." "In addition, within certain provinces, Canadian law stipulates that public entities cannot host data in the United States, so we came up with a unique third-party hosting solution to accommodate both USIC's needs and Canada's mandatory data-hosting requirements," said Christopher Hamel, vice president and account manager with Aon Canada. "Over the course of our implementation, a few service providers fell through. Aon went above and beyond, temporarily serving as our system and database administrator during the initial go-live period. To simplify matters, a USIC board will now serve as administrator, but Aon stepped in at a critical juncture of our implementation and earned our respect in the process," said Groves. pArtnership & COmmitment leAd tO suCCess As of July 2011, 10 out of the 13 school boards have gone live or are close. The remaining school boards will go live according to their unique timeframes. USIC anticipates the entire consortium will be in-production by November of 2011. "USIC is receiving a highly tailored iVOS Solution," said Groves. "Ultimately, we're very happy with the implementation. Project success was due to everyone's commitment, and to the close relationships we formed with our Aon broker and project management team. Together, we diligently worked through challenges that arose." "Our particular school board went live on December 1, 2010," said Groves. "We receive approximately 5,000 event reports each year— of those events only about 10 percent are reportable items." enhAnCing usiC's risk prOfile "Only a couple of the USIC school boards were performing electronic event reporting, like our team at Calgary Catholic," said Rob Groves, director of finance and business services at Calgary Catholic Schools. "Most other school boards used a spreadsheet-based process, which was time-consuming and lacked consistency in the type of information that was gathered. USIC wanted to establish a universal event reporting system that would enable us to have the data-tracking and analysis capabilities to enhance our risk profile." "In particular, school boards wanted to identify trends," added Groves. "For example, if a particular school experienced an increased number of accidents on its playground, it could use event information to identify the cause. A change in supervision or student activities would allow schools to address the issue before severe injuries occurred." meeting usiC's Business needs "USIC needed a system to handle all types of 'events' across its school boards," said Kerrie Breit, supervisor, business services, at Calgary Catholic. "These events could include 'incidents' that reveal potential risks, environmental 'hazards' such as a broken stair, or 'accidents' in which injuries occurred. USIC also wanted a system that could provide a 'save as draft' feature in the data-entry process and provide information for Workers' Compensation Bureau (WCB) reporting and Occupational Health and Safety." "iVOS was our system of choice," said Gerry Boiteau, manager, business services at Calgary Catholic. "It was highly adaptable to meet our needs. Since it was browser-based, we knew it could serve as a central platform, enabling schools across Alberta to log in and submit reports. iVOS also had powerful abilities to ensure the security and privacy of our information." "With user rights and restrictions properly configured in iVOS, USIC could receive a high-level statistical summary of events, but not the specifics in regards to schools or school boards. In this way, the consortium would have the information it needed to work with our broker to ensure optimal insurance placement, but also maintain privacy among our members," said Boiteau. "Schools would not be able to see how other schools had performed in terms of number of incidents, hazards or accidents," said Nora Moughalian, senior manager, risk and insurance management, with Calgary Board of Education. "Instead, each school will receive only its own respective reports. Similarly, school boards will not have access to information from TheUrbanSchoolsInsuranceConsortium(USIC)isanassociationof13ofthe largestschoolboardsinAlberta,Canada.Theconsortiumhasbeeninexistence formorethan20years.Initially,theboardsbandedtogethertoleverage economies of scale while purchasing insurance. Thisyear,USICworkedwithAonCanadatoformaninsurancereciprocal.USIC has also engaged Aon's insurance brokerage, risk management, actuarial and benefitconsultingservices,andrecently,theypartneredwithAoneSolutions toleveragetheiVOSEventManagementSolution.Wespokewithfourmembers ofUSIC'stechnicalteamtolearnmoreabouttheconsortium'sobjectivesin implementing iVOS.

• Cover