Covansys to build flood insurance system

National Flood Insurance Program

The Federal Emergency Management Agency awarded Covansys Corp. a five-year, $26.5 million contract to provide a Web-based system and other services for the government to administer its flood insurance programs more efficiently.

Covansys will implement its proprietary FloodConnect software and act as the exclusive servicing agent for FEMA's National Flood Insurance Program. NFIP provides property owners flood insurance protection in exchange for a local government's commitment to adopt flood plain management ordinances to reduce future flood damage.

Terry Black, director of flood operations and insurance in Covansys' public-sector practice, said NFIP will get an integrated system with processed insurance policies, accounting and claims. The company will establish a call center for insurance agents and ensure that they get real-time data exchange and access to online images of the insurance policies and other related documents.

"We actually will image all of the documents as they come in, whether they be paper or through e-mail or fax, and then those get attached to the policy files," he said. "It allows the federal government to have a lot more interaction. Obviously, being an integrated system, they can do a lot better job analyzing what's going on inside the program."

The new system, scheduled to be online by May 1, would also help speed up service, Black said.

"It does reduce the cycle times for a lot of the different processes, not only policy issuance but in the case of an actual claim or catastrophe, if they can get online through the Web and see the policy, it's much more accurate and it would be a little quicker on the payment side that way," he said. It's the first time Covansys has won a federal contract. Black said another company, Fiserv NCSI Inc., had the NFIP contract for the past 10 years, but didn't provide a Web-enabled system.