Trusted News for Credit Union Leaders

Credit Union Times

JULY 12, 2017 | VOL. 28 | NO. 23 | CUTIMES.COM

TECHNOLOGY

Modernizing Insurance Change doesn’t always come easy for a 124-year-old insurance company. Nor does it come easy for the most traditionally conservative and insulated department within that company: The legal department.

Liberty Mutual’s legal department is nonetheless engaged in a technology initiative to modernize its operations — an effort that will require leveraging data, updating in-house software and a decisive shift in workplace culture.

This ongoing effort is aimed at making the department more cost-effective and efficient. It also is an opportunity to streamline one of the company’s core business offerings.

Integral to Business

At Liberty Mutual, the legal department needed financial and operational support from company executives and leaders to take on its modernization initiative, which can be challenging to secure in any corporate business setting.

“Capital expenditure budgets are [usually] extremely tight in corporations, so it can be a whole lot harder to free up these budgets for noncore costs like a legal department,” said Brad Blickstein, principal at the Blickstein Group, a consultancy that works with corporate law departments and law firms.

But Liberty Mutual executives,
along with most others in Y16
hile credit unions
and banks always
spin their merger
announcement
as good news, a North Carolina
credit union has spun the bad
news about bank mergers into
a new marketing strategy to in-
crease awareness about the credit
union difference and to convert
bank customers into members.

The $2.1 billion Truliant Credit Union in Winston-Salem, N.C., officially announced in June that it has no plans to merge ever, unlike many community banks within its market area.

“It seemed like over the last couple years we’ve seen a lot of mergers, but then all of the sudden recently, it’s been one [bank merger] announcement after another [bank merger] announcement,” Karen DeSalvo, chief marketing officer for Truliant, said.

Indeed, disappearing community banks in North Carolina has grabbed local media headlines. The News Observer in Raleigh noted in an article last August that community banks could be headed for the endangered species list. The newspaper reported that the number of banks chartered in the state — the majority of which are community banks — has fallen from 92 to 53 mostly because of mergers or acquisitions. And more bank mergers have

MARKETING

CUs Leverage Mergers for Marketing

PETER STROZNIAK pstrozniak@cutimes.com

Y17
FOCUSREPORT:
CYBERSECURITY

Bad news of breaches, hacks and other forms of cybercrime bombard credit unions on a regular basis. But are credit unions fearful enough, and how can they protect themselves? In this Focus Report, experts weigh in on cybersecurity strategy. Y6

CUSOs Make Big Data Plans JIM DUPLESSIS jduplessis@cutimes.com

s consumers leave behind a trail of data as they digitally wander through life, credit unions are realizing they need to watch these signs closely so they can stay a step ahead of banks in offering loans or services.

And, like any other complicated task beyond the means of most credit unions, CUSOs are stepping up to help credit unions link their private pools of data to the greater world of big data.

CUSOs from CU Direct of Ontario, Calif., to CUNA Mutual AdvantEdge Analytics of Madison, Wis., are helping credit unions create methods to collect, interpret and act on the information in regular, timely manner.

AdvantEdge Analytics’ parent, CUNA Mutual Group, has been providing insurance to credit unions for more than 80 years, and it now serves about 95% of the nation’s credit unions.

“Being that we’re an insurance
company, we have analytics in our
DNA,” said Tim Peterson, Advant-
Edge Analytics’ president. “We
have 80 years of history knowing
how to assess risk and price risk,
and 30 years’ experience with di-
rect marketing.”
Providing the analytical models
and insights from the mod-