by Elizabeth M. Ferrarini

Ben Salzmann is proof that a CIO can have a career as a C-level executive. After eight years as a CIO at Acuity, a property and casualty insurer that operates in 15 states, Salzmann was promoted to CEO. His leadership has brought a plethora of outstanding achievements to Acuity, which manages $1.8 billion in assets and writes $800 million in premiums. For three straight years in a row, the company has made the Great Place to Work Institute's list of the top mid-size companies to work for, and InformationWeek magazine's list of the top 500 most innovative users of IT in the U.S. That's not all: Acuity has received about 32 technology awards from ACORD, an insurance industry association. AARP also has named Acuity one of the best places for people over 50 to work.

Enterpriseleadership.org sat down with Salzmann to get his view of what it takes to prepare for the CEO spot, how he has created a great place to work, and how he has made smart decisions about using leading-edge technology. Here's what he had to say.

EL: As a former CIO, what helped you the most to take over the helm  at Acuity?

BS: As a CIO and a company officer, you see and interact with just about every department. You have a chance to develop a broad perspective about the business. However, you need to have the business inclination and an interest in becoming a CEO.

Some CIOs say "no" every time managers suggest a new way of doing something. From day one, the CIO has to listen to managers, to come up with  approaches that work, and then to provide them as plausible solutions. The CIO has to continue to find ways to make things work better.

A CIO who has come up the IT ranks has both a profession and an occupation. You're profession is as a technologist, be it systems or applications. The organization you work for determines your occupation within a certain industry. To climb the corporate ladder, you need to make a commitment to the organization, and to master both the organization's industry and business.

EL: If you're going to move up to become a CEO, you can't have a lot of adversaries. How does the CIO transition to being more of a colleague or business manager?

BS: First, the CIO needs to get him-, or herself, invited to important business meetings. For example, every time our underwriting field force comes to our headquarters, we make sure the CIO is present. He's viewed as part of the organization and can speak with underwriters during breaks and at lunch. If a CIO wants to earn recognition and get a sense  of ownership, he or she needs to demonstrate knowledge about what's going on in the business unit. Managers need to see this.

Also, CIOs should sit in on financial department meetings to hear everything that is coming. It gives them more ammunition for developing strategies about how to get things done.

EL: What is the biggest mistake some CIOs make during their  careers?

BS: Some of them take on massive mountains to climb, not realizing how long it takes to get to the top. A mountain climber goes up the mountain one step at a time. So, if you're constantly under a tremendous number of project deadlines, perhaps that's because your projects were poorly designed to begin with. Even if you have a large project, you're better off taking a baby-step approach and having a constant stream of deliverables you can provide on time and on budget. This approach might prolong the project a little; on the other hand, the IT team learns as they install smaller pieces.

EL: Does it matter to whom a CIO reports?

BS: It certainly does. I hope all of my competitors have their CIOs report to someone who isn't a company officer. This is a good way to hamstring the entire IT department. The CIO should report to the CEO and should be considered a company officer.

EL: How do you feel about outsourcing IT?

BS: Likewise, I hope all of my competitors outsource a major part of their IT organization. Our technologists built our claims system, our underwriting system, and our policy processing system. We wouldn't want to outsource a commercial underwriter. Yet, some insurance companies will turn around and outsource the development of their major systems. How many outsourcing firms really know the in's and out's of all phases of insurance? When you outsource IT, you pay them a small fortune to develop a moderate knowledge of your business, to use this knowledge to build a mediocre system, and then to move on to the next project!

EL: Should the CIO role be designed as a temporary, rotational  role?

BS: No. That type of model is an extreme belittlement of the  technology deployed in the organization. It's like having a  CIO-de-jour. Again, not employing this type of model helps my organization be more competitive. Good CIOs needs to have a technology background and business acumen. Their jobs aren't to explain the difference between a mainframe system and a network-based system, but to look at the organization and know how it fits into an enterprise technology model.

EL: For three years in a row, your company has been named as a great place to work. What are doing to make it such a great place?

BS: You have to first meet employees' basic needs; next, to listen to and communicate with your employees; and then, to provide them with a great working environment.

For example, since 2001, we haven't increased the health insurance premiums our employees pay, but we've improved their health insurance benefits each year. We contribute eight percent to their 401K plans, even if they don't put in a dime. We give them an additional 401K bonus so they will hit 10 percent of their annual income, even if they don't put in a dime.

We have an awesome suggestion committee, which goes over each suggestion submitted by employees. They can get a bonus for a suggestion. And, we hold town hall meetings where we bring in all the employees so they can get updates from the company officers.

Then we have our fun side. We've done everything from mechanical bull contests to chocolate fountains to Acuity's version of "American Idol." We hold our Christmas Party at a five-diamond establishment.

EL: You are one of the first companies in the insurance industry to  go paperless. Can you discuss the process?

BS: We started going paperless 16 years ago. We began with our personal lines, which insures houses and cars. As the file retention dates passed, we didn't have any paper to file. We worked with regulators and governmental bodies on how they can audit a paperless insurance company. Next, we went paperless in our commercial business lines, and in our claims systems. The advantages have been outstanding.

Wherever employees are in the world, they can use the Internet to not only check their email, but to go right into the personal lines system, the  commercial lines system, or claims system. They can read what's going on for a specific account, and then turn things around. For example, we can have 40 people at a time looking at the same system in 40 different locations. They all can be deciding on how to handle a multimillion-dollar business account.

By harnessing this technology, things happen fast, and we have no linear flow. Our work management system orchestrates all of the various reports we need to give to an underwriter. This way, the underwriter sees the entire picture at once and can make a better decision than if he or she were seeing bits and pieces over a few weeks.

EL: What's the biggest mistake insurance companies make when they go  paperless?

BS: Installing a workflow system at the same time as an imaging system can spell trouble for an organization. You end up imaging too many documents and making paper into intangible paper. For example, your computer can't calculate rates for an image of an insurance application: you need stored data. Many insurance companies have carried out their work management system in parallel with their imaging system.

In contrast, we did our work management system with our data collection systems and then brought in our expert system. We needed to put in the expert system before we put in our imaging system. If you put in the imaging system first, you're data-starving your expert system because your expert system can't read intangible paper or images.

EL: Because of your paperless environment, how have you improved the  quality of your transactions?

BS: We have world-class service levels based on rapid processing and very high quality ratios. We track every transaction for an entire year, and we announced that we have a 99.7 percent accuracy rate in a given transaction.

EL: You've won dozens of technology awards from ACORD --  can you  explain the significance of these awards?

BS: We've received more ACORD awards than any other insurance company in the country. ACORD is an insurance industry association vital to accelerating and advancing technology and setting standards for it. ACORD promotes the interface between insurance agents and insurance companies by standardizing  data and by promoting technology. The awards are to recognize technology leaders our industry.

At the ACORD LOMA Insurance Systems Forum in May 2006, we received seven national technology awards, including the Business Integration Enable award, the Early Adopter award, and the Greatest Number of Transaction Implementations award. For example, we received an ACCORD award for the way we download policy changes to our agencies' computer system, which automatically trigger the databases to update.

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Elizabeth M. Ferrarini is a freelance technology writer based outside  of Boston, Massachusetts. Reach her at elizabethferrarini@yahoo.com.