California’s Guidewire Software plans to snatch up FirstBest Systems for $34 million in cash, a deal it said will boost its capacity to serve property/casualty insurers focused on complex commercial risks.

Plans call for closing the deal within a month. Guidewire said the acquisition should not have a material impact on its fiscal 2017 financial results.

FirstBest, based in Bedford, Mass., produces an underwriting management system for P/C insurers. Guidewire said the acquisition will propel greater use of its own platforms by giving U.S. and Canadian insurers writing complex commercial, specialty and workers compensation lines more support for their risk assessment and decision-making processes.

Right now, as Guidewire noted in its deal announcement, commercial and specialty lines underwriters typically use manual processes and many data sources to help evaluate and underwrite large and complex risks. There are also disjointed systems and tools typically in the mix – all needed to enable collaboration within the companies and with agents.

Guidewire said that it sees pairing underwriting management systems such as FirstBest UMS with policy administration systems like its PolicyCenter product as a way to make the process more efficient and boost the overall capacity at the same time.

Guidewire said it has more than 200 P/C insurance clients globally.

Source: Guidewire