In technology, a lot can change over the course of a single year, lending truth to the adage that if you’re standing still, you’re falling behind. In such an ever-changing industry, it’s one thing to keep pace for a year, but it’s quite another to do so for half a century. It’s difficult to imagine just how much has changed over the last 50 years in both the insurance industry and insurance technology. For five decades, DRC has continually advanced its technology and delivered solutions that drive our customers forward into the future.
But no matter how much we grow or how much our technology solutions evolve, there’s one thing that has never, and will never, change at DRC: our dual commitments to innovation and delivering to our customers’ complete satisfaction. We’re delighted so many of you have come along with us on this journey, and would like to look back at some of the milestones that have brought us to where we are today.
DRC was started back in 1971 as an application service provider by visionary founders Dr. Walter Simmons, a former University of Hawaii professor of physics, and graduate student Mark Weiner, right here in Honolulu, Hawaii. In the 1970s, DRC functioned principally as a service bureau, leasing time on HP 2000 series mini computers to local businesses and other organizations. This fledgling organization very quickly built up an impressive portfolio of clients, including a novel personal lines contract with Hawaii Insurance Consultants, with whom DRC eventually partnered for a joint model with AIG as it expanded across all fifty states.
In 1983, DRC’s current CEO Karen Yamamoto joined the company as its 10th employee, committed to advancing the company’s fundamental values of adaptability and eager to explore and develop new technologies, with the long-term goal of scaling a business that could help keep local tech talent in Hawaii rather than setting sail for silicon shores 2,345 miles to the east. From its inception, DRC’s technologies had a multi-tier architecture, building based on where the company thought the industry needed to go and guided by advances in technology. This legacy of innovation remains alive and growing today as industry analysts, like Gartner Research, have recognized DRC for the versatility, ease of use and speed to market of their P&C core platforms.
Towards the end of the last century, fueled by the success of its clients, DRC continued to grow at an accelerated rate. From its inception, DRC’s success has been driven by customer success — a philosophy continued to this day with an operating principle of complete customer commitment without compromise. Among DRC’s early wins and client successes were the deployment of the first stand-alone retail auto insurance kiosk — including one of the first color dot-matrix printers on the market! — and the launch of the VISTA suite of products that supported insurers such as Homesite, Reliance, Great American and Providian with their ratings challenges.
By the early 2000s, DRC was already well-established in the insurance sector, adding new products and services such as DecisionMaker for commercial lines, and expanding its geographic footprint by opening an additional office in Philadelphia, in addition to building out more comprehensive development capabilities at its Honolulu headquarters.
In 2007 DTRIC Insurance became the first company to take part in DRC’s beta launch of a commercial lines policy administration system for smaller commercial market insurers, using DRC’s extended lines technology. This launch was another leap forward for DRC, leveraging its experience developing large-scale systems, and its proven rating engine and extended lines functionality, already in use by clients like AIGM and Homesite. DRC has since rewritten this legacy platform into a modern language and credits this past extended lines version of the system for being able to offer the current DRC Platform with APIs, micro-services and other services with the underlying extended lines technology that is now known as RS X Rating. The DTRIC implementation remains fundamental in turning DRC into the successful platform that it is today.
The 2010s saw an even faster pace of growth and modernization for DRC. Recognizing an opportunity in the market, DRC re-architected its platform and entered the specialty lines space, launching the GameChanger suite of products, a modern, end-to-end policy administration system. DRC stayed true to its pioneering roots by developing its systems on multi-tier architecture, always looking to build within rather than simply following what competitors were doing, and cultivating an independence that has long served as the lodestar for the organization.
By this point, DRC had expanded into Europe, and was on track to sign large 50-state MGAs, world-renowned global carriers and Lloyd’s Syndicates as clients. DRC has been fortunate enough to receive numerous industry accolades and recognition for its contributions, including the Inside Honours Innovation Underwriting Initiative of the Year.
Most recently, DRC launched a completely new, modern RS X Rating platform, the DRC Platform, which supports the complete policy lifecycle and DRC Rater, an automation solution designed to allow clients to quickly replace manual raters. DRC has also incorporated important developer tools such as APIs, and is now a trusted partner for many clients who rely on DRC to bolster their analytics capabilities.
As we mark this milestone year at DRC, we’re proud of our many accomplishments over the past five decades, and of the support and innovations the organization has been able to provide to both clients and the broader insurance technology sector. We consider ourselves lucky to be a technology company with 50 years of experience under our belt, and credit our success to our innovative spirit and willingness to adapt and explore — always in the service of moving our
customers forward… faster.
We look forward to another 50 years of successful partnership — and beyond! The best is yet to come.
Learn more about DRC’s history and culture here.
