Accident Fund Insurance Company of America, one of mid-Michigan’s largest employers, is creating immediate opportunities for local technology companies. Last month Accident Fund, a subsidiary of Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan, announced they would be spending $182 million to convert Downtown Lansing’s vacant Ottawa Power Station into its new headquarters. At the announcement, officials said that they will nearly double their employment base from 650 employees to nearly 1,200 by 2016. If you’re a smart tech company, you’ll figure out what Accident Fund’s tech needs are before they set up shop.

As with many big corporations, insurance companies inevitably and increasingly spur high-paying and technological jobs. According to the Michigan Economic Development Corporation, Accident Fund workers would make an average of $57,000 per year, which means more than $65 million would be pumped into the capital city every year. While most of these new jobs will be directly related to insurance, a good number of them fall under the realm of information technology (IT)—that means they’ll have a big appetite for the tech services of local companies.

There is a growing demand for IT jobs in the insurance industry, from software development to infrastructure services. Insurance companies process huge volumes of data and rely heavily on information flow. As the industry becomes increasingly automated and Web-centric, a very large portion of its cost will be IT-related. It's a great place for IT professionals to create customer-driven business solutions. Accident Fund will also be a great place for IT employees to get jobs as they create their own software solutions and keep their massive network working.

According to State of Michigan statistics, in 2004, there were a combined 2,011 insurance claims and policy processing clerks, sales agents and underwriters in mid-Michigan. By 2014 that number is predicted to swell to 2,202, nearly a 10 percent increase. Other companies, such as Jackson National Life Insurance, Auto-Owners Insurance and American Physicians Capital, Inc., are local insurance companies that have a growing employment base in the Lansing region.

Local companies are in a fertile environment for specialized IT service required by the insurance industry nationwide. There have been several local IT spin-off companies in Lansing, including Sircon, which has approximately 110 employees and provides software services to the insurance industry.

Accident Fund’s CEO Elizabeth Harr said it best when she said, “You can have the greatest business strategy in the world, but if you don't have the technology, it is meaningless.”

ACD.net recently installed a massive Wi-Fi network, called LansingNet, into Downtown Lansing. Each access point on the LansingNet wireless system can handle hundreds of individual computer connections with speeds of up to 20 MB per second for both upload and download. I am ready to service the Accident Fund with products and services. If you’re a tech company in mid-Michigan, you should be ready too.

		Kevin Schoen is president of ACD.net.