3. Evaluate potential tools for implementing such a rule-based system and list the criteria that you would use in tool selection.

Financial service is a major area for ES because the process involves a number of complicated rules.

Farm Bureau is a 60-year-old comprehensive financial services provider that offers a broad range of innovative products. With the 2003 merger of three Farm Bureau insurance companies into Farm Bureau Financial Services, the new management team believed that technology would enable the organization to improve the business processes each of the entities had performed in the past. One area the carrier sought to improve was underwriting, and it turned to a rule-based system that would eliminate many of the tasks previously required of underwriters.