Content posted in May 2010
|
ACORD LOMA 2010: The Year of Facebook
The Facebook buzz is the latest and most alarming signal that consumer behavior is accelerating beyond the insurance industry's ability to keep pace with it.
Accenture Debuts Enhanced Technology Offerings at ACORD LOMA Insurance Systems Forum
Among the systems revamped include Accenture Claim Components, Accenture Policy Components and the Accenture Life Insurance Platform.
OneShield Introduces Dragon Intelligence at the ACORD LOMA Insurance Systems Forum
Dragon Intelligence takes into account a carrier's specific business models to analyze specific key risk underwriting benchmarks, as well as workflow job functions, while interweaving external data sources to provide a comprehensive, multi-disciplinary view of the complete insurance enterprise, the vendor says.
DTRIC Insurance Adds New DRC DecisionMaker Business Line Support
The addition of commercial auto and truckers to lines supported by DecisionMaker brings to four the total number of lines in production within the solution at the Honolulu-based P&C carrier.
Northwestern Mutual Names John E. Schlifske Chairman and CEO
Current company president John E. Schlifske will succeed Ed Zore as CEO on July 1 and chairman as of Aug. 1. Gary Poliner will take on Schlifske's former role of president, and has also been named chief risk officer by Northwestern Mutual's board of trustees.
InsPro Technologies Adapts Flagship Solution For Life & Annuity Market
InsPro has adopted a market strategy to enable its InsPro Enterprise policy admin solution to support a wide range life and annuity products.
Thunderhead Launches New Forms Management Feature Set
The new Thunderhead NOW Advanced Forms Management feature set delivers four capabilities that provide greater management control and visibility, and reduce the risk of noncompliance while expediting form completion.
L&T Infotech Introduces Insurance Mobile Components at ACORD LOMA Systems Forum
In the face of rapidly increased consumer use of smart phones, the iMC Suite is designed to help insurers expedite the adoption of mobile technologies.
Carriers Shifting Distribution Dollars To Mobile, Accenture Research Finds
Insurers are planning to invest on average $84 million on strategic distribution improvements over the next three years according to a survey of 125 insurers globally.
Matching the UI to the User: A Conversation With StoneRiver's Rodney Griffin
Insurers developing sites for either internal or external use need to bear in mind basic aesthetic and ergonomic factors, but they should take another step: UIs need to be crafted not only to meet the task at hand but also the type of user.
IBM 2010 Global CEO Study: Half of Insurance CEOs Are Not Confident About Their Ability to Manage Complexity
IBM 2010 Global CEO Study: Half of insurance CEOs are not confident about their ability to manage complexity.
Aviva North America Names New Chief Risk Officer
Aviva North America names Dan Guilbert, former Hartford Life executive, as its new Chief Risk Officer.
Talking Claims Transformation With Ernst & Young's David Connolly
"Even a 5 percent reduction in leakage is enough to justify the replacement costs for software and services," comments David Connolly, Ernst & Young.
Alfa Vision Insurance Taps SAS To Improve Customer Retention
The SAS Analytics Pro solution, combined with an Elite Technology Solutions-developed retention model will be applied to eight program rollouts during 2010.
HP Introduces Claims Correspondence Solution
The HP Exstream solution, which supports critical front-office claims business processes, is designed to improve customer retention while reducing costs and compliance risks.
New York Central Mutual Emerges From 5+ Year Tech Project
New York Central Mutual spent the better part of the last decade on a massive technology modernization project and now finds itself in a more competitive position in the marketplace .
Genpact, MajescoMastek Partnership Combines BPO and Tech Solutions
Both parties plan to develop what they describe as innovative, platform-based business process management solutions across the industry value chain, including policy services, billing, claims, distribution management and new business/underwriting.
National Western Life Goes Life with FAST Component
The life and annuity case management workflow automation component was built in three months, using FAST's 8x framework.
StoneRiver Debuts Customer Stream Solution
A component within StoneRiver's Stream product suite, the browser-based Customer Stream solution enables P&C carriers to manage information about parties such as claimants, agents, and body repair shops.
FICO and Microsoft Team on End-To-End Claims Solution
The solution integrates FICO Blaze Advisor business rules management system with Microsoft applications such as SharePoint and Microsoft Dynamics CRM.
Senate Financial Reform Bill Mostly a Relief for Insurers
The potential for duplicative federal insurance regulation did not materialize within the Restoring American Stability Act of 2010 passed by the Senate, but concerns still remain how the final law will affect the industry after passage through the House later this year.
ING Introduces Life Insurance Capacity Calculator for Producers
ING introduces Life Insurance Capacity Calculator for producers; tool is designed to increase life insurance sales opportunities for life insurance producers.
Data Mastery Drives Access Insurance's 'Instant Access' Business Technology Platform
Access Insurance Holdings leverages real-time data in its Instant Access technology platform to inform business strategy, provide a superior customer experience and lower operational costs.
SafeAuto Taps Application and Web Performance Management to Boost the Bottom Line
By leveraging Compuware application and Web performance management tools to tune systems, SafeAuto Insurance reduces downtime and improves the end user experience.
SaaS Saves CareFirst $200,000 Annually With Online Enrollment
Mid-Atlantic Blue plan CareFirst improves accuracy and slashes nearly $200,000 in annual costs when its brokers begin completing enrollment tasks online using the SaaS-based platform by Benefitfocus.
Aflac Unveils New Spanish-Language Website
Aflac unveils new Spanish-language website, Aflacenespanol.com, to provide Spanish-speaking consumers and business owners with interactive experience.
Mobile Technologies, Social Media Facilitate Insurers' Responses to Nashville Flood Claims
Social media has become another high-tech tool that carriers -- including Nationwide, Allstate and Farmers Insurance -- are using to respond to disasters, such as the May floods in the Nashville area.
OneBeacon Launches New Website
OneBeacon Insurance Group's specialty accident and health business has unveiled a new website geared towards the transportation industry.
AXA Equitable CIO Discusses How Tech Helped Carrier Weather Economic Storm
Kevin Murray, EVP and CIO of AXA Equitable, thinks the carrier's investment in enabling technologies such as rules engines and SOA have been key to its continued strong performance during economic turmoil.
Peter Lynch to Head LexisNexis Insurance Exchange
Peter Lynch to head LexisNexis Insurance Exchange, a new alliance formed through The Council for Insurance Agents and Brokers, MarketCore and LexisNexis to improve the efficiency and transparency of the intermediary distribution system.
News from SAPPHIRE NOW: SAP and EMC to Deliver New Solutions that Automate and Optimize Paper-Intensive Processes for Financial Services Institutions
News from SAPPHIRE NOW: SAP and EMC to deliver new solutions that automate paper-intensiveProcesses for financial institutions; expanded global strategic alliance includes reseller agreement and integration of EMC technologies with SAP software.
Amerisafe Extends Legacy System Life With Help From FirstBest
Workers' comp specialist achieves modernized agent service without retiring aging policy administration technology.
Jackson's First Quarter Sales Rise 62 Percent
Jackson National Life's flagship variable annuity offering Perspective II has helped the carrier tall a 108 percent year-over-year rise in variable annuity sales to $3.1 billion.
SAP's Acquisition of Sybase Brings Strategic Synergies
SAP will help Sybase increase its penetration in the insurance market, while Sybase's mobile capabilities will open up possibilities for new ways to deliver SAP solutions to insurance carriers and their customers.
Farmers Expands eZsign Claims E-Signature Capability to 16 States
Launched in Dec. 2009, the eZsign capability enables Farmers to provide customers the option to receive document links via email, sign online, and submit them instantly to expedite payment.
Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Kansas City Launches Colibrium Partners’ Underwriting Solution
Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Kansas City aunches Colibrium Partners’ Tuo underwriting solution; implementation is part of a sales, marketing and underwriting automation strategy.
EXL Acquires LifePRO PAS Vendor PDMA
Through its client work, services firm EXL has deep experience working on the LifePRO policy administration platform, which is deployed at about 40 insurers worldwide.
Kansas City Blue Plan Implements Colibrium's Tuo Underwriting
The Tuo Underwriting solution implementation is planned to enable Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Kansas City to expand and change underwriting methodologies quickly, without costly development efforts.
SAP Will Acquire Sybase for $5.8b
Sybase will continue to operate on a standalone basis after the acquisition, which SAP says will create synergistic benefits for both companies.
Allstate CIO Details Cloud Computing Strategy
"For a company like Allstate with a data and customer-centric focus, being able to ensure performance, operability and integration are of utmost importance," says Allstate CIO Cathy Brune. "The business case isn't always there either - it's not always less expensive or better."
Turkey's Leading P&C Insurer Selects Accenture's Claims Components
The Claim Components implementation figures within a broader transformation initiative by Anadolu Sigorta begun in 2008 and aimed at establishing an operating model focused on customer satisfaction and growth.
Predictive Analytics Drives Profitability Gap In Commercial Insurance
When predictive analytics is used as a "good offense" in gaining market share and in identifying the most profitable business, competitors will be left scurrying to adopt predictive analytics as a "good defense" just to remain competitive.
Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Louisiana Partners with Benefitfocus on Enrollment Technology
Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Louisiana partners with Benefitfocus; will leverage Benefitfocus Platform to automate, standardize and simplify data exchange among customers, partners and business systems.
Kognitio and Quomation Partner on DaaS Pricing Service for Auto Insurers
The partnership will result in the joining of Kognitio's WX2 in-memory analytical database, via its Data Warehousing as a Service (DaaS) model, with Quomation's PowerBatch and PowerQuote solutions.
Facebook FTC Complaint: Insurers Should Distance Themselves From Exploitative Practices
Prominent insurance users of the platform have adopted the best practice of not using Facebook or other social media sites to directly advertise products or transact business. To emphasize that more respectful distance from direct commercial conversations, they may want to explicitly state their disapproval of Facebook's exploitation of user information, if the allegations are demonstrated to be true.
New Tech Increasingly Extends the Life of Legacy Policy Admin Systems
Newer technologies have provided increasingly effective means to extend the life of existing systems. For example, MajescoMastek has utilized service-oriented architecture (SOA) to build its service bridge offering, which unifies data from policy admin systems to branch office systems, new business systems and practically any other systems.
StoneRiver Adds Billing Offering to Stream Solution Set
Billing Stream is designed to maximize real-time processing and support standard direct bill functionality, including single policy- and account-level billing, and multiple payment options, such as electronic funds transfer, credit cards, mortgagee billing, and payroll deduction.
Reveille Announces Experience and Performance Manager (EPM) 6.0
Version 6.0 includes performance scorecard dashboard capabilities for enterprise content management (ECM) applications, expanding the vendor's agentless application monitoring into measurement of ECM operational key performance indicators.
Senators Agree to Cut Resolution Fund From Financial Reform Bill
A bipartisan amendment gets releases financial services companies, including some insurers, from having to contribute to a $50 billion fund for winding down troubled companies.
Profit With A Purpose: Microinsurance Fund Logs Record Investments
If microinsurance is indeed a viable business, then we should look forward to companies like J.P.Morgan touting its profitability rather than emphasizing its social value. Charity may or may not be effective, but a business proposition that truly benefits both parties to the deal will ensure that capital will continue to flow to places where it can do great good.
|
Tweet This