Time was when it took insurance companies a long time to embrace the new. But times and attitudes change. Accordingly, it was not surprising that a number of technology companies participating in this year's ACORD LOMA Insurance Systems Forum in San Diego are showcasing solutions designed to help insurers deliver and support services via the mobile platform. Mobile is relatively rapidly becoming an expected platform and capability not only for claims, where it has proved its usefulness for several years, but also in distribution.

"It's hard to do distribution any more without mobile -- especially in the consumer space, but increasingly in the agent space," says Michael Albert, VP of research and development at Sword Insurance. The vendor announced it has been selected by Safety Insurance to assist the carrier in developing its mobile portal strategy and implement software solutions for Safety for mobile apps and mobile web implementations of First Notice of Loss reporting and agent finder features on both the iPhone and Android platforms.

L&T Infotech announced its MoST-i (Mobile Strategy for Insurance) framework aimed at accelerating the adoption of mobile applications. This framework is designed to help insurance companies adopt mobile strategy into their business and IT strategies. The framework offers insurance companies an approach for defining and implementing an actionable mobile strategy that is aligned with enterprise business and IT goals, according to the vendor. It is defined in three layers: information foundation, consulting methodology and an adoption toolkit. The MoST-i framework is supplemented by the insurance Mobile Components (iMC), which is aimed at expediting implementation of mobile application by 40 percent, according to L&T Infotech.

MiAgents, an iPad app for optimizing agency relationships, was introduced by Millbrook. It offers key performance alerts, such as rate filling and licensing changes by competitors, as well as performance and operational alerts such as upcoming renewals, large losses and unexpected cancellations. The app utilizes simple graphs to show the agent's performance and experience by line of business, product and transaction volume relative to plan and prior year. Millbrook envisions the app will be used "primarily for marketing reps at insurance companies," notes Curtis McCosh, vice president. "It helps marketing reps prepare for presentations to agencies, [and also to] capture what happened during the visit."