October 2005

From the Editor Educating Consumers Consumer-directed healthcare, a concept that has been gathering momentum over the past four or five years, now appears to be the dominant model for how health insurance coverage is designed, marketed and managed. Cover Story The Elusive Prize: Effective Cross-Selling Though every insurer would like to capitalize on existing customer relationships to increase sales - and the technologies to enable enterprisewide data sharing are available - only a minority of insurers succeed in crossing lines of business to increase customer wallet share effectively. Feature Eye of the Storm Effectively managing risk today demands a holistic view of risk exposure. Insurers that implement processes and technologies for accurately assessing data and measuring risk across business lines and geographies before disaster strikes will weather the storm. Spotlight: Darwin Professional Underwriters From the Ground Up Simplicity and restraint - and established governance processes - guide CIO Robert Asensio in building Darwin's technology infrastructure and integrating applications. Virtual Roundtable Web Services Connection Web services-based technology promises to help insurers extend the lives of legacy systems, lower IT maintenance costs and ease systems integration. But a lack of standards is slowing adoption. Case Study Another Day in Paradise To ensure that business isn't disrupted by hurricanes, Bermuda-based Max Re deploys data replication technology from XOsoft. New and Improved Sompo Japan Insurance Company improves its policy administration system's ratio of maintenance cost to functionality by upgrading to Insurity's Web-based Commercial Intellisys solution. One on One Strategic Track Kevin Murray, Executive Vice President, CIO, AXA Financial

Update A Time to Buy While other industry verticals divest, many health insurers are expanding their core competencies in response to increasing information demands associated with the consumer-directed healthcare trend. Beacon Selects PCMS Atlas System Beacon Insurance Group (about $50 million in annual premium) selected Property & Casualty Management Systems' (PCMS; Dallas) Atlas policy, claim and billing administration system to support the Wichita Falls, Texas-based insurer's transformation from a one-segment, one-state company to a more diverse, regionally oriented carrier. Common Platform New UnumProvident enrollment platform collects data in a single repository and allows customer interaction across multiple channels. Ounce of Prevention Carrier implements Allscripts Healthcare Solutions application as part of effort to encourage physician technology competence. SOA Score AAA Carolinas achieves rapid ROI by leveraging IBM WebSphere to tie together policy admin and document management. Contract News --Celtic Contracts ACS --BCBSOK Benefits From Benefitfocus --Amica Taps Guidewire --Penn Picks Fiserv --YWCHSB Selects InsureWorx Alliances & Partnerships --AAIS, AQS Collaboration --Jopari, DAVID Team --ISO Acquires eLIENS --Mediasurface Taps Victio --Vignette Joins Forces With Certus My Favorite Charity... Giving Back To Others Many of us who have reached senior-level IT positions have had special people who have helped us achieve success throughout our careers. Back to Business --Location Intelligence --A Safer Safe --Automatic Improvement --Rockford Bets on Horizon --Turning Lead(s) To Gold --Get the Picture Techwatch --Benefits Enrollment --Fraud Detection --Database Security --Payment Processing --Keystroke Encryption --CRM --Transaction Processing --Rugged Laptops Names In The News A Different Kind of Alignment Executive News --Citizens-Hanover Regional President --Ruiz GEICO Tech VP --Saporito Joins IB --SAP Hires Hughes --McCarthy Eyes Execution --Sheinheit Now EVP