January 2006

Cover Story Tough Calls Insurance contact centers face a difficult challenge in serving multiple customers, including distributors and policyholders, with very different interests. To maximize satisfaction, carriers must design contact center functionality to fit unique customer needs. Feature Bracing for the Claims Storm The 2005 hurricane season served both as a test of P&C insurers' claims processing technologies and as motivation to continue to upgrade their claims systems. Special Report: Executive Summit 2005 Tools That Fuel Growth 2005 Executive Summit participants explored strategies for balancing growth with compliance and accountability requirements. Back To Business Forecasting Disaster Steering Compliance Rethinking Risk Management NaviSys Supports TIAA-CREF A Stickier Web Site Towing the Lines Techwatch Names In The News Executive News; Gouverneur Goes Northwest; Sutherland Enlists at BCBSRI

From the Editor Wheeler Dealers There's a Potential New Wrinkle that could muss up insurers' distribution strategies. Update Reform in Sight Reform of state-based insurance regulation seems imminent, but some compromise short of an Optional Federal Charter is most likely in the near term. EMC Buys Captiva, Acartus In the latest example of consolidation within the content management marketplace, EMC (Hopkinton, Mass.) acquired information capture solutions vendor Captiva Software (San Diego) and archiving and enterprise report management vendor Acartus (Fort Collins, Colo.). No Place Like Home The Hartford redesigns agent portal home page to streamline agent activity and access to customer information. The Next Big Thing Industry experts point to data-related technologies as the next 'killer' insurance apps during last month's ISOTech session. My Favorite ... Inspiration Tomorrow's Visionaries Cathy Ellwood, Officer of Financial Leadership Rotational Program, Nationwide Insurance Contract News --Wellington Selects Docucorp --CIG Replaces Legacy With AQS --Wilton Re Taps AdminServer --IAT Selects Sapiens --Carefirst BCBS Chooses Urix --ARA Selects INSTEC --Quincy Mutual to Implement ISO --North American Taps iPipeline --Illinois Casualty, SmartDraw Deal --Intellisync Mobilizes Sanlam Contract Closeup TMM/i-flex Deal Taps Partners Alliances & Partnerships --Fiserv Buys Xcipio --The Hartford, ChoicePoint Team --Symantec Acquires BindView --MostChoice.com, AgentSecure Deal --Syntellect/Apropos Case Study Getting to Know You Nationwide deploys DWL customer data integration solution to create a single view of customers. Eliminating Errors P&C carrier Ohio Casualty implements TeaLeaf Technologies' RealiTea solution to proactively identify glitches with its agent-driven Web site. Virtual Roundtable Enhancing Your Legacy Legacy systems can be inflexible and costly to maintain, but ripping out and replacing them is risky and often just as expensive. As a result, many insurers are adopting a legacy migration approach.