 COVER STORY: Insurers Seek Competitive Edge Through Underwriting Analytics Analytics are increasingly being applied in the insurance underwriting realm to create a competitive edge in an increasingly commoditized business, both at the micro level of pricing and at the macro level of product portfolio and line of business performance. Sidebar CNA Builds Out Underwriting Data Marts. Using Business Objects XI, CNA is driving its massive, multiyear Merlin business intelligence initiative into the underwriting data realm to the enterprise data warehouse by creating its sixth data mart, this time for the P&C carrier's property book of business FEATURE: Insurers Ponder IT Security as a Competitive Differentiator Carriers like MassMutual and WellPoint are beginning to nurture a new kind of customer loyalty by establishing themselves as IT security stalwarts. Sidebar Data Breaches Increasingly Costly, Especially in Financial Services Data breaches have become more expensive for companies, particularly those in the financial service sector, according to a recent Ponemon Institute study. VIRTUAL ROUNDTABLE: Speed to Market How can carriers overcome the siloed nature of their line-of-business systems and the lack of IT/business alignment to facilitate product development and mass customization, and to improve speed to market? Early Engagement With IT Necessary For Product Development |
FROM THE EDITOR Financial Institutions' Risk Management Systems Are Challenged by Corporate Culture and Human Nature The Société Générale trading scandal illustrates that the competitive advantage of relying on internally developed risk management systems can be cancelled out by lax management oversight and fraud. CASE STUDY: Univé Deploys AmberPoint SOA Optimation Tool Netherlands-based insurer Univé untangles interdependencies with visualization tool to ensure SOA initiative success. Nationwide Consolidates Finance Data Nationwide turns to tried-and-true tech partners and new friend Kalido to create a single, consistent platform for financial data. Ektron Powers Penn National Intranet Ektron's CMS400.NET system allows Penn National to maintain a continuous flow of content on the carrier's intranet and extranet, both for routine use and crisis communications. ONE ON ONE: Magna Carta Allows Agents To Choose Manner of Doing Business, CIO Says Magna Carta allows its agents to submit business any way they want, including phone, fax, E-mail or U.S. postal mail, says CIO David Lawless. UPDATE: Midwest Family Mutual Partners with CGI Minnesota-based personal and commercial lines P&C carrier will be beta site for the next generation of CGI’s INSideOUT SMIC Goes Live on IDP’s AgentXpress Ease of use and efficiencies for the Upstate New York-based regional P&C carrier and its agents alike drove adoption of IDP’s portal technology. AEGIS Deploys DFA’s ADVISE Risk Modeling Solution Associated Electric & Gas Insurance Services replaces its eight-year-old proprietary risk management model with DFA Capital Management’s ADVISE 4.9. BCBS of Florida Enters the Retail Market Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Florida creates retail stores to sell health insurance and other coverage directly to individual consumers. Document Automation Vendors Emerge As Enterprise Content Management Players As recent acquisitions in the content management space by HP and EMC demonstrate, in a Web-based world, solutions that focus on the end product rather than the storage location of content are becoming a focus of enterprise-wide content management solutions. NAMES IN THE NEWS Zurich Appoints Axel Lehmann To New Risk Officer Role As Zurich Financial Services Group's new chief risk officer former CEO of Zurich North America Axel Lehmann will also take responsibility for IT. Regence Tackles Infrastructure Challenges Regence also is in the midst of converting to a fully converged VOIP network that Kerry Goff, director of production delivery and support, says will be largely completed by the end of 2008. |
