THE RISE OF THE ANALYTICAL ENTERPRISE Insurers Leveraging Social Media to Improve Customer Acquisition and Retention Insurance carriers are applying increasingly sophisticated analytics tools to the data they gather from social media initiatives in order to increase customer engagement and improve acquisition and retention. Insurers Embed Analytics in the Claims Process Carriers are going beyond point solutions to implement a holistic, factory like approach aimed at building analytics into the technology platform and embedding decision support across the claims life cycle. Chartis' Lean, Multidisciplinary Analytics Team Delivers Big Results A combination of the right people, the right tools and a profit-focused mission has enabled Chartis's seven-man advanced analytics team to deliver more than $750 million in benefits to the company. CARRIER CONFIDENTIAL Nationwide's Catalyst Program Consolidates Commercial Business and IT Through a five-year endeavor ending November 2010, Nationwide consolidated its Allied, Nationwide Insurance and Nationwide Agribusiness commercial lines onto a single business model, product portfolio and processing system. DISTRIBUTION WATCH Torus Insurance's ESCAPE Broker Portal Aspires to Industry Leadership A unique combination of technology and state-of-the-art functionality distinguishes Torus' broker portal in the excess casualty business, the carrier asserts. CASE STUDY SWBC Eliminates Returned Mail SWBC leverages SynTel's AutoMail PRO solution as an early adopter of the USPS' electronic address correction services, cutting costs and improving customer satisfaction. EXECUTIVE NEWS Q&A: Hastings Mutual CIO Paul Ayoub Discusses Recent Analytics and Cloud Projects Ayoub took over as VP and CIO of multiline P&C carrier Hastings Mutual this past June after a stint as CIO of Employers Holdings. |
FROM THE EDITOR Insurance and Banking Industries Could Be Job Development Difference Makers Could IT budget increases lead to more hiring? CAT MANAGEMENT Massive IBHS Facility Simulates Extreme Weather to Study Building Materials and Practices The insurance industry-funded Institute for Business & Home Safety has opened a new facility that can replicate the effects of hurricanes and other weather related events in order to yield data about the relative merits of different quality building materials. Related Photo Gallery: How to Recreate Hurricane-like Conditions Indoors UPDATE The Dodd-Frank Effect The financial crisis and resulting regulatory reform have resurrected efforts to introduce federal oversight of the U.S. insurance industry. Insurers Adopt Solutions to Enable Compliant Agent Social Networking Solution capabilities range from monitoring, filtering and archiving, to content suggestion to help agents engage customers, and analytics that measure the effects of distributor and other social networking efforts. Workers' Comp Insurers Embrace Self-Service Options for Payroll-Based Billing The Hartford and Key Risk went live with new web-based platforms for commercial policyholders to send their payroll data for premium calculation at the end of 2010. Health Carriers Tackle Privacy Challenges of Online Coaching Programs A growing number of health insurers are introducing online health coaching programs to help policyholders manage chronic conditions, but they are careful to keep the personal information these programs gather separate from clinical and claims data. VIRTUAL ROUNTABLE: MODERN BILLING SYSTEMS Billing: A Priority, Just Not Priority No. 1 By Leah Hollstegge, Ward Group Based on a recent Ward Group survey, only 14 percent of carriers have plans to replace their billing systems within the next 18 months. Key to Billing System Replacement Success: Understand Your Pain By Rod McKimson, Pekin Insurance You need to really understand where your pain points are when upgrading your billing and financial systems. How Modernized Billing Systems Lead to Empowered Customers By Frank Heaps, StoneRiver Older, more rigid systems do not easily handle the required flexibility of bill plan changes and maintenance, nor do they lend themselves to natively working with self-service/handheld applications. Why the Time is Right for Billing Platform Modernization By Martina Conlon, Novarica Consumers expect to do business through the channel they prefer, not the channel their carriers prefer. |
