Insurance Networking News: Executive Strategies for Technology Management articles from March 2006

Insurance Networking News: Executive Strategies for Technology Management archives from March 2006

What's Needed? An Olympian Effort.(mnanagement of insurance companies)
March 1, 2006... Before they landed triple Axels, they learned how to balance on a blade and skate across the ice. Before they attacked moguls at blazing speeds, they cruised down relatively flat planes. Before they maneuvered a puck all the way across the rink...

The Little IT Team That Could.(Information Technology in insurance industry)
March 1, 2006... Everyone loves a story about the "little guy" who succeeds. From the children's classic The Little Engine that Could to numerous business books that describe how a couple of college buddies put a couple of bolts together in their garage and...

Electronic Licensing Gets Geico Stamp of Approval.(online licensing)
March 1, 2006... Rapid growth. It's a "problem" most companies would welcome. Yet, along with accelerated growth comes a bevy of new challenges. At Geico and its affiliated companies, for example, when written premiums grew from $4.1 billion in 1998 to $4.9...

Ordering a Pizza Gets Scary.(email telling the insurance industry)
March 1, 2006... Shortly after I returned from IsoTech last November, I received one of those forwarded "chain" e-mails. Unlike most chain e-mails I receive, I actually read this one, and, surprisingly, it pertained to a controversial topic that came up at...

An Outside-In Approach: Capturing real-time feedback and using it to listen to the customer makes for a positive experience for all involved.(customer relations)
March 1, 2006... The customer comes first. We've all heard that phrase, but many insurers would be hard-pressed to prove it's a strategic and tactical reality. Why? A number of carriers implementing customer relationship management (CRM) systems are...

Solutions.(online learning of insurance industry)(Brief Article)
March 1, 2006... ON-DEMAND CALL CENTER SERVICE Agents OnDemand is a service designed for three key industry vertical segments-travel, healthcare and financial services-by Working Solutions Inc., a Plano, Texas-based provider of remote agent call center...

News Briefs.
March 1, 2006... HUMANA PROVIDES PRESCRIPTION BENEFITS SUMMARY Louisville, Ky.-based Humana Inc. has developed SmartSummary Rx, an in-depth, monthly prescription benefits summary tailored to individual Medicare members. As a companion to the SmartSummary...

News Briefs.(reports of fraudulent claims)
March 1, 2006... MEDICAL MUTUAL RECOVERS $5.4 MILLION IN FRAUD Through its investigations unit, Medical Mutual of Ohio, Cleveland, reclaimed $5.4 million in fraudulent claims in 2005, the largest amount in the company's history. Medical Mutual notes that...

Solutions.(risk management softwares)
March 1, 2006... NATURAL CATASTROPHE SERVICE Developed by Boston-based AIR Worldwide Corp. (AIR), a subsidiary of ISO Properties Inc., Jersey City, N.J., the Natural Catastrophe Service provides risk profiles on every address in the continental United...

Dirty Data and Cold Cash.(data accuracy cost companies)(Brief Article)
March 1, 2006... Dirty data is not just a nuisance, it also costs companies money, according to the Data Warehousing Institute, Seattle. Consider the following: Poor-quality customer data costs U.S. businesses a staggering $611 billion per year in...

Identifying Good Data.(quality of data is essential)(Brief Article)
March 1, 2006... It's not as easy as squeezing a melon at the supermarket, but it is possible to tell the difference between good and bad data. Quality data has the following attributes: It's accurate. The information in the database really represents...

ECM Lightens the Load at Anchor General Agency: Smooth sailing in a rapidly changing business environment meant finding technology that would make light work of paper-based processing.(enterprise content management)(record management systems of Anchor General Agency Inc)
March 1, 2006... The insurance industry, long saddled with paperwork-intensive processes, has become prime turf for enterprise content management (ECM) solutions. ECM is the catchall phrase for what was originally a plethora of solutions, ranging from imaging...

Staring Down the Storage Sinkhole: Summit Strategies analyst Joe Clabby outlines the problem, and a roadmap for insurers to take to improve utilization and reduce administrative costs.(Interview)
March 1, 2006... Insurance Networking News recently interviewed Joe Clabby, vice president, server and storage systems strategies, at Summit Strategies Inc., a marketing strategy and consulting firm based in Boston. Clabby has a strong background in networking,...

Consumers Still Prefer the Human Touch.(Brief Article)
March 1, 2006... Ten years have passed since the Web made its debut, threatening to eliminate intermediaries in the insurance sales process. But, after all these years, only a small percentage of insurance consumers actually purchase their policies online. ...

Serving up the ROI of SOA: Carriers need to shelve misconceptions about service-oriented architecture's investment, complexity and potential in order to reap its ultimate ROI.(Service-oriented architecture)
March 1, 2006... The insurance industry has faced fundamental and permanent changes in the last few years. The introduction of e-business to the industry, increased adoption of single-entry, multiple-carrier interfaces (SEMCI) and interactive systems, the...

Solutions.(softwares for insurance industry from SunGard Data Systems Inc.)(Brief Article)
March 1, 2006... SUNGARD REBRANDS SunGard Data Systems Inc., Wayne, Pa., has combined its insurance products under a single global brand, SunGard iWORKS. SunGard's focus is to enhance its abilities to meet the growing requirements of SunGard customers...

Solutions.
March 1, 2006... POLICY ADMINISTRATION SYSTEM Portal Access from Decision Research Corp., Honolulu, is designed to provide agents and other distribution channels real-time access to insurers' policy administration systems. Portal Access features include...

Who's Buying What: Recent deals for technology software and services.
March 1, 2006... CONTRACTOR MANAGEMENT Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Florida, a Jacksonville-based health plan provider, has selected Beeline.com Inc. to automate and streamline the company's IT contractor staffing processes. Jacksonville Beach, Fla.-based...

Ad Index For March 2006.(reports on online references of websites)
March 1, 2006... Advertiser/ Website Address Page # Acord www.cartoons.acord.org 25 Acord/LOMA Home Theatre Giveaway www.insurancenetworkingnews.com ...

Looking Ahead at P&C Claims Compliance: The industry needs technology services and compliance knowledgebase providers to collaborate on a unified solution that can bring claims processing to the next level.
March 1, 2006... Today, various high-tech systems, such as GPS and online map services, help people navigate the physical world, taking the guesswork out of the task of getting from point A to point B. People can now go online, type in some address criteria...