Insurance Networking News: Executive Strategies for Technology Management articles from March 2007

Insurance Networking News: Executive Strategies for Technology Management archives from March 2007

Insurers Can Use Metadata Standards For Internal Data.
March 1, 2007... The metadata standards that streamline company-to-company communication can do double duty as prototypes for internal data management within a single insurance carrier. "If it has already been invented in the industry, why should we think...

Brokers Cast a Wide Net With Electronic Exchange.
March 1, 2007... Still in development, it doesn't have an official name, yet the ground swell for the electronic insurance exchange appears to be growing. Depending upon whom you ask, the "exchange" is the best technology for the insurance industry since...

Vista Debate Continues As the System Rolls Out.
March 1, 2007... Bring up the topic of Windows Vista in a crowded room of IT experts, and you're sure to get a variety of reactions and comments. People aren't shy about sharing their perceptions-positive or negative-about the new operating system from...

It's How You Use the Data.(Library of Congress of United States)(insurance industry)
March 1, 2007... It took two centuries to fill the U.S. Library of Congress in Washington, D.C., with more than 29 million books and periodicals, 2.7 million recordings, 12 million photographs, 4.8 million maps and 57 million manuscripts. Today, it takes...

News Briefs.
March 1, 2007... AETNA OFFERS HEALTH CARE CREDIT CARD Aetna and Bank of America developed the Aetna Healthy Living credit card for Aetna's members. Cardholders earn points when they use the rewards-based card and core bonus points for using the card...

Solutions.(ClaimCenter 4.0 from Guidewire Software Inc.)(Versata Distribution Channel Management 3.0)(Melissa Data Corp.'s Canadian Address Object)(Brief article)
March 1, 2007... DIRECT MARKETING TOOL ENHANCED Melissa Data announced the addition of multi-platform capabilities to the Canadian Address Object, a complementary product to the Rancho Santa Margarita, Calif. company's Data Quality Suite, a...

E-mail Archiving Software Helps Manage Messages: Automation relieves the stress of storing and finding e-mail messages for e-discovery and regulatory compliance.
March 1, 2007... With so much business conducted via the Internet, executives at Winged Keel Group Inc. decided the staff had to save each-and-every e-mail message, simply to keep the boutique life insurance and long-term disability firm on the right track. ...

News Briefs.(survey on Financial Services Modernization Act of 1999)(survey on insurance IT investments)(TowerGroup research on regulatory compliance)
March 1, 2007... STRATEGIC GOALS GUIDE IT SPENDING Senior insurance IT executives are making strategic investments, but budgets and staff size are generally flat or growing only modestly. Those were among the findings reported by Boston-based Celent LLC...

Solutions.(FergTech Inc.'s PostingNotice.com)(Savant Protection introduced antimalware software)(Cogneto Inc. is fighting against computer crimes)
March 1, 2007... SAVANT MALWARE SOLUTION In what the company claims is a new approach to preemptive malware spread mitigation and containment, Savant Protection introduced a hybrid solution that combines preemptive spread mitigation with on-demand viral...

ACORD Enjoys Wide Support, But Issues Still Stir Debate.(Association for Cooperative Operations Research and Development)
March 1, 2007... Insurance agents started ACORD several decades ago because they were tired of filling out a different kind of form for every insurance company and wanted a common application. Since then, the Pearl River, N.Y. trade group has matured into one...

Don't Reinvent The Metadata Wheel.
March 1, 2007... Insurance Carriers don't have to labor in a vacuum when adopting external metadata standards for internal use. At Frisco, Texas-based Skywire Software, for example, products are designed to take advantage of those standards, says Stephan...

Working Hard to Keep Metadata Clean.
March 1, 2007... While some insurance companies contend with the silo effect of a dozen or so poorly maintained data dictionaries, Des Moines, Iowa-based EMC Insurance Group Inc. works with just two data systems-one for personal lines and the other for...

Policy Admin Streamlining Lags Behind in N. America.
March 1, 2007... European and asian life insurers are outpacing their North American counterparts at streamlining and centralizing policy administration systems-the core systems that support and deliver insurance products for their customers, according to a...

News Briefs.
March 1, 2007... AIIM TO RECEIVE PDF STANDARD Adobe Systems Inc., San Jose, Calif., plans to release the full Portable Document Format (PDF) 1.7 specification to AIIM, the Silver Spring, Md., Enterprise Content Management Association, for publication by...

Solutions.
March 1, 2007... NEW VERSION OF SMART BPM INTRODUCED BY PEGASYSTEMS Pegasystems Inc., a Cambridge, Mass., provider of process and rules technology, released the latest version of its SmartBPM Suite. Version 5.2 of SmartBPM Suite is designed to enable IT...

Break the Costly Habit Of Legacy Hardware: While some insurers remain hostage to outdated IT systems, most are beginning to adopt SOA or Web-based services.
March 1, 2007... Unwilling to deal with the tribulations of converting to new IT hardware, many insurance companies cling to legacy systems despite inconvenience, high costs, inflexibility and a decided lack of nimbleness. And the consequences of relying...

News Briefs.(Society of Financial Service Professionals expanding its membership)(Brief article)
March 1, 2007... SOCIETY OF FSP EXPANDS ELIGIBILITY FOR MEMBERSHIP The Society of Financial Service Professionals (FSP) expanded membership eligibility criteria to include two designations: Enrolled Actuaries (EA) and Certified Pension Consultants (CPC)....

Solutions.(iAutomate: SmartForms from Insurance Automation Group)(VR from Lucid Models Software)(Brief article)
March 1, 2007... LUCID MODELS SOFTWARE OFFERS NEW TOOL FOR VISUAL REQUIREMENTS Lucid Models Software, Toronto, released a requirements development and analysis tool, called VR for visual requirements. The tool is intended for business analysts, systems...

Ready Or Not, Staffers, Here Comes Change.
March 1, 2007... Every company has at least a few employees who resist new technology. "We are facing people in the insurance industry who started their business in the old technology and still think in those kinds of terms," says Petra Wildemann, director of...

Virtual Solution to Growing Pains.(Praetorian Financial used virtualization software)
March 1, 2007... Some carriers are taking a virtualization approach to maintaining and improving their legacy systems. Praetorian Financial, a provider of "non-commoditized" short and mid-tail specialty insurance and specialty lines, is one such company. ...

Who's Buying What: Recent deals for technology software and services.
March 1, 2007... INSURER AUTOMATES INTERNAL CONTROLS Physicians Mutual, based in Omaha, Neb., selected OpenPages FCM for its financial controls management initiatives. OpenPages FCM is an enterprise financial controls management solution designed to reduce...

Ad Index For March 2007.
March 1, 2007... Advertiser Website Address Page # Acxiom www.acxiom.com CV3 Casetek www.iflexsolutions.com 20 CDI-MDM www.sourcemediaconferences.com/conferences/CDISP07 29 Cisco...

Get the Most from a PAS: Carriers are relying on policy administration systems to provide quotes, enhance underwriting, capture data and issue policies.
March 1, 2007... A policy administration system (PAS) used to perform limited activities: rate, issue and maintain property/casualty policies in volume. Working almost in isolation, it was attended solely by the hierarchy of underwriters and policy processors....