Insurance Networking News: Executive Strategies for Technology Management articles from October 2005

Insurance Networking News: Executive Strategies for Technology Management archives from October 2005

Extending Your Reach.
October 1, 2005... Long before the power of bits and bytes helped facilitate the insurance industry's growth, forward-moving companies adhered to disciplines and principles that focused on consistent, repeatable processes that enabled cross-functional groups to...

Serving an Underserved Market: Insurers Reach Out to Spanish Language Market.
October 1, 2005... A fast-growing market of more than 40 million people, representing $600 billion per year of income, cannot be ignored for too long. The financial services insurance industry is finally learning how to embrace people of Spanish heritage within...

The Zurich Way of Pricing Risk.
October 1, 2005... Early in his career, Gary Kaplan spent a decade in loss control engineering, Then he moved into the underwriting arena and found that all the effort he and his colleagues had put into their engineering was arbitrarily applied to underwriting...

Taking the High Ground.(hurricanes and the insurance industry)(Editorial)
October 1, 2005... During my second week at the helm of Insurance Networking News, I overheard a software and services vendor speaking at the ACORD-LOMA conference in Orlando. She was gushing about how excited she was at the prospect of hurricane season. "We...

Insurance Regulation: Federal Charter Advocates to Blitz Capitol Hill: New lobbying group, grassroots campaign illustrate life insurance industry's steadfastness to federal charter.
October 1, 2005... A new study that purports to pinpoint the economic losses stemming from state-by-state regulation of the life insurance industry finally provides the smoking gun that advocates of optional federal regulation say they need to bolster their case...

Agents for Change Seek Unified Voice.
October 1, 2005... A new lobbying group representing insurance agents and brokers was formally established in August to help speed the enactment of an optional federal charter for the regulation of the life insurance industry. The group, Agents for Change,...

Industry Research: Outsourcing Risky If Not Used, Managed Properly.
October 1, 2005... U.S. financial service providers (FSPs) are expected to spend $65.7 million on IT services in 2005. However less than 30% will outsource any strategic projects by the end of 2006, according to Gartner Inc., Stamford, Conn. "Most FSPs...

Majority Use BPO.
October 1, 2005... In a recent survey of 87 U.S.-based insurers with more than $100 million in annual premiums in life and P&C, Gartner Inc., a Stamford, Conn.-based research company, found that 84% of life and 72% of P&C carriers were already using business...

Hurricane Katrina: Insurers Prepared to Deliver on their Promises.
October 1, 2005... Insurers sell promises, and after Hurricane Katrina, they certainly have a lot of promises to keep. At press time, the economic loss from what appears to be the worst hurricane in U.S. history-along with subsequent flooding of New...

Oracle to Buy Siebel Systems.
October 1, 2005... Verbalizing its intent to become the No. 1 customer relationship management (CRM) applications company, Oracle Corp. at press time had announced it had agreed to buy Siebel Systems Inc., San Mateo, Calif. The deal is valued at approximately...

Correction.(Correction Notice)
October 1, 2005... Page 24 of the September issue inadvertently attributed revenue figures for Assurant companies to American Reliable Insurance Co. INN regrets the error. (c) 2005 Insurance Networking News and SourceMedia, Inc. All Rights Reserved....

Zurich GUARD's against Terrorism Risk Exposure.
October 1, 2005... Catastrophe modeling is a critical component of analyzing and pricing risk. At Zurich, homegrown catastrophe modeling tools, as well as those from Risk Management Solutions Inc. (RMS), Newark, Calif., have been an integral part of its...

Carriers Cautiously Heed the Call for Voice and Data Convergence: As more and more companies across industries adopt a converged voice and data solution, many insurers are proceeding with caution.
October 1, 2005... The technology may seem a panacea to some, but for the insurance industry, there are still some unanswered questions concerning Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) and data convergence implementation. Donald Light, senior analyst at...

VoIP Economics 101.
October 1, 2005... Insurance Networking News talked to Donald Light, senior analyst at Boston-based Celent Communications Inc., about implementing a converged voice and data system. What is the projected ROI on installing an IP-based voice and data system?...

Often Overlooked, Reinsurance Is Finally Catching Up: Insurers are beginning to implement IT systems designed to improve largely manual reinsurance processes.
October 1, 2005... For better or worse, the reinsurance industry is in the middle of its 15 minutes of fame. With regulators shining a spotlight-some might call it a blinding one-on the industry, insurance companies are being forced to take a hard look at their...

Reinsurance Tools.(Brief Article)
October 1, 2005... Integrated reinsurance systems offer functionality across all processes, communicating with core systems and databases (policy administration, claims, finance and accounting). Policy administration systems often have some level of...

Regulators Focus Attention on Finite Reinsurance.
October 1, 2005... The U.S. Justice Department, New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer and the Securities Exchange Commission all have launched investigations to determine if companies have used finite reinsurance to manipulate their financial statements. ...

Alliances & Contracts.
October 1, 2005... DTCC INTEGRATES LIFE INSURANCE SERVICE PROVIDERS To automate the sales and processing of life insurance policies, New York-based clearance, settlement and information provider Depository Trust and Clearing Corp. (DTCC) launched its pilot...

Contracts.
October 1, 2005... The Contracts Update section includes announcements of contracts insurance information technology companies have signed with customers in recent weeks. Contract news can be faxed to Insurance Networking News magazine at (312) 913-1366 or by...

CSAA's EIM Investment Pays Off: With plans to launch new products and expand into new states, California State Automobile Association replaced a manually-driven, legacy IT system with an automated Web-based enterprise incentive management system.
October 1, 2005... Before Keith Hawkyard's employer implemented a Web-based enterprise incentive management (EIM) system, he spent several hours every month leafing thro-ugh paper reports looking for his cancelled accounts. Now, with a new EIM system in...

Products.
October 1, 2005... CONSUMER DIRECTED HEALTHCARE SUPPORT TOOL ConnectYourCare, a Baltimore, Md., provider of administrative and healthcare decision support tools, is offering a new Consumer-Directed Healthcare (CDH) migration path for employers, designed to...

IM Reaches Mainstream, But Insurers Play It Safe: Instant messaging (IM) may be a boon to productivity, but control issues still dog carriers.
October 1, 2005... The evolution of real-time text communications technology, in which messages can be sent, received and viewed immediately-a.k.a. instant messaging (IM)-is a welcome one for most companies. As IM moves from being a novelty for teens and...

e.Business Briefs.(insurance industry)
October 1, 2005... CIGNA LAUNCHES PRESCRIPTION PRICE QUOTE TOOL With a new Web-based price quote tool, CIGNA Healthcare members who have prescription drug benefits through CIGNA Pharmacy Management (CPM) can get a "real-time" price quote from any pharmacy in...

IM Best Practices.(instant messaging)
October 1, 2005... 1. Identify IM usage. Executives should first determine whether employees are using IM, and how heavily. If they find employees are using IM before the company has a management plan, they may consider addressing their IM risks sooner rather...

IT Security: Threats a Concern.
October 1, 2005... Companies are as concerned this year as they were last year about security threats, as evidenced by the amount of their IT spending devoted to security and how that money is allocated, according to a survey conducted Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu,...

Index Of Advertisers.
October 1, 2005... Advertiser Site Addresses Page # Imagenow - Perceptive Software, Inc. www.imagenow.com/insurance 2 Fort Knox National Company www.fortknoxnational.com 31 ...

Enhancing Value Through Data Mining: Insurers can use data mining technology to improve their competitive position.
October 1, 2005... In spite of centuries of sales experience, most insurers rely heavily on price for acquiring and retaining customers. The reality is that customers base insurance purchasing decisions on many factors. While this does not mean that we can ignore...