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

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

The Spitzer Effect: The fate of contingency commissions is up in the air, and large insurance brokerage firms are struggling to recoup that lost revenue. Meanwhile, carriers and smaller, regional brokers face inevitable technology and process fixes to accommodate new regulations and a shifting commercial insurance market.
September 1, 2005... Nearly a year has passed since New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer charged insurance brokerage firm Marsh & McLennan with rigging bids to maximize its commissions with insurance carriers. Allegations against Aon, AIG, ACE and other...

London Bombings: An Ugly Reminder.
September 1, 2005... The terrorist attacks that ripped through the heart of London last month provided a jarring wake-up call to American insurers. Even though the attacks, which killed 55 people and injured hundreds more, are expected to result in relatively...

At What Price Security?
September 1, 2005... Competitive advantage is spawning an incongruous trend among insurance companies. To retain and build business, carriers must make it as easy as possible for their suppliers, contractors, business partners and customers to do business. This...

Does TRIA Have a Future?
September 1, 2005... The London bombings may have provided a wake-up call, but insurers could also be experiencing restless nights fretting over the fate of the Terrorism Risk Insurance Act (TRIA) of 1992. The future of TRIA, a safety net that has provided some...

Selling Employee Benefits: Brokers Find Advantage with CRM.(client relationship management)
September 1, 2005... As the employee benefits broker market continues to grow more competitive, the answer to top-of-the-line prospecting, more effective marketing and enhanced customer service lies in a technology some have tapped but few have harnessed to its...

Catastrophe Modeling: Carriers Primed for Hurricane Season.
September 1, 2005... Insurers are better prepared to face the hurricane season this year, after the harsh 2004 season forced them to learn how to more effectively interpret the information they get from catastrophe (CAT) modeling systems, according to Risk...

Threats from Within.
September 1, 2005... March 2002: Upset about the size of his annual bonus, a global financial services employee planted a "logic bomb" that deleted 10 billion customer records. The incident affected more than 1,300 of the company's servers throughout the United...

Do as I say...(controls in public insurance corporations )(Brief Article)
September 1, 2005... The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) failed to implement the same controls it monitors in public insurance corporations for Sarbanes-Oxley compliance, according to the IT Compliance Institute, an online information technology...

Do Not Pass Go.(insurance fraud)(Brief Article)
September 1, 2005... For insurance carriers, the stakes related to security breaches are through the roof. Liability, reputation and lost-revenue issues notwithstanding, more and more policyholders are demanding accountability. A number of well-publicized...

Profile of the Insider.(Brief Article)
September 1, 2005... The U.S. Secret Service, in partnership with Carnegie Mellon Software Engineering Institute, Pittsburgh, released in May its latest Insider Threat Study (ITS): "Computer System Sabotage in Critical Infrastructure Sectors." A follow-on to...

Tools for the Long View on Projects: It's not really magic, but insurers say successful IT project portfolio management can conjure up significant cost savings and almost make office politics disappear.
September 1, 2005... Information technology is generally the wildcard in any company's annual budget. Unpredictable in cost and difficult to explain to the layman, IT is one cost center that can be relied upon to keep executives up at night. Given that...

Amica Life Takes Better Aim: Predictive modeling software and an eye for novel trends prove a winning match for the Lincoln, R.I.-based insurer.
September 1, 2005... Imagine leaving your sales and marketing efforts to guesswork. Not understanding your customer's age, lifestyle, income or other factors would spell certain disaster for any insurance carrier trying to market or cross-sell specific products....

NAIC Amends Producer Licensing Model Act.(National Association of Insurance Commissioners )(Brief Article)
September 1, 2005... In June, the National Association of Insurance Commissioners (NAIC), Kansas City, Mo., adopted changes to its Producer Licensing Model Act, which the states can review and consider adding to their existing regulations. Without forbidding...

Sanlam Boosts Cross-Selling with a Single Version of the Truth: The South African insurer has consolidated customer data from 15 disparate sources into one worksite marketing information system that provides a 360-degree view of its customers for its advisors.
September 1, 2005... The South African insurer has consolidated customer data from 15 disparate sources into one worksite marketing information system that provides a 360-degree view of its customers for its advisors. Talk to just about any insurance executive...

Niche Carrier Plays by the Rules: Carrier's decision to implement new system reaps benefits from streamlined approach and speed to market.(American Reliable Insurance Co.)
September 1, 2005... When most insurance companies look to new technology to improve business operations, the focus typically is on saving time or money by taking a manual process and automating it. In reviewing the time required to bring their new products to...

Products.
September 1, 2005... Call Center CRM For Mid-Sized companies Avaya Inc., a Basking Ridge, N.J.-based provider of business communication applications, systems and services, has enhanced its Avaya Contact Center Express for medium-sized businesses. The software...

Alliances & Contracts.
September 1, 2005... Fair Isaac Allies with Millennium Info On Underwriting Analytics Minneapolis-based Fair Isaac Corp. has formed a strategic alliance with Millenium Information Services Inc., a property inspection and insurance underwriting process...

Contracts.
September 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...

Onus Is on the Buyer to Unlock Greater Value from Web Analytics: If you're seeing lackluster results from your Web analytics software, you may not be practicing due diligence.
September 1, 2005... Insurance firms must perform more due diligence if they want their Web sites to net them greater revenues. That is one of the crucial messages of a recent study from Forrester Research, a Cambridge, Mass.-based technology and market research...

e.Business Briefs.
September 1, 2005... Central Mutual Launches Real-Time Rating Central Mutual Insurance Co., Van Wert, Ohio., has launched real-time access to Georgia, Tennessee and Virginia auto rates through SETWrite, a new Web- based rating product from Rackley Solutions,...

Sustainable SOX Compliance: Many Firms Aren't Automating.
September 1, 2005... Sarbanes-Oxley (SOX) compliance hit corporate budgets with a wallop. According to Boston-based AMR Research Inc., U.S. public companies spent a total of $5.5 billion on SOX compliance in 2004, and they'll spend an additional $5.8 billion this...

Complex Event Processing Targets ROI: CEP is an approach that identifies data and application traffic as "events'' of importance, correlates these events to reveal patterns, and reacts to them by generating "actions'' to systems, people and devices.
September 1, 2005... No single strategic objective in the insurance industry offers the profit potential of policyholder retention and cross-selling. It has been documented that multi-relationship policyholders are more likely to renew. Further, the cost to...

Index Of Advertisers.(Brief Article)
September 1, 2005... (part 1 of 2) Advertiser 1 ACORD 2 Fair Isaac 3 MasterCard 4 Motion Computing 5 SAS 6 SAS 7 Solcorp 8 SunGard 9 Valley Oak Systems SourceMedia ...