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

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

High On The Radar Screen.
September 1, 2006... If it can do all it's purported to do, business process management (BPM) has a tall order to fill. As a structured approach to employing methods, policies, metrics, management practices and software tools to manage and continuously optimize...

Sarbanes-Oxley: Lessons Learned.
September 1, 2006... Many publicly traded companies are in their third year of dealing with the Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX)-the law that makes corporate executives responsible for the accuracy of their financial statements and for the internal controls that minimize...

Looking to the Future.
September 1, 2006... Overall IT spending among U.S. insurers in 2005 will be $28.8 billion, accounting for a little less than 3% of total net written premiums, and will grow to $42 billion by 2010, according to reports from Boston-based Celent LLC. How are IT...

Take this Acronym and ...
September 1, 2006... The insurance industry is awash these days in acronyms. Adding to the influx of acronyms is the confusion they tend to cause: Many don't describe what they truly represent. The number of definitions for what business process management (BPM),...

Auto Club Group Blazes New Trails: When the largest writer of auto insurance in Michigan expanded into neighboring states, management saw the clear need to standardize and automate the organization's disparate and antiquated underwriting processes.
September 1, 2006... When Mike Koscielny joined AAA of Michigan four years ago, the Dearborn-based auto club was entering expansion mode. It was acquiring AAA clubs in Illinois, Minnesota, Iowa and Wisconsin-and planned to grow in other nearby states. As a...

News Briefs.(Blue Cross and Blue Shield Association)(Transamerica Retirement Services)
September 1, 2006... STUDY SHOWS POOR USABILITY OF WEB HOME PAGES According to a recent study by Oak Park, Ill.-based Vox Inc., home page usability of many insurance companies isn't up to snuff. The study analyzed the positioning of key customer and user...

Solutions.(Salesforce.com Inc.)(Camilion Solutions Inc. )(IDP Inc.)
September 1, 2006... WEB-BASED POLICY PROCESSING Agent X Press, a suite of processing capabilities, is designed to enable small insurers to support their agents and MGAs with Web-based policy processing. The suite from Wyncote, Pa.-based IDP Inc. is available...

News Briefs.(Minnesota Life Group Insurance )(enterprise risk management )
September 1, 2006... DOUBLE-DIGIT GROWTH Thanks in part to Web-based technology, Minnesota Life Group Insurance posted for the eighth consecutive year a double-digit increase in premium and policy fee income, the St. Paul company reports. The growth rate in...

Technology for Internal Controls.
September 1, 2006... Stage 1: Informal: Ubiquitous desktop tools (Microsoft Office) and paper documents Stage 2: Documented: Desktop tools, paper, content, or document management systems Stage 3: Standardized: Purpose-built SOX compliance management...

What you Need and From Whom.
September 1, 2006... Everything we do is a process. BPM products consist of a means to create graphical flow-based models of processes that can then be managed and controlled through an underlying process engine. BPM products provide an integrated system for...

Location Intelligence Wins Converts in the Industry: With a mapped view of its data, Church Mutual, a provider of insurance to religious institutions, has been able to increase its business by 80% in the past three years.
September 1, 2006... Build it and they will come. Such was the faith in location intelligence technology from Church Mutual Insurance Co.'s leaders back in 1999 when the Merrill, Wis.-based provider of insurance for religious institutions began looking for a way to...

Insurer Ramps Up Sales Efforts.(Church Mutual Insurance Co uses location intelligence technology from MapInfo Corp to ramp up its sales efforts)(Brief article)
September 1, 2006... Church Mutual, a Merrill, Wis.-based provider of insurance for religious institutions, has stumbled upon an innovative way to use its location intelligence technology: ramping up sales efforts. Using technology from Troy, N.Y.-based MapInfo...

Outsourcing Due Diligence: Knowing how to craft an effective outsourcing contract is considered by many as important as the labor it represents.
September 1, 2006... Insurance Networking News recently interviewed Michael Bieniek, a partner in Lord, Bissell & Brook LLP's Business Technology Group, Chicago. With more than 26 years of experience in various technical and legal roles relating to computer...

From Three Days to Three Seconds: Reports that used to take Pacific Life's IT staff three days to generate are now created by business personnel in three seconds-since the insurer deployed business intelligence across the enterprise.
September 1, 2006... The Data Warehousing Institute based in Seattle came to the conclusion in its August 2005 report, "Strategies and Technologies for Deploying Business Intelligence," that 66% of organizations in different industries are trying to transform...

Insurance E-Business Trends in China.(Brief article)
September 1, 2006... Internet usage in China has grown rapidly over the past 10 years. In 1997, there were 300,000 computers and 620,000 users for services offered over the Internet. Statistics from the China Internet Network Information Center and forecasts...

News Briefs.(Bisys Inc acquires TIME Financial Services Inc)(ChoicePoint Inc acquires ePolicy Solutions Inc)(Brief article)
September 1, 2006... BISYS ACQUIRES TIME FINANCIAL SERVICES Bisys, a Roseland, N.J.-based outsourcing solutions provider, acquired TIME Financial Services, Inc., a Woodland Hills, Calif.-based independent, privately-held planning and insurance consulting...

How to Optimize Your IT Portfolio.
September 1, 2006... * Develop and communicate a plan and build consensus. IT portfolio management is part of an overall IT governance program and reaches across the entire enterprise. Plan to implement it in stages, tackling the low-hanging fruit first and then...

Solutions.(BEA Systems Inc partners with Prima Solutions)(InsureWorx selects Patni Computer Systems Ltd)(Exstream Software Inc software gets certification from SAP AG)
September 1, 2006... VIRTUAL BACK OFFICE AdminServer Inc., headquartered in Chester, Pa., introduced its Virtual Back Office (VBO), a suite of unique solution components linked by a centralized and common rules engine. The VBO suite components available...

Who's Buying What: Recent deals for technology software and services.
September 1, 2006... IT INFRASTRUCTURE OUTSOURCING CONTRACT The Netherlands subsidiary of Blue Bell, Pa.-based Unisys Corp. has expanded its relationship with long-time client REAAL Insurance through a new five-year outsourcing contract with a value estimated...

Ad Index For September 2006.
September 1, 2006... Advertiser Website Address Page # BearingPoint Web Seminar www.sourcemedia.com/webseminar/Sept21/regform 37 CGI www.cgi.com 29 EDS...

Connecting with Customers Who Don't Speak English: With sophisticated CRM solutions, many insurers are communicating with customers, regardless of their language.
September 1, 2006... According to 2000 U.S. Census figures, 17.9% of the U.S. population (47 million people) speak a language other than English at home. In fact, from 1980 to 2000, the number of people in the United States who speak a language other than English...