Best's Review articles from April 2003

Best's Review archives from April 2003

Now you see them. (Editor's Prologue).(Editorial)
April 1, 2003... New faces are appearing at the helm of some risk management departments these days. Many have come up through traditional risk management ranks, but others have backgrounds in finance or accounting. They may have experience in insurance and...

Comment.(Letter to the Editor)
April 1, 2003... Right Price Requires Right Information I enjoyed the article "Getting the Price Right" (Best's Review, March 2003). It is interesting to see the importance companies place on the various elements of pricing business to attain both growth...

OHIO Insurance Co. (People in Insurance).(company personnel changes )(Brief Article)
April 1, 2003... OHIO insurance Co., a provider of medical-malpractice insurance, has named Raymond R. Mazzotta as chief executive officer. Mazzotta was formerly president and chief operating officer. Board Chairman Gerald J. Cassidy, who had carried the...

White Mountains Insurance Group Ltd. (People in Insurance).(Brief Article)
April 1, 2003... White Mountains Insurance Group Ltd. has hired David Foy as executive vice president and chief financial officer. Foy joins White Mountains ram Hartford Life, where he spent 10 years, most recently as senior vice president and CFO. He will...

Westfield Group. (People in Insurance).(Brief Article)
April 1, 2003... Westfield Group has appointed Robert J. Joyce as chief executive officer. He succeeds Cary Blair, who will continue as chairman until his retirement Aug. 1. Joyce joined Westfield Group in 1996. He has previously served as chief operating...

New SEC rules will challenge insurers in 2003 financial filings. (Briefing: Highlights from BestWeek)).
April 1, 2003... In February, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission finalized some of the rules required by the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002, which calls for the most sweeping changes to financial reporting by publicly traded companies since the stock...

Sarbanes-Oxley adds uncertainty to European view of U.S. markets. (Briefing: Highlights from BestWeek).
April 1, 2003... When it comes to the impact tighter U.S. corporate-governance rules will have on foreign insurers doing business in the United States, insurance industry observers say one thing is certain--what U.S. regulators do might change the way foreign...

Ohio Mutual Insurance Group. (People in Insurance).(Brief Article)
April 1, 2003... The board of Ohio Mutual Insurance Group has named James J. Kennedy as chief executive officer. Concurrently, the board named William "Bill" Booher, who had been interim CEO, as president, reporting to Kennedy as a member of the executive...

Health Net Inc. (People in Insurance).(company personnel changes )(Brief Article)
April 1, 2003... Health Net Inc. has appointed Eileen O'Shea Auen as president of Health Net of the Northeast. She succeeds Barry Averill, 64, who will retire March 31. Auen joins Health Net from Cigna HealthCare, where she most recently served as a...

Torchmark Corp. (People in Insurance).(company personnel changes )(Brief Article)
April 1, 2003... Torchmark Corp. has elected Mark S. McAndrew as chairman of insurance operations. McAndrew had been executive vice president of Torchmark. Elected to the company's board in 1998, he is also chairman and chief executive officer of Torchmark...

By the numbers. (Briefing).(Insurance industry insolvency rate statistics )(Brief Article)
April 1, 2003... P/C Insolvency Rate Jumps 27% in 2002 The number of insolvencies among property/casualty insurers remained high in 2002, with 38 companies placed either under regulatory supervision or into liquidation, according to a special report by the...

Snowstorm woes might have been eased by legislation. (Briefing: NCOIL Spring Meeting).(Brief Article)
April 1, 2003... Federal natural-disaster legislation could have helped in situations such as the snowstorms that struck much of the United States this past winter, but state legislators need to be vigilant in not letting such a bill get lost in national...

NCCI: rising medical expenses add to workers' comp premiums. (Briefing: NCOIL Spring Meeting).(National Council on Compensation Insurance)(Brief Article)
April 1, 2003... Rising medical costs are just one reason the future of workers' compensation insurance doesn't look pretty, according to a representative from the National Council on Compensation Insurance. Medical costs have been driving up costs for the...

Association health plans need state regulation, legislators warn. (Briefing: NCOIL Spring Meeting).(Brief Article)
April 1, 2003... Allowing association health plans to be exempt from state regulation would have "dire consequences," state insurance legislators are telling Congress. Letters have already been sent to members of the Senate, where a hearing on the matter...

Best's Rating Changes. (Ratings).
April 1, 2003... This summary of Best's Rating Changes includes U.S.-domiciled life, health-care and property/casualty insurers as well as international insurers that had ratings assigned, changed or placed under review since this section last appeared in the...

Microscope or binoculars: traditional risk managers are being divided into those who focus on insurance and those who oversee a company's entire risk, even risks for which insurance isn't available. (Cover Story: Risk Management).
April 1, 2003... As the definition of risk has evolved to include problems that can't be solved by simply purchasing insurance, the role of risk manager also has evolved in some cases into a position with more authority and influence in many corporations. ...

Hard times: the economy is not the only worry for risk managers, who play an increasingly vital and difficult role in the overall security of their companies. (Cover Story: Risk Management).
April 1, 2003... When the Risk and Insurance Management Society Inc. convenes its 41st annual conference and exhibition in Chicago this month, the talk will be of hard times--not only in the economy but in the insurance market, which is harder than it's been in...

Breaking barriers: risk managers and information technology managers need to work together to protect their companies from cyber-crime. (Cover Story: Risk Management).
April 1, 2003... Cyber-crime is the buzzword permeating U.S. businesses today. More and more companies are facing security breaches that, in some cases, threaten their very existence. Results of the '2002 Computer Crime and Security Survey" by the Computer...

For your eyes only: this month insurers face the first of three federally mandated privacy compliance deadlines. (Industry Strategies: Privacy).
April 1, 2003... Seven years after its enactment--and following many bureaucratic twists and turns, a mountain of public comments and numerous modifications--the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act is finally coming into its own with the first...

Surviving the storm: by spending 5% to 10% more upfront to fortify the construction of a new home, dwellings can be made more resistant to catastrophe-caused property damage. (Property/Casualty: Loss Management).
April 1, 2003... Homeowners may think that as long as their homes meet the local building codes, they'll escape major property damage during natural disasters such as tornados, hurricanes, wild fires and earthquakes. They are likely to be wrong. ...

Producing a winner: hard markets mean hard times for product development, but it doesn't have to be that way. (Property/Casualty: Product Development).
April 1, 2003... In the depths of the past two commercial-lines soft markets of the early 1980s and the 1990s, insurers and reinsurers desperate for premium dreamt up all kinds of new-fangled products, for better and for worse. In the early 1980s, for instance,...

Growing pains: the number of large agencies is increasing, making changes in management practices more important than ever. (Property/Casualty: Selling Insight).
April 1, 2003... As independent agencies continue to merge or make acquisitions, the number of larger agencies is increasing. During the next few years, the size of the average agency will double. These larger, more complex firms will find it difficult to...

Looking for the next great idea in business takes skill. (Property/Casualty: Marketplace).(Brief Article)
April 1, 2003... Innovation is a word that resounds through the hallways of corporate America. Businesses are constantly talking about uncovering new opportunities and exploring possibilities. But the reality is, innovation is a skill many companies have yet to...

Progressive offers segway coverage. (Property/Casualty: Marketplace).(Brief Article)
April 1, 2003... In what it calls an industry first, Progressive Corp. is insuring Segway Human Transporters. The self-balancing, emissions-free transportation device may have coverage from some existing homeowners or auto policies--providing coverage if the...

St. Paul eyes small-business market. (Property/Casualty: Marketplace).
April 1, 2003... St. Paul Cos., moving to focus on the small commercial market, unveiled a technology platform to help agents and brokers reach that business. Jay Fishman, St. Paul's chairman and chief executive officer, said that 18 months ago St. Paul's...

DOT survey shows increase in use of car seats for tots. (Property/Casualty: Loss/Risk Management Notes).(Department of Transportation)(Brief Article)
April 1, 2003... Young children are being placed in car seats at record levels, but some drivers still place children at risk by putting them in the front seat, according to a survey conducted by the U.S. Department of Transportation's National Highway Traffic...

One-fourth of U.S. adults say inflating insurance claims is OK. (Property/Casualty: Loss/Risk Management Notes).(Brief Article)
April 1, 2003... About one in four adults in the United States say that exaggerating the value of claims to insurance companies is acceptable, and more than one in 10 say they approve of submitting insurance claims for items that were not lost or damaged or...

Insurers being taken to the cleaners; alliance hopes to save claims dollars. (Property/Casualty: Loss/Risk Management Notes).(Alliance of Professional Restoration Drycleaners)
April 1, 2003... About 25 dry-cleaning operations in the United States have formed a nonprofit alliance to give insurers a network of reliable restoration dry cleaners, which could help save claims costs. The Alliance of Professional Restoration Drycleaners...

A changing role: chief financial officers must do more with less as they work to restore investor trust. (Property/Casualty: Loss/Risk Management Insight).
April 1, 2003... Corporate management in the United States is facing a classic dilemma, namely, the difficulty of seeing the forest and the trees. The severity and rapidity of disruption in business conditions caused by the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, the...

Knowing the competition: in the highly competitive insurance industry, we cannot afford to be negligent in analyzing our competitors. (Property/Casualty: Underwriting Insight).
April 1, 2003... "Know your enemy, and in 100 battles you will never be defeated." --Sun Tsu, from Art of War One of my neighbors manages a store for a large home improvement chain. Recently, we were talking about competition and I asked him if he...

Discovery channel: health insurers must decide whether to cover the steady stream of federally approved high-tech medical devices. (Life/Health: Medical Devices).
April 1, 2003... Last year, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved an average of nearly one new medical device a week and considered hundreds more. That work is a big help to the health-insurance industry but insurers still face many decisions about...

The right sale: insurers address suitability concerns as sales of long-term-care products grow. (Life/Health: Long-Term Care).
April 1, 2003... Ensuring long-term-care policies are being targeted to those who need them, while making sure policyholders are receiving adequate coverage protection, is a foremost issue in agents' and brokers' marketing of these policies. Although some...

Spreading the word: agents who share information about long-term-care insurance with prospects and their families create benefits for everyone involved. (Life/Health: Long-Term Care).
April 1, 2003... Despite the enormous amount of publicity about long-term care and the absolute need to obtain insurance to cover that care, many consumers remain uneducated and misinformed. And, unfortunately, so do many agents and brokers who, because they...

The latest model: life insurers can now reap the benefits of catastrophe modeling. (Life/Health: Catastrophe Modeling).
April 1, 2003... Terrorism on Sept. 11, 2001 showed the insurance industry that catastrophic losses across multiple lines of business can happen in a flash. With that awareness, property/casualty insurers soon began turning to catastrophe modeling technology to...

The sunny side of life: anemic interest rates and an uncertain stock market feed the growth of equity index annuities. (Life/Health: Annuities).
April 1, 2003... Equity index annuities experienced a breakout year in 2002 with sales powering ahead by more than 80% to nearly $12 billion. Sales in 2001 were about $6.5 billion, according to The Advantage Group, a tracking service based in St. Louis. ...

10 ways to get into the game: individual disability-income products come in a variety of shapes and sizes, all of which can be profitable for insurers. (Life/Health: Disability).
April 1, 2003... In the world of individual disability-income insurance, the product possibilities are nearly endless. For companies that are not currently offering individual disability products, there is a wide range of ways to enter the market, each with...

Doing right on governance: the core of corporate governance is the development of a risk-sensitive culture that enables the right people to do the right thing at the right time. (Life/Health: Underwriting Insight).
April 1, 2003... Shareholder, regulatory and analyst expectations for corporate behavior and governance have forever been changed in the wake of company failures and accounting scandals that will have far-reaching ramifications for insurance companies. These...

New products emphasize protection over growth. (Life/Health: Marketplace).(Brief Article)
April 1, 2003... Lincoln Retirement, the marketing name for the annuities operation of Lincoln National Life insurance Co., has launched i4LIFE Advantage, an enhancement to its flagship variable-annuity feature, Income4Life Solution. The enhancement is an...

Manufacturers life insurance company (U.S.A.). (Life/Health: Marketplace).(introduces universal life product)(Brief Article)
April 1, 2003... Manufacturers life insurance company (U.S.A.) has introduced a universal life product, UL-LC, that is designed to provide affordable coverage rather than cash accumulation. To lessen the chances of lapsing a policy due to nonpayment of...

The UnumProvident Corp. (Life/Health: Marketplace).(introduces long-term-care policy)(Brief Article)
April 1, 2003... The UnumProvident Corp. has introduced a long-term-care policy that pays either reimbursement for costs incurred or a full daily benefit regardless of costs incurred. Both options offer--at no extra cost--bed reservation, respite care, waiver...

Zurich life insurance company. (Life/Health: Marketplace).(launches fixed annuity)(Brief Article)
April 1, 2003... Zurich Life Insurance Company of New York has launched New York Zurich Classic II Fixed Annuity. The deferred, flexible-premium annuity offers a choice of locking in rates for one year or six years with a minimum rate of 3%. It is the first...

Proposed Savings Accounts may threaten college plans. (Life/Health: Marketplace).(Brief Article)
April 1, 2003... Lifetime Savings Accounts as proposed by President Bush in his 2004 budget may compete for money not only with annuities, but could adversely affect 529 college savings plans. The 529 plans are likely to survive, however, according to advocate...

Principal offers 'transition' to immediate annuity. (Life/Health: Marketplace).(Principal Financial Group)
April 1, 2003... The Principal Financial Group, Des Moines, Iowa, has launched a rollover individual retirement account program that allows an owner to move money into an immediate annuity inside the IRA at his or her own pace. Under the program, the...

Blinded by the might: companies shouldn't get caught up in the bells and whistles of technology so much that they lose sight of basic sales and marketing functions. (Life/Heath: Selling Insight).
April 1, 2003... Many companies have made significant investments in sales and marketing systems and supporting infrastructure with little to no real return. They expected that benefits, like increased retention and improved customer data, would materialize,...

Sky alert: wireless devices offer new conveniences for the insurance business, but also add new levels of risk. (Technology: Security).
April 1, 2003... Ready or not, wireless mobile devices are corning to the insurance industry. They bring greater efficiency and convenience to the business process, but they also introduce an extra layer of security risk. Cell phones, laptop computers,...

The electric cure: technology helped move WellChoice from the brink of bankruptcy to financial security and increased productivity. (Technology: Health Care).
April 1, 2003... When WellChoice Inc. made a nearly fatal err or by being slow to adopt managed care, the company found technology could be the cure. A few significant technology initiatives enabled WellChoice, the parent holding company of Empire HealthChoice...

Time to get real: insurers must harness the Internet to grow business and reduce costs. (Technology: Internet).
April 1, 2003... All the rules are changing for the life insurance industry. Consumer needs have evolved to the point that products once sold for the purpose of creating wealth after death, now must build and preserve wealth during a lifetime. Now that banks...

Report says XML to improve distribution channel service. (Technology: Technology Notes).(extensible markup language )(Brief Article)
April 1, 2003... Extensible markup language strategies are being touted as ways carriers can lower information technology Costs and improve distribution channel service levels. According to a report by research and advisory firm Celent Communication,...

Survey looks at claims challenges. (Technology: Technology Notes).(Brief Article)
April 1, 2003... Mishandling of claims and inefficient technologies have been costing insurers 10% annually in avoidable claims costs, says Guidewire Software Inc., Menlo Park, Calif., an insurance software provider for the property! casualty industry ...

The Chubb Group of Insurance Cos. (Web News You Can Use).(introduces interactive worksheet)(Brief Article)
April 1, 2003... The Chubb Group of Insurance Cos. introduced an interactive worksheet to help emerging information technology firms and their agents and brokers more accurately determine the amount of business income and extra expense insurance to purchase....

ConfirmNet Corp. (Web News You Can Use).(to offer online tool for independent insurance agents)(Brief Article)
April 1, 2003... ConfirmNet Corp. has been selected by the Association for Cooperative Operations Research and Development to offer independent agents a free online tool to create and deliver certificates of insurance. The offer is extended to members of...

PhotoSafe Inc. (Web News You Can Use).(introduces online automobile insurance help)(Brief Article)
April 1, 2003... PhotoSafe Inc. announced an online, paperless alternative to the pre-insurance process for automobile insurers. PhotoSafe provides online inspection forms and a list of the closest inspection sites to a client's address and sends automatic...

Property & Casualty Management Services Inc. (Web News You Can Use).(introduces Atlas administrative software system )(Brief Article)
April 1, 2003... Property & Casualty Management Services Inc. has introduced Atlas software, a Web-based administrative software system for the property and casualty industry. It is designed to incorporate specialized insurance products and is fully compatible...

IT in a cost-driven era: insurers are using portfolio management tools to help allocate tight resources. (Technology: Technology Insight).(information technology)
April 1, 2003... Insurers' technology organizations clearly are focused on cost reduction and short-term payback during today's challenging times. Some of the excesses of the past needed to be corrected, while low-priority technology spending has generally been...

Baltimore auto insurer drawn to New Jersey urban dwellers. (Companies).(American Skyline Insurance Co.)(Brief Article)
April 1, 2003... A Baltimore-based company that promotes itself as an insurer that "celebrates America's cities" said it is considering seriously bringing its automobile insurance business to New Jersey. American Skyline Insurance Co., with 15,000...

Aon Corp. joint venture gets brokerage license in India. (Companies).(Aon Global Insurance Services Ltd.)(Brief Article)
April 1, 2003... Aon Corp. said it was granted a license to do insurance brokerage business in India through a joint venture. The Chicago-based company said its Mumbai, India-based Aon Global Insurance Services Ltd. affiliate would work in India through a...

Inreon exchange expands reinsurance platform to Japan. (Companies).(Brief Article)
April 1, 2003... Inreon Ltd., the Internet-based reinsurance exchange, said it is expanding its operations to cover Japan, with the inclusion of two Japanese insurers as members. Sompo Japan Insurance Inc. and Fuji Fire & Marine Insurance Co. Ltd. both...

Citizens Inc. to acquire Mid-American's Life Insurers. (Companies).(Brief Article)
April 1, 2003... As part of its growth strategy to reach $1 billion in assets by 2010, Citizens Inc. said it has agreed to acquire the outstanding shares of Mid-American Alliance Corp. for shares of Citizens' Class A common stock. Mid-American is the...