Analytics

One-third of office-based physicians have a "basic" electronic health records or electronic medical records system, according to preliminary figures from the federal 2011 National Ambulatory Medical Care Survey.

To fully exploit business analytics, carriers must supplement their internal policy-level data with a variety of data points derived from external sources. To get a sense of how insurers can best harmonize exogenous data with existing business processes, Insurance Networking News checked in with Bill Madison, SVP insurance data solutions for Lexis/Nexis.

With the onslaught of Big Data and more sophisticated business intelligence and analytics, data quality will be more important than ever to insurers in 2012. The experts say you can't get there without clean, accessible data. Poor contact data affects a variety of operations, from underwriting to policy service. But from a cost perspective, inaccurate contact data can have a significant impact on insurers. In a September 2011 report "Why is Data Quality Important for Insurers?" Deloitte lists four reasons:

Fraud is on the rise in the United States and globally, according to PricewaterhouseCoopers’s 2011 Global Economic Crime Survey, with cyber crime making the most significant increase in the two years since the firm’s last survey.

A recent study of IT spending among small businesses (from $40 million to $350 million in annual revenue) reveals that the budgets will grow slowly. The report—“IT spending and staffing forecast for 2012”— from Computer Economics predicts IT operational budgets should grow about 2.0 percent at the median for small organizations and 0.5 percent for medium ($350 million to $1 billion in revenue) and 0.8 percent for large (revenue of $1 billion or greater) organizations. Growth in the financial services sector, including banks and insurance companies, is weaker than other sectors—health care, professional and technical services, and distribution and manufacturing—but the net trend is still positive.

Where do you draw the line between distributed servers and mainframes? Is there even a line anymore?

Recent suit filed in Sacramento should serve as a reminder that when it comes securing data, there is no room for error.

In a new report, Forrester Research Inc. identified edge IPK, the provider of edgeConnect, an insurance user experience platform (UXP) designed to provide the optimal user experience to any insurance user, through any device, browser, and language, as a vendor to watch.

Surveys and studies show that insurers are actively implementing new policy administration systems. In September, Celent released its “Policy Administration System Vendors, North American Commercial P/C Insurance 2011” report. And this month, the analyst and consulting firm released a similar report for the life, health and annuities industry.

Staying connected while away from the office is taking on increasing importance to insurers, according to a new survey. Conducted in September by technology solution provider FirstBest Systems Inc. as part of Market Scout Entrepreneurial Insurance Symposium in Dallas, the survey queried 67 respondents from the carrier/MGA/MGU area, 94 percent of whom primarily represented commercial lines and 46 respondents from the agent/broker area, 90 percent or so representing commercial lines.