Analytics

How can SOA help carriers? That's what Insurance Networking News asked Andy Labrot, chief technology officer for the Innovation Group, Hartford, Conn. Labrot has 20 years of IT experience and leads his company's R&D efforts.INN: As carriers grapple with aging technology infrastructure, how does service-oriented architecture (SOA) address their needs and challenges?

No one ever said guiding a distribution network to optimal performance is easy. The insurance and financial services industry's supply chain is as complex as ever, and carriers across all lines want to exploit its value.How do you know how much business you may be missing? How do you hold your distribution network accountable for increased growth and profitability? For many carriers, it becomes the classic "what to do with all that data" dilemma.

Two factors that define a customer's image of an insurance provider are the quality of the buying experience and the effectiveness of the underlying communication. That's why carriers find a comprehensive enterprise communications platform critical. What's needed in communications is consistent excellence.Insurance carriers are feverishly modernizing almost every other aspect of their business, from claims and policy administration systems to agent automation. Large and mid-sized carriers alike are engaged in sweeping projects to grow their businesses and streamline internal processes. In many cases, those efforts provide an opportunity to embrace new capabilities. Yet their approach to document generation has remained static.

CANAL SELECTS TRUMBULL FOR SUBROGATION MGT.Canal Insurance Co., Greenville, S.C., entered an agreement with Trumbull Services, Windsor, Conn., to use Trumbull's Subrooutsource, an internally developed, advanced system designed to enhance subrogation recovery activities for all lines of business nationwide. Trumbull, in conjunction with an experienced subrogation team, will manage the entire subrogation process, leveraging the system's abilities to increase recoveries through effective resource allocation, automated workflows and a continuous improvement model.

Passage of the Pension Protection Act in August 2006 has made siloed IT designs obsolete. Life, annuity and long-term care combinations are now acceptable from a tax and regulatory compliance perspective. Recent pension legislation allows combinations of long-term care policies and annuities. As a result, we can expect a frenzy of product introductions in the near future and beyond.What does this new set of possible combination contracts mean to the IT systems of insurance organizations? It means co-existence and configurability are now of paramount importance. That gives rise to the bigger question: Are carriers' software solutions ready to support the new hybrid product world?

New York - New York Life Insurance Co. promoted Alexander Burbatsky to senior vice president in the corporate information department, reporting to senior vice president Eileen Slevin.

Dallas - Insurers name e-signatures and online applications; document management, workflow and imaging; and Web self-service for distributors and/or customers (portals) as the technology strategies they are very likely or likely to implement, according to a survey from Dallas-based Robert E. Nolan Co.

New York - Two technology providers each released a Nationwide Health Information Network (NHIN) prototype in one week—first Armonk, N.Y.-based IBM and now Accenture. Accenture demonstrated its prototype solution for a fully integrated health information system at the 3rd Nationwide Health Information Network Forum on Thursday, Jan. 25, 2005, in Washington, D.C., where IBM also demonstrated its prototype. The solution shows that patient data can be extracted from disparate information systems and converted to a common format that enables sharing among physician offices, medical laboratories, hospitals and other clinical settings.

Malvern, Pa. - A number of chartered property and casualty underwriters that belong to the CPCU Society believe that the industry will experience greater integration of productivity-enhancing technology into day-to-day insurance operations. They'll also face more regulatory pressures, compounded by a growing risk of class action litigation. That said, the members, who were surveyed last year, believe that they are well equipped to deal with the industry's upcoming challenges. The CPCU Society, which counts more than 26,000 members in its ranks and is headquartered in Malvern, Pa., released the results today of a November survey of its member opinion panel. In this first survey of a two-part series on insurance career outlooks, members of the panel were asked for their views on the industry's future, and what any impending changes would mean for their careers. Members did raise concern, however, about the preparedness of their industry to deal with the upcoming wave of retiring Baby Boomers. Combined with a projected shortfall in the number of new entrants with the necessary technical and subject skills, 66% of survey respondents foresee an "experience gap" as very likely to form in the next five years if nothing is done. Their suggested countermeasures include more aggressive recruiting efforts; improved training; retaining retiree capital via consulting, mentoring, and flexible scheduling; more competitive compensation and benefits; and enhanced positive visibility for the industry and its career options. "It's become very clear that education of its employees will be critical to the success of the industry's future," says Betsey Brewer, CPCU, 2006-2007 president of the CPCU Society. "Employers must recruit the best and brightest, especially applicants who hold a professional designation, like the CPCU, and/or have significant industry experience," she says. Source: CPCU Society

Armonk, N.Y. - Framing it as flexible roadmap for insurance companies, governmental regulatory agencies and other healthcare related organizations and researchers, IBM unveiled its technology foundation for the Nationwide Health Information Network (NHIN) yesterday. The technology is designed to enable secure access to healthcare data and real time information sharing and exchange of healthcare data among physicians, patients, hospitals, laboratories and pharmacies, and other stakeholders, regardless of where the medical data is located. As reported in INN in December, two such stakeholders, America's Health Insurance Plans (AHIP) and the Blue Cross and Blue Shield Association, have agreed to support a common set of standards for the network, according to published reports. Under contract to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC), IBM developed a standards-based system, based on a service oriented architecture (SOA) to connect information that allows for a secure nationwide healthcare information exchange across widely dispersed healthcare communities. The IBM solution will bring patients and clinicians one step closer to electronic medical records and a more efficient, flexible and cost effective healthcare delivery system, says the Armonk, N.Y. company. IBM's NHIN prototype is installed and operational in three healthcare marketplaces and allows seven hospitals and 24 physicians located in Research Triangle/Pinehurst, N.C.; Guilford and Rockingham Counties, N.C./Danville, Va. and Mid-Hudson Valley, New York to securely access and exchange medical and personal health data, regardless of underlying applications and locations of data. Central to the IBM NHIN prototype effort is the use of important interoperability standards for healthcare published by the Health Information Technology Standards Panel (HITSP), key SOA interoperability principles and advanced data management algorithms developed by IBM scientists. In addition, IBM software and IBM's Health Information Exchange, used to collect and share health data electronically from an exchange platform, will help physicians access and view a patient's electronic medical records even if those records originate from disparate systems in multiple locations, reports the company. Also, the use of the IHE Framework (Integrating the Healthcare Enterprise) sponsored by the Electronic Records Vendors Association and the Health Information Management Systems Society (HIMSS) played a major factor in allowing participants to support this initiative. IBM will demonstrate its prototype NHIN Architecture during The Third Nationwide Health Information Network forum to be held Jan. 25 - 26 in Washington D.C. Sources: IBM, INN archives