Analytics

Newtown Square, Pa., SAP AG has published a book, titled Enterprise Services for Financial Services: Taking SOA to the Next Level, which reveals the growing importance that service-oriented architecture (SOA) and enterprise services will play in banking and insurance organizations as the financial services industry continues to transform.As financial services companies face shifts in customer behavior, consolidation and increasing regulatory requirements, the book outlines a road map to better cope with these pressures and help simplify technology adoption.

Redmond, Wash. - In an effort to reduce millions of dollars of integration pain on the part of insurance customers, Microsoft Corp. is releasing a new architecture to assist insurance companies in developing service-oriented architectures (SOAs) and deploying pre-integrated software applications around core insurance business processes.The Microsoft Insurance Value Chain (IVC) Architecture v1.0, which will be demonstrated at the ACORD/LOMA Insurance Forum in Las Vegas this month and completed by late June, is an industry-standards-based approach designed to enable workflow across multiple insurance applications--on or off the Microsoft platform. The architecture is the result of newly launched integration labs, held monthly on Microsoft's Redmond, Wash., campus.

Richmond Hill, Ont. - In an effort to help IT security professionals make smarter purchasing decisions, ITinfosecure has enhanced its no-cost, online community and resource center for researching and evaluating the latest security products and services.Located at http://www.itinfosecure.com/, the site features a new collection of up-to-date and unbiased profiles on more than 100 vendors and 300 products and services. In addition to its new look and feel, the site now offers users a comprehensive virtual resource center with an easy-to-use searchable catalog, with nearly 2,000 Webcasts, white papers, case studies and data sheets.

London - Guy Carpenter & Co. Inc., a global risk and reinsurance specialist and a part of the Marsh & McLennan Cos., is launching its Electronic Claims File (ECF) initiative for reinsurers in the London market after development, testing and implementation of a pilot project with select Lloyd's managing agents.As one of the largest reinsurance brokers to offer ECF, a key component of the broader London Market reform program, Guy Carpenter will be able to process and conduct many of its claims transactions in a completely paperless environment with its current trading partners.

The analysts say it's a given. More than 65% of insurance companies in a study conducted more than two years ago by Gartner Inc., a Stamford, Conn., research firm, agreed that the general trend for IT architecture is toward a "services-oriented approach."Mark Gorman, research director with TowerGroup, a Needham, Mass.-based research firm, says its current research confirms that carriers are using some form of services-oriented architecture (SOA). "Carriers are more advanced in their knowledge of SOA," he says. "They're not just analyzing it any more."

Like perfection, Straight-through processing (STP) is something many insurance company IT departments are striving for but may find hard to call fully conquered.

I had the pleasure recently of meeting malcom gladwell, the well-known New York author of "The Tipping Point" and his latest treatise, "Blink." Gladwell had been invited to speak to a group of insurance and banking executives on the theories contained in his new book; namely, that great decision-makers are not those who process the most information or spend the most time deliberating, but those who have perfected the art of "thin-slicing."Thin-slicing refers to the snap (in the blink of an eye) decisions we make based on the ability to filter-from an overwhelming number of variables-the very few factors that matter to the subject at hand.

You have heard, and probably have even used, the phrase: "Time is of the essence." No one knows that better than insurers answering requests from customers who want their information now. Hence, the real-time phenomenon in the industry.After discovering customer data wasn't easily accessible, executives at Sioux Falls-based South Dakota State Medical Holding Co. Inc. (Dakotacare) decided the company needed a business intelligence tool to retrieve claims data from its database of 140 million records.

Chapin, S.C. - With roots in the insurance industry, General Information Services Inc. (GIS) claims to be one of the two original providers of nationwide background investigations.

Washington, D.C. - Microsoft Corp. has launched a technology framework for the health plan industry, called "Knowledge Driven Health Plans." The announcement came as Microsoft participated in the third annual World Health Care Congress in Washington, D.C.As health plans face mounting pressure to respond to the rising costs of healthcare, growing member and provider expectations, intense competition, regulation, and the inefficiencies of a fragmented care-delivery ecosystem, Microsoft's Knowledge Driven Health Plans solutions framework is designed to deliver a technology platform that enables seamless business transformation. Microsoft and its industry partners are working together to provide health plans with integrated solutions designed to improve collaboration and access to information, thereby empowering people to make business and healthcare decisions that are based on the best evidence available.