Analytics

New York - Helping members better analyze and report their returns on standards investments, ACORD released a return on investment (ROI) analysis toolset at the 2005 ACORD LOMA Insurance Systems Forum, held in Orlando on May 22-24.

Brookfield, Wis. - Fiserv Customer Centered Solutions (CCS), the customer relationship management (CRM) arm of Fiserv, launched its Enterprise Relationship Management Suite (ERM Suite), an integrated product line designed to address service and sales issues facing CEOs.

Kirkland, Wash. - The National Association of Insurance Commissioners (NAIC) has selected Ubmatrix, a Kirkland, Wash., supplier of software and services, to provide technical support and training in the development of an XBRL demonstration project for use with NAIC's insurance statutory financial reporting data.

Fireman's Fund Insurance Co. Novato, Calif., has taken a third major step in its total IT transformation by awarding IBM a ten-year $94 million contract to modernize a major portion of the property/casualty insurer's application, development and maintenance software into an On Demand infrastructure that could reduce the number of major applications by 70 percent while improving customer service. When completed, the work could save Fireman's Fund $200 million, more than double the project's actual cost.With IBM's assistance, Fireman's Fund will shift its IT operations to an Internet-based computing model known as a "service-oriented architecture" (SOA) that enables consolidation of costly, redundant applications. Under Fireman's Fund direction, IBM will sift through mission-critical applications using a unique IBM Business Consulting process called Component Business Modeling to determine which applications deliver the most value to the business and which processes can be refined, consolidated or eliminated.

Moncton, N.B. Canada--Whitehill Technologies Inc., a provider of document composition and data transformation software, has acquired the technology assets of Metaserver Inc. With this deal, Whitehill now owns the patented technology platform behind Metaserver's suite of business process integration (BPI) software and solutions for the insurance industry.

Industry experts often criticize insurers as being "laggards" in adopting new technologies. But carriers are leading most other industries when it comes to adopting scanning and imaging technologies, a new study concludes.For example, 86% of insurers surveyed by AIIM, an enterprise content management association based in Silver Spring, Md., are using scanned documents and images to answer inquiries from customers, compared with 73% of companies across all industries. Furthermore, 60% of carriers use scanned documents to respond to litigation, compared with 45% of all survey respondents.

As Web services continue to move closer to mainstream acceptance for application development, new research indicates performance concerns now exceed network security issues as a factor that's limiting adoption.A recent study by RESolution Market Research found that service-oriented architectures and Web services, supported by XML, are regarded as a key choice for application development because of ease of programming and data interchange.

At Erie Insurance Group, the foundation for fighting fraud is a business strategy that defines objectives, quantifiable goals, and tactical and operational plans: What is the company trying to accomplish? Does the company have enough resources to react to instances of fraud? How is Erie going to get better referrals to its special investigations unit and become more proactive in identifying fraud?"Erie is keenly aware that our experienced people-our claims adjusters, field investigators, intelligence analysts and information specialist-coupled with our use of fraud detection technology and investigation tools, have made our anti-fraud program so successful," says David Rioux, assistant vice president and manager, corporate security and investigative services for Erie Insurance Group, Erie, Pa.

Newark, Calif.--As Florida's annual hurricane deductible law goes into effect on May 1 for the state's residential policyholders, Risk Management Solutions (RMS), the world's leading provider of products and services for the management of catastrophe risk, released the results of an analysis exploring the insurance industry impact of using the new deductible instead of a single event hurricane deductible.

COLUMBUS, Ohio--Nationwide Insurance and Washington D.C.-based ID Theft Assist are joining forces to offer ground-breaking identity theft protection and recovery service that surpasses IDtheft policies currently on the market.