Analytics

FRAMINGHAM, Mass.--Workscape Inc., a provider of benefits and workforce management solutions, today announced that it has acquired the business of Performaworks, Inc., a leading developer of Goal-Driven Performance Managementsoftware based in Burlington, Mass.

ATLANTA--Crawford & Company was recently named one of three national service providers to offer property, casualty, and workers' compensation claims handling to CNA Insurance Companies. "Crawford is honored to be chosen as the primary provider for such a prestigious and world-renowned company," said Grover L. Davis, Crawford chairman and CEO. "I look forward to continuing to grow this relationship, and am confident that this arrangement will greatly benefit both companies."

The Phoenix Companies Inc. has completed the implementation of Metaserver Inc.'s business process integration (BPI) technology that supports the Phoenix Information Gateway, which is supporting several straight-through processing initiatives for the Connecticut-based insurer.

Atlanta, GA--DWL, a provider of Enterprise Business Services Software, today announced the release of DWL Insurance for Group Life and Health 3.0, giving health insurers the market's most functionally rich set of self-service business capability for agents, customers, call center staff, internal employees and distribution networks. Built on a composite application framework, version 3.0 has more than 35 new end-to-end business services to allow group life and health companies support plan member enrollment, dependant enrollment, billing, coverage selection and provide new and enhanced claims processing functionality.

St. Louis, MO--Genelco Software Solutions, a division of Liberty Insurance Services Corporation (LIS), today announced the newly released version 3.0 of its front-office Web portal product, Genelco LifeView. Genelco LifeView 3.0 builds upon its common-sense approach to Web access with innovative improvements to function and design.

The question still remains whether a critical mass of consumers will actually purchase insurance online-not just research options and get quotes. But 21st Century Insurance Group is betting they will.Even with that belief driving its e-commerce strategy, however, the Woodland Hills, Calif.-based personal auto carrier hasn't been passively waiting for consumers to get accustomed to the idea of buying their policies online.

Who knows what the future holds? While the U.S. Department of Homeland Security is actively investigating terrorist communications and activity to prevent possible attacks, insurers are beginning to understand the necessity of taking a new, more proactive approach to assessing their own risks of loss related to people, processes, technologies or external events.These "operational risks," as defined by the Bank of Inter-national Settle-ment (BIS) in its proposed Basel II accord, are exemplified by events and failures such as Enron and WorldCom, the power outage in the Northeast last summer, the continual stream of computer viruses infesting the Internet, and, of course, the September 11 terrorist attacks.

For years, administration of workers' compensation insurance at Boston-based OneBeacon Insurance Group was viewed as an occupational hazard-a bona fide accident waiting to happen.With antiquated operating systems trying to support the effort, OneBeacon, which sells $40 million in workers' compensation coverage a year, had a difficult time furnishing transactional data for workers' comp insurance to the state rating bureaus and statistical agents in the states that it wrote workers' comp insurance.

Two General Motors Corp. subsidiaries are partnering to create new products for their joint customers.

Although nearly half of the states have passed laws allowing insurance companies to use credit-based insurance scores to assess and price risk-albeit with some restrictions-a new study reveals that the practice disproportionately harms low-income and minority policyholders."There was a tremendous demand to know what happened to low-income folks and protected classes like minorities when you use credit scoring," says Randy McConnell, communications director for the Missouri Department of Insurance (MDI), which conducted the study. "It struck people as disingenuous whenever the credit-scoring vendors were saying, 'There's no relationship between credit scoring and income.'"