Customer experience

Chicago - Blue Cross and Blue Shield (BCBS) of Illinois announced that it plans to expand its e-prescribing initiative throughout Illinois. This follows on a plan BCBS announced in January in which the Anthem BCBS group would expand the effort in Ohio.

New York - Look for accelerated growth this year of the outsourcing trends that predominated in 2006: Expansion of business process outsourcing (BPO), the maturing of the offshore market and more multi-sourcing at the expense of single, one-off “mega-deals.”

Kansas City, Mo. - U.S. Census projections issued in 2004 state the number of U.S population speak a language other than English at home will continue to trend upward. Two insurance industry organizations addressed this trend by launching Spanish-language Web sites.

Boston - Wrap platforms are changing the way UK insurance firms are able to distribute their products and will raise a number of challenges for IT departments, according to a new report issued by Boston-based research firm Celent LLC.

Cambridge, Mass. - Across every generation, females are more likely than males to say that life insurers meet their needs, and the relationship female seniors have with their life insurance providers is especially strong, according to new report by Forrester Research, Cambridge, Mass. Forrester's Report, "Do Financial Institutions Meet Customer Needs" evaluated the relationships consumers have with eight types of financial institutions, including insurance. This most recent report is based on findings from Forrester's NACTAS Q3 2006 Survey. No surprise, banks were reported as the most prevalent provider, and seven of 10 consumers in the report--across all age groups--believe that banks meet their current needs. Both male and female seniors believe that home and auto insurers meet their needs. At the other end of the spectrum, only about half of consumers of all ages think that their credit card providers meet their needs. Across all of the other institutions, the Generation Y Group (consumers born between 1976 and 1982) are the least likely to have a relationship with a financial institution, says Bruce Temkin, Forrester senior analyst and author of the report. "We also found that credit card providers most often meet the needs of seniors and life insurers meet the needs of females more often than they do males. Looking across the institutions, it's clear that younger Boomers could use more attention," says Temkin. For more information, visit www.forrester.com

New York - A number of life insurance executives recently surveyed by Deloitte & Touche USA LLP's insurance industry group related that technology is more likely to be considered a barrier at this point in time, rather than a strength. Many stated they can do better in terms of streamlining the growth processes to enhance the distributor and customer experience, and they do not believe their technology is as advanced as it can and should be.The survey of 20 C-suite executives from top life insurance companies, as well as an analysis of life insurance industry growth patterns contributed to a report--"Organic Growth for Life Insurers: A Playbook for Market Advantage."

Forget the stereotypes--ASP isn't just for small, IT-challenged carriers any more, and many of the ASP problems that gave insurance companies pause only a few years ago are being solved. Dollar savings and fast time to market are still big pluses for ASP, but today there are a lot of other reasons to consider it.The market among insurance carriers for ASPs, or application service providers, is growing by about 10% a year-slower than in most other industries-according to Marc Cecere, vice president and principal analyst for Forrester Research in Cambridge, Mass. From a supply-side perspective, that's partly because of the structure of the insurance industry and partly because of the regulatory scene for insurance companies.

ADOBE EXPANDS ACROBATAdobe Systems Inc., San Jose, Calif., introduced Adobe Acrobat Connect software, a Web conference and collaboration product with "always-on" personal meeting rooms. It is designed to enable workers to connect online instantly with a Web browser and the ubiquitous Flash Player software. Together with Adobe Acrobat 8 software the expanded Acrobat family accelerates the flow of business by allowing people to work together in real-time, according to Adobe. The new, extended Acrobat family brings together the two critical components of knowledge work-documents and people. Acrobat Connect enables users to choose a Web address for their online personal meeting room, with unlimited use for up to 15 participants for one monthly fee.

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.

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.