Customer experience

Omaha, Neb.-- Mutual of Omaha launched a Web site where consumers can receive information on insurance, free rate quotes and purchase a variety of Mutual of Omaha insurance products, the company reports. The site, www.mutualofomahabuyonline.com, is described as a one-stop shop for consumers who prefer a less-traditional avenue for purchasing insurance. "We recognize that some people are not only comfortable with researching online, they actually prefer to purchase online, too," said Tom Graham, senior vice president of Direct-to-Consumer Marketing at Mutual of Omaha. "We want to provide access to products that serve the consumer when, where and how they choose." The site currently offers accidental death insurance, cancer insurance as well as adult and juvenile life insurance through Mutual of Omaha and its life insurance affiliate, United of Omaha. Mutual of Omaha opened its doors for business in 1909. Source: Business Wire

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

Dayton, Ohio - Anthem Blue Cross and Blue Shield launched a pilot e-prescribing program in two Ohio communities in an effort to reduce medication errors and the time physicians spend managing prescriptions.Currently, less than 22% of physicians nationwide use the basic capabilities of e-prescribing, according to the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), Baltimore, Md. CMS estimates that the use of such technology could eliminate as many as two million harmful drug events each year.

Indianapolis - In the latest move by the insurance industry to participate in reducing the effects of global warming, the National Association of Mutual Insurance Companies (NAMIC) unveiled a new Web site this week: www.climateandinsurance.org. The site is designed to help address the increasing concerns about climate change and its impact on the property/casualty insurance industry. "There has been considerable discussion of climate change and the insurance industry taking place within state, federal and international policy venues. Increasingly, climate change is discussed in the context of public policy in the areas of flood and other natural disaster insurance, emergency preparedness and response, and reinsurance, among others," explained Chuck Chamness, president and CEO of the Indianapolis-based organization. Chamness said the site will not advocate a position on the scientific controversy of the causes of the increase in natural disasters around the world. "Instead, it contains information and leading thought about how climate change impacts the insurance industry, and what insurers and reinsurers in the U. S. and Europe are doing with this issue," Chamness added. David Reddick, NAMIC's associate director of public policy and editor of the Web site, said podcasts, blogs, videocasts and other interactive features will be added to the site, depending on the needs of its users. Reddick said the site will also report on the status of the National Association of Insurance Commissioners (NAIC) Climate Change and Global Warming (EX) Task Force and other regulatory or legislative efforts. NAIC has long been active in promoting education for natural catastrophe and associated risk management. "As public policy begins to develop more fully on climate change, the industry's response will be a key feature of the site," Reddick said. "We're anxious to get feedback to help us make this a significant resource for those in the industry as well as other interested and involved parties, including other information sources, policymakers, the media and consumers." Insurance Networking News (INN) further reported on the industry's response in August 2006, citing several carriers that are stepping up their efforts to more fully engage the global warming topic. For example, Firemen's Fund Insurance is launching a first-of-its-kind 'green' coverage, including rate credits and other incentives, for commercial building owners who re-build damaged properties using green and LEED-certified (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) building practices. California-based Firemen's Fund will begin seeking state regulatory approvals this month so that the products can be offered in states around the country this fall. Marsh, the world's largest insurance broker, and AIG, the world's largest insurer, launched carbon emissions credit guarantees and other new renewable energy-related insurance products that are allowing more companies to participate in carbon offset projects and growing carbon emissions trading markets. The carbon trading market in the European Union alone is expected to hit $30 billion by the end of 2006. And Japanese insurer, Tokio Marine & Nichido Life, reforested more than 7,500 acres of angroves in Indonesia, Thailand and several other countries to minimize losses from rising cyclone-related risks. Yet for all the industry's efforts, it must do even more to address the growing impact of climate change-induced damages, according to a new report by World Wildlife Fund (WWF) and Munich-based global insurer Allianz Group. In October 2006 INN described a report, Climate Change and Insurance: An Agenda for Action in the United States, which examined the latest scientific findings about climate change, including the impacts of forest fires, storms and floods, and the potential impact on the insurance industry and its customers. According to the report, climate change has the potential to significantly alter and intensify destructive weather patterns in the United States, leading to increased flooding, forest fires and storm damage. The most direct risk to the U.S. will likely come from hurricanes, which are expected to become more frequent and powerful. Additionally, rising sea levels over the coming decades could inundate many US coastal cities and portions of some coastal states. Forest fires could become even more frequent and larger. These changes could make insurance unaffordable for customers in high-risk areas. In fact, insurance premiums in states vulnerable to hurricanes are already increasing, and in some cases, insurers are exiting these markets altogether. Allianz and Washington-based WWF intend to engage the insurance industry, governments, regulators and others to better manage the risks associated with climate change, said the organizations. Sources: NAMIC, Insurance Networking News Archives

Washington - A coalition of insurers, technology companies and health care organizations is working to provide free electronic prescribing to every physician in America.

Kansas City, Mo. - The National Association of Insurance Commissioners' (NAIC), a voluntary organization of the chief insurance regulatory officials of the 50 states, the District of Columbia and the five U.S. territories, reports that its Web site received more than 1 million visits in 2006, doubling the previous year's total. The domain, www.naic.org, logged a total of 1,150,632 visits from January through December 2006, marking a drastic increase from the 480,675 visits received in 2005. In addition to the rising number of Web visits, a 2006 analysis of the NAIC Web site showed the domain averaged 3,152 visits per day in 2006, up from 1,316 in 2005. The average visit to www.naic.org in 2006 lasted more than 18 minutes, a six-minute increase from 2005. A "visit" is tallied each time someone logs on to any page within the NAIC Web domain. NAIC Executive Vice President and CEO Catherine Weatherford attributed the increased Web activity to an "improved user experience" throughout the site, making it easier for visitors to navigate from page to page. "There have been a considerable amount of improvements made to the accessibility and organization of information within the NAIC site," Weatherford said. "The tools and options made available to our members, the insurance industry and consumers are second to none. The site is an all-encompassing, multi-media instrument that offers on-demand access to important NAIC data and information." Another reason for the spike in Web visits was the increased consumer awareness generated from Insure U, the NAIC's education-based consumer Web site. This effort included a series of public service announcements, which guided consumers to the NAIC Web site to learn more about their insurance needs. The NAIC site, which is updated daily, features an extensive amount of background on the association, including committee documents and updates, white papers, news releases, NAIC publications, consumer-oriented material, extensive databases, industry-based links, individual Web pages for the wide-range of systems available to NAIC members, links to the many divisions within the NAIC, and updated information on past and upcoming NAIC national meetings. "The NAIC is dedicated to offering a vast amount of regulatory information through its Web site," Weatherford said. "To have so many people interested in what our expansive site has to offer is a testament to the NAIC's mission of promoting the public interest and continuing to support and improve state-based insurance regulation." Source: The National Association of Insurance Commissioners

Philadelphia - CIGNA Corp. redesigned its flagship public Web site to be easier for users to navigate and offer users extensive health information and online resources in a newly added Health & Money section.

Buttressed by the efforts of annuities associations, technology firms and broker/dealers, Pacific Life Insurance Co. is among the insurance firms leading a long-term, yet determined drive to make the annuities business paperless. Though its work is in an early stage, Pacific Life likes the results it has seen.Since Pacific Life began using an automated system for annuities called Automated Customer Account Transfer Service/ Insurance Processing Service (ACATS/IPS), the carrier is boosting its speed in obtaining notification of customer requests to change broker/dealers, while significantly improving customer service. For instance, now Pacific Life gets almost immediate notification of customer requests to change broker/dealers, whereas before it took at least six weeks.

The road seems less bumpy these days for insurance carriers that use state-of-the-art automated compensation to calculate and track agents' commissions. A single streamlined third-party system can replace a hodgepodge of legacy software and manual processes, users say, helping to reduce clerical work, increase accuracy and improve reporting. Moreover, carriers report that the software opens up a whole new world of analysis that pinpoints the true sources of profit and helps identify and retain the best agents.The accuracy rate for commissions at Blue Cross Blue Shield of Florida, for example, has improved from 80% before introducing up-to-date automated compensation to 95% after the implementation, says Linda Lamb, BCBSF vice president of sales business management. The remaining errors arise from data entry miscues or software problems outside the system, she says.

INSURER ENHANCES ONLINE DATAThe Empire Life Insurance Company (Empire Life) enhanced Trilogy, its universal life product that continues to evolve to meet the changing financial and wealth management needs of Canadians. The enhancements represent the largest number of revisions to the product since Trilogy Universal Life was introduced in September 2000. Better delivery of information is achieved through a completely revised client statement and with new online investment information.