Customer experience

Washington, D.C. - The Federal Emergency Management Association's National Flood Insurance Program has launched a Web site to provide educational materials and other new content to insurance agents.

Los Angeles - A testament to its commitment to successful client relationships, Transamerica Retirement Services has received six "Best in Class" ratings from the Chatham Partners' 2005 Client Satisfaction Analysis.Transamerica received "Best in Class" ratings in the following areas: timeliness of contributions, distributions and loans, accuracy of contributions, overall satisfaction with processing of employee transactions, accuracy of participant statements, clarity of participant statements, and courtesy and professionalism of SponsorConnect personnel.

Five years ago, when Los Angeles-based Farmers Insurance Group introduced its first agent portal, the carrier believed it was on to something. As a communication vehicle, the portal pushed one-way information in "wallpaper" fashion to its captive and independent agents in 41 states.By 2003, the nation's third-largest provider of personal lines property and casualty insurance provided its agents with simple transactional capabilities by hooking its mainframe to IBM Websphere's "e-agent platform" front end.

LOMA, the Atlanta-based trade association to the insurance and financial services industry, has launched LOMALearn Online, an e-learning portal for individual and corporate training. Powered by Dublin, Ireland-based WBT System's TopClass e-Learning Suite, the site has been redesigned to manage and deliver content, training, and certification to LOMA's 1,200 member companies and other customers in more than 80 countries. The system will also enable LOMA to provide its members and customers with privately branded online learning sites through an application service provider model.

ISMIE Mutual Insurance Co., a Chicago-based medical liability insurer, has partnered with The Sullivan Group (TSG), Oakbrook Terrace, Ill., to provide its more than 12,000 insured physicians with access to Web-based risk and patient safety education courses. ISMIE Mutual physicians will have access to TSG's 'failure to diagnose' curriculum, which was designed to help doctors make diagnoses they may miss. Based on analysis of frequently occurring errors, TSG has been able to tailor its curriculum to focus on the highest-impact content and the most critical topics.

After an agency selection process that spanned several months, the National Association of Insurance Commissioners, Kansas City, Mo., has selected New York-based CooperKatz & Co. to promote a national public education program focused on teaching consumers how to select the right type of insurance coverage to fit their needs and how to protect themselves from buying worthless policies from fake insurance companies. In September, the NAIC launched an online fraud reporting system, where insurance companies and consumers can report suspected insurance fraud.

Brainshark, A Waltham, Mass.-based provider of on-demand content solutions, has integrated its software with Agility, a relationship management application from G2X Inc., New York. The integration is designed to help insurance carriers communicate with their sales channels and contacts, all from within the same customer relationship management (CRM) system. By integrating G2X Agility with on-demand content created using Brainshark, insurance wholesalers, retailers and clients already using G2X are now able to, from within a contact record, select, personalize, and send a rich-media presentation created by their marketing group. When a client views the presentation, the right person will immediately receive an Alert in the Agility dashboard, informing them that the client or partner has viewed the presentation, enabling prompt followup.

AIM Technology, a San Francisco-based provider of operational performance management software, has become a member of the Avaya DeveloperConnection program, offered by Avaya Inc., Basking Ridge, N.J. AIM Technology develops AIMCall, an application suite designed to optimize the operational performance of call centers. AIMCall's data analytics tool and workflow and notification capabilities augment Avaya's Call Management System, an application that enables companies to monitor and analyze the performance of contact centers.

LAW FIRM LAUNCHES HURRICANE WEBLOGMcGlinchey Stafford PLLC, a law firm based New Orleans, has launched an online resource for companies with business interests in hurricane-affected areas. The blog, found at www.hurricanelawblog.com, features up-to-date information about post-hurricane legal issues, including insurance, real estate, healthcare, environmental, finance and litigation. The Hurricane Law Blog also offers insurance brokers, finance and real estate professionals and attorneys a recovery resource center and legal articles.

The challenges inherent in big corporate changes can be a losing proposition, but they can open doors to great opportunities.When Merastar Insurance Co. of Chattanooga, Tenn. became an independent property and casualty firm in 2004, CIO Ken Lytle grabbed the chance to update the company's aging systems, and devised a five-year plan that will replace its technologically grizzled V4 legacy system, which runs on an AS/400, with all-new applications.