Digital Platforms

The increase in time being spent interacting online via social media channels represents one of the greatest new business opportunities of all time. But for the insurance industry, it may represent one its greatest challenges.

By 2015, most mobile applications will synchronize, collect and analyze deep data about users and their social graphs, according to Gartner Inc.

Satisfaction highest among 'Loyal Advice Seekers;' Auto-Owners, State Farm and The Hartford lead the pack, J.D. Power says.

Most had been without coverage for at least two years and 72 percent decided to buy health insurance because of the Affordable Care Act, according to Kaiser Family Foundation.

The new world of metadata is like the old world of metadata except that it has many more data sources – and just like data from packaged software, the business has no control over the data definitions of the new sources.

The applications will be deployed using the company’s SaaS platform.

By unlocking the value of petabytes of patient-specific data, health insurance plans will be able to help members to achieve their health care goals, says presenter at America’s Health Insurance Plans Institute 2014.

Fifty-six percent of health insurers responding to the survey said they will use a single-carrier private HIX as a sales channel for their products before year's end.

Insurers reveal what technology initiatives are on their horizons and what technological challenges keep them up at night.

Global risks remain and insurers still need government backstop, according to Guy Carpenter; reform bill raises trigger for attacks.

A year after the policy began, 31 percent of those 19 to 25 told federal researchers they were in excellent physical health, compared with 27 percent on average from 2002 to 2009.

To overcome challenges, the team set up a war room, permanently staffed by representatives of all entities involved with Healthcare.gov, for real-time decision making.

Despite the challenges, Sebelius said she would rather have a rocky rollout and 8 million signed up than a fully functional website and 4 million enrolled.

Jonathan Kalman, president of Return on Intelligence, offered the following predictions, takeaways and advice at the IASA 2014 Educational Conference and Business Show in Indianapolis last week.

The project included the migration of thousands of policies, representing more than five years of transactional data, to MS SQL.

Advice on some of insurance IT executives' biggest challenges, including data security, cloud computing, and recruiting and retaining talent was offered during a town hall meeting at last week’s IASA conference.

Research suggests many executives lack confidence in the outcome of their data analyses.

According to the NICB, California leads the nation in SUV and CUV thefts; Ford Escape is the most stolen.

To increase market share and increase relevancy, Accenture says insurers must plan for the blurring between the digital and physical world, the rise of crowdsourcing, the advent of the data supply chain and three other trends.

While insurers have spent years and millions of dollars acquiring or replacing information systems, there is a lack alignment between companies’ business and IT organizations, according to a panel at America’s Health Insurance Plans Institute.

Insurers are trying to reverse negative public perceptions that they are only looking out for their own financial bottom lines, says trade association.

For insurers, agent demand and claims efficiencies are contributing to a new sense of urgency to embrace mobile apps.

Accenture says enrollments now are three times greater than estimated last year at this time.

Insured Rating enabled insurer to release its AirCare product.

Broker places bloodstock risk electronically with insurer.

Peter Hancock oversees property/casualty insurance and will be CEO and president as of September 1.

West Bend selects Accenture’s Duck Creek Policy and Duck Creek Billing software to streamline operations and increase flexibility.

On day three at IASA’s 2014 Educational Conference and Business Show, we take a look at why all insurers should care about ORSA, and SMA's Karen Furtado evaluates the billing system market.

Canadian insurer to implement policy admin, billing, claims and customer management.

Tool is designed to enable insurers to transform financial data into actionable insights and analysis for investments.

The application will address PAS, new business, distribution management and group processing.

On day two at IASA’s 2014 Educational Conference and Business Show, insurers discuss what they're doing to inspire new talent, and Novarica's Robert McIsaac identifies the biggest disconnect between IT and the business.

Insurance platform provider to implement BRIDGE for policy admin and consumer portal.

From day one at IASA’s 2014 Educational Conference and Business Show:• X by 2’s CIO Advocate Frank Petersmark identifies the biggest surprises during a core system project.• Insurers discuss what they are doing to impress their customers.• The threat of a diminishing knowledge workforce is real and insurers are taking action. • Beth Mercier, IASA’s outgoing president, reflects on some of the work that went behind this year’s show.

Silver-plated HIX plan participants are helping offer a middle-of-the-road assessment of how the Affordable Care Act is faring.

Insurer will implement underwriting, rating, illustrations and reports for its employee benefits and worksite products, plus sales and underwriting workbench.

Learning fast from failure is a critical component to being able to compete against new and diverse challenges facing the insurance industry, note advisors.

WorkersCompExpert will replace Synergy’s core administration technology infrastructure.

New study shows that mobile consumer apps have become commonplace in personal lines insurance.

The bill differs from a House measure that would set new limits on reimbursements for attacks involving conventional weapons.

The Atlas cloud-based platform will help streamline commercial and personal lines operations.

Only 38 percent of organizations surveyed have a methodology to prioritize security investments based on risk and impact to business strategy.

Ownership of tablets is growing; one-third of survey respondents said they are looking to replace their laptop with a tablet.

Sports associations, along with insurers, developers, banks and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, say their businesses could be wiped out by a Sept. 11-style attack.

INN will be reporting from IASA's Annual Educational Conference and Business Show. Tune in. 

Will seek to recoup the state’s payments to Oracle plus damages, citing bugs in the system and missed deadlines.

UBI, which uses telematics to monitor how many miles an automobile travels or how a driver handles a car, is one of the hottest areas in P&C insurance. Here’s what CIOs need to know.

Westfield Insurance’s adoption of the Activity Notes download through IVANS continues to grow.

The Stingray System is a web-based, policy, billing, claims and reinsurance insurance administration system.

Search giant plans to have 100 to 200 test vehicles; announcement comes amid a push to encourage the adoption of driverless cars and make roads safer.

Zurich will use Duck Creek software as its core policy processing system to multiple lines of business.

Many benefit brokers found a scant number of insurer options when assisting consumers on the Affordable Care Act’s public health insurance exchanges.