Digital Platforms

Poll results reveal that majority of Americans connect life insurance to feelings of security, yet don’t fully understand how such a vehicle can help meet long-term financial goals.

Bidders including Manulife Financial Corp. have expressed willingness to buy the Japanese operations as part of a deal for ING units in Hong Kong and Southeast Asia, said the people, who asked not to be identified as the process is private.

Zurich Insurance Group AG, the biggest Swiss insurer, is seeking more licenses to expand in Chinese cities as part of a strategy to grow in emerging markets, chief executive officer Martin Senn said.

A group of Russian insurers have signed an agreement to implement ACORD standards. This will be the first documented ACORD implementation in Eastern Europe.

BMS Group, an independent specialist broker, has chosen Eclipse Broking software from Sequel Business Solutions Ltd., to replace its insurance and reinsurance broking systems in London, the United States and Bermuda. The implementation will go live this year.

EQECAT's early estimates surrounding Isaac draw comparisons to Hurricanes Gustav and Florence.

According to a new report from Gartner, cloud and consumerization present a unique challenge for all businesses moving forward.

The U.S. Census Bureau released 2010 health insurance data; Texas retains the highest rate of uninsureds for the fifth year in a row.

Insurer turns to Clearwater Analytics for scalable solution that can provide improved investment accounting and reporting, analytics.

Latest Allstate report ranks the nation’s largest 200 cities based on the frequency of auto collision claims.

Latest Allstate report ranks the nation’s largest 200 cities based on the frequency of auto collision claims.

As Hurricane Isaac strikes, A.M. Best provides the top ten P&C insurers by market share in Louisiana, Alabama and Mississippi.

LIMRA announces sales survey results for the first half of 2012.

Women's portion of total number of claims continues to climb as well.

Agency management solution designed to extract data from PDF forms and connect agents to carriers.

AIR Worldwide, a catastrophe modeling firm, estimates that losses resulting from farmer claims for the crop insurance industry may exceed $13 billion with the potential to reach as high as $20 billion.

Awareness of the dangers of distracted driving appears to be increasing, but teens are not adjusting their behavior behind the wheel.

Sterne Agee slightly upgrades EPS estimates for life insurers, anticipates higher reserve requirements for universal life.

Survey finds generational differences in communications preferences, urges multi-channel delivery.

Insurers wait for the inevitable landfall of what could become a Category 2 hurricane. According to CoreLogic, this leaves insurers with $36 billion in potential exposure to residential property damage to brace for. This high estimate is largely the result of remaining uncertainties. While estimates have the storm moving onto land within the next 48 hours, where it will strike is still unknown.

Combined ratios are down more than 10 percent compared to 2011 figures, Fitch finds.

Insurers looks to iPipeline’s Content Partner and iGO eApp for improved distribution of life and annuity products.

While not yet a hurricane and still days away from landfall, Tropical Storm Isaac now poses a threat to the Republican National Convention, scheduled to begin on Tuesday in Tampa.

Insurer turns to software firm for improved investment accounting, reporting and analytics solution.

The federal bank is selling off the last $3.4 billion of its Maiden Lane III LLC portfolio, ending its four-year bailout of the insurer.

Rating agency predicts positive rest of the year despite the slight deterioration of interest coverage and leverage ratios during the first-half of 2012.

Platform designed to enable insurers to control appetites by state, line of insurance and SIC in real time.

Risk Analyzer Homeowners product enhanced with by-peril rating rules, which have been approved in 13 states.

Magazine rates companies’ growth since 2008 and ranks them accordingly.

With the business intelligence product, the broker expects to be able to drill down into its data while analyzing the business from many different perspectives.

Deal furthers global relationship between the two companies.

How a start-up telematics insurer is allowing U.K. insurers to look at young drivers completely differently.

Hartford CEO Liam McGee continues divesting units in the wake of billionaire investor John Paulson pressuring him to narrow the company's focus.

Aetna joins competitors WellPoint Inc. and Cigna Corp. in making acquisitions as the U.S. government expands medical coverage.

The 1994 Honda Accord was the most-stolen vehicle; key code thefts a growing concern, according to NICB.

Allianz, Aviva, AXA Equitable, Great American and Jackson National are a few of the carriers named as top-selling indexed annuity and/or life insurance carriers for the second quarter.

Latest report from Gartner serves as a call-to-arms and guide for insurers putting off analytics, business intelligence and big data investments.

In a Forrester survey of 90 enterprise customer analytics practitioners, including insurers, social analytics is the most popular analytics program companies are looking to pilot in the next couple years.

Suite of coverage enhancements to be offered through network security and privacy product.

Of the 14 life insurance firms monitored by Corporate Insight, Liberty Mutual and USAA were cited as having the strongest social media performances and were awarded top grades.

Overall, deal volume in software and Web-based offerings were both down for the second quarter of 2012.

Free informative app, called WreckCheck, designed to help consumers protect property, identities with accident reports.

During the first half of 2012, 58,523 questionable claims were referred, according to the National Insurance Crime Bureau.

Deloitte's new report outlines two types of fraud: the deliberate faking of an accident and fabrication of a claim, called hard fraud, and exaggerated values on legitimate claims or misrepresented information in an attempt to garner lower policy premiums, labeled soft fraud.

Michael Palmer will lead the analytics team in Bermuda and help develop the company’s understanding of all aspects of catastrophe risk.

Aviva is looking for 5,000 UK drivers with Android smartphones to test its RateMyDrive app.

Bank-owned life insurance (BOLI) assets reached $145.6 billion in the first quarter of 2012, an 8.7 percent year-over-year increase from the reported BOLI assets of $133.9 billion for the same period in 2011, according to the Michael White/Meyer-Chatfield Bank-Owned Life Insurance Holdings Report.

Specialty branch within Munich Re adds a front-end risk management and planning component to its data breach coverage.

Falling costs largely attributable to decrease in medical benefits for injured workers, according to the National Academy of Social Insurance.

Terri Vaughan will step down during the first quarter of 2013; National Association of Insurance Commissioners officers will conduct a national search later this year to fill the position.

CLASIC/2 Version 14.0 introduces the ability to model builder’s risk policies for the AIR earthquake and hurricane models for the United States. AIR designed the updated version to support the policy conditions that characterize commercial insurance, enabling companies to assess catastrophe loss potential from the portfolio level down to the individual location level.

Second half of 2012 will likely test reserves, balance sheets and underwriting acumen—Keefe Bruyette & Woods expects Ace Ltd., Chubb Corp., Marsh & Mclennan Cos. and Proassurance Corp. to pass those tests with strong reserves and quality franchises.