Digital Platforms

Gartner: By next year, one-third of all business intelligence functionality will be consumed through a mobile device.

The 2012 Mid-Year Salary Survey, just released by Janco Associates and eJobDescription.com, is not good news for IT professionals. The survey shows that hiring and salaries are soft for most IT positions and most North American metropolitan areas.

Huatai's purchase represents the first deployment of anti-fraud analytics in China's insurance industry.

Adults 26 and older see declines in coverage numbers; percentage of adults covered by government health insurance continues to climb.

$61,500 in scholarships awarded in effort to attract and retain up and coming talent.

Intending to address product development and customer service, insurer picks up Duck Creek's policy administration and billing solutions.

U.S. unit could be up for sale as insurer attempts to regain adequate capital levels.

Regulators in New York and California are looking into the extremely high profits yielded from, and competitive nature of, force-placed insurance.

New version designed to offer captive premium payment tracking for both locally, centrally invoiced insurance programs.

Deloitte survey also finds risks not continuously monitored at most firms despite available automation; most intend to revamp risk management within 12 months.

With wide-spread use just around the corner, hundreds of IT and business professionals nearly unanimously affirm the effectiveness of BI.

Don’t let appearances fool you; North American and International reinsurance rate increases are due to modest losses and poor results, not a hardening market, according to Willis Re chairman.

The property/casualty industry experienced rising financial impairment trends in 2011, with impaired companies still emerging well into 2012 and driving figures well-beyond industry averages. 2011’s 34 P&C impairments represented a significant jump from the 28 reported for the year by A.M. Best on Jan. 23, 2012.

Victims of wildfires that have claimed hundreds of houses and almost 30 miles of land prompt are flooding insurers with hundreds of claims.

U.K. general insurer goes to Guidewire for underwriting, policy administration and claims software.

Industry associations applaud the long-term reauthorization of the National Flood Insurance Program as part of a compromise deal that included the surface transportation reauthorization and student loan bill.

RIMS benchmark survey also finds property insurance coverage leads increase.

In a recent survey, European and global non-life insurers are found frustrated with the inflexibility of their portals.

Second-quarter 2012 renewal rates have increased by 1.4 percent compared with the second quarter of 2011, according to Marsh.

Public, private cloud resources designed to improve effectiveness of system engineering and professional service teams.

Despite cash on hand, slow growth and regulatory pressures prompt concentration on operational efficiencies and regulatory readiness, according to KPMG Survey.

The ruling this morning gave health insurers a deadline of 2014 for embracing such provisions. On the other hand, competitively speaking, this places much more of a burden on large health insurers to provide a wide range of packages that appeal to demographics that may not have been on the radar.

Reporting functionality, recommendation management and workflow management tools are just three of the elements Novarica says are critical to loss control systems.

Elephant Insurance, a consumer-direct auto-insurance writer, has selected Guidewire PolicyCenter as its new rating, underwriting and policy administration management system.

The court ruled 5-4. However, the court added that Congress has the authority to implement the individual mandate under the taxing clauses of the Constitution.

GlobalOptions will prepare AIC’s fraud compliance reporting, conduct fraud training programs as well as the investigation and identification of suspected fraudulent insurance activities.

The U.S. property/casualty industry is increasingly profitable, with a Q1 net income of $10.1 billion, compared with $7.8 billion for the same quarter last year; profitability as measured by the cumulative annualized rate of return on average policyholders’ surplus increased to 7.2 percent from 5.6 percent for the same quarter last year, according to the Insurance Services Office (ISO), and the Property Casualty Insurers Association of America (PCI), which released its quarterly profits and profitability report.

Insurer introduces new cyberliability insurance product and will partner with NetDiligence, a provider of post-incident services.

Company also opens new regional underwriting offices in Atlanta, Chicago and Dallas.

Robert Hartwig, president and economist of the Insurance Information Institute, outlines four necessary criteria for a hard market, one marked by sharply rising rates in excess of 10 to 15 percent.

J.D. Power found particularly sharp increases in customer satisfaction with policy offerings and interactions with insurers.

Overall, spending barely increases; CIOs lack confidence in budget plans.

For many adults in the United Kingdom, insurance is a “grudge purchase” – bought to insure against the possibility of something unfortunate happening – and the value test is the customer experience at claim time, according to “The Reality and Opportunities in Claims Management: Consumer Experiences in the United Kingdom,” a new report from Celent.

The research firm cut back its expected increase in overall enterprise application spending for this year to 4.5 percent, down half a percentage point from its outlook for the year in Q1 2012. That near-term reduction still amounts to $120.4 billion spent in the business software and solutions marketplace, up from 2011’s total of $115.2 billion in 2011, Gartner stated.

Enterprise content management firm to partner with Volly for the integration of its Digital Mail Gateway software.

A pair of new reports assess the top social media presences within the insurance industry and provide metrics and tactics to effectively harness your social networks.

Survey conducted at America’s Health Insurance Plans Institute 2012 reveals health insurance executives’ opinions on reform, increasing health care costs and the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.

The United States Senate passed the Senate 2012 Farm Bill in a 64-35 vote. The Senate version of the bill would cost $498 billion, save $23.6 billion over the next 10 years and eliminate $5 billion per year in direct payments. The Federal Crop Insurance Program (FCIP) would become the primary risk management tool for farmers.

Rebranded and updated CyberEdge product attempts to stay on top of risk trends, such as cloud computing resources.

SAP report shows companies with mature best practices double operating margins and triple revenue growth.

Winning papers to be published in a special edition of The Geneva Papers on Risk and Insurance Issues and Practices.

In response to concerns raised about land-use restrictions and insurance mandates, the Senate and Banking Committee agree to scale back requirements.

As workers hope to prevent income shortages throughout retirement, insurers turn to new mediums to provide new advice.

While almost half of respondents to a recent survey emphasize that a prolonged low interest rate environment is the greatest threat to their business, 71 percent expect increases in new life and annuity premiums of 4 percent or more in the first quarter of 2012.

Principles intended to provide a framework that aligns investment objectives with the values of society at large.

Insurer also picks up agent self-service and electronic billing software.

Annual report from the National Insurance Crime Bureau outlines the downward trend in thefts as well as the 10 areas with the most vehicle thefts per capita.

Second annual StoneRiver survey indicates a lack of enterprise risk management, readiness for changing regulatory climate.

In the report, entitled “Data Agility: Turning a Liability into an Asset,” Tabb assesses spending and implementation plans at financial firms, and their ramifications with enterprise information sharing and distribution. Tabb found that spending on internal resources will drop to 39 percent of the overall IT budget by 2014, reflecting a 5-percent decline from 2012 and a 27 percent decrease since 2000.

Payment error decreased nearly 10 percent from 2011 to 2012, according to the American Medical Association's fifth annual National Health Insurer Report Card.

Research using the websites of State Farm, Allstate, Progressive and GEICO indicates good drivers who live in moderate-income areas are being quoted higher prices for auto insurance, and rates vary widely across providers.

For the third year in a row, USAA takes the No. 1 spot, while 10 other insurers receive mention in Computerworld’s 100 Best Places to Work in IT.