Digital Platforms

The property/casualty industry is undergoing a radical shift in its ability to leverage its risk management efforts, thanks in large part to technology, according to a new report.

Who's Buying What: Carrier turns to NetReveal, an insurance claims fraud prevention service from BAE Systems, to standardize its processing, workflow and reporting of potential claims fraud across the company's global business units.

On both the federal and international levels, 2012 will be a profoundly important year in the realm of insurance regulation, especially the Dodd-Frank Act.

Billing System Activity Remains High for P&C Insurers

Two of the world’s largest reinsurers, Swiss Re and Willis Re, announced new CEOs.

Saddled with economic challenges and moribund rates, insurers need to innovate in order to grow, according to new Deloitte report.

Carriers need to become “customer-centric,” embracing a variety of insurance products and technologies to support the customer experience.

Internal app enables mobile quoting and sales for iPad users, with Android compatibility yet to come

Converged Infrastructure to increase business agility, improve service delivery through scalability, availability and energy efficiency.

AGCS, the global corporate and specialty insurer in the Allianz Group, conducted the survey during the second half of 2011 to identify the risks respondents expected to have the greatest impact on their livelihoods.

Continued economic growth, an expanding middle class and heightened demand for health insurance are resulting in foreign insurers and reinsurers seeking to establish a greater presence in India..

Study: IT Workers to See 2.8% Pay Increase

Persistent economic, social and environmental risks are conflating to menace insurers.

Claims severity is also on the rise, but trend between profit and non-profit types of organizations is narrowing.

New report examines how insurers can steel themselves for coming changes in the healthcare market.

New report examines how insurers can steel themselves for coming changes in the healthcare market.

In a new report, Aite Group offers a look at who is and isn’t buying life insurance, and for what reasons.

Craig Weber will take the helm as CEO of research and advisory services firm Celent, a division of Oliver Wyman Inc.

Insurance CIOs view many of their contributions to the organizations they serve as one of supporting new strategic initiatives, while the most important factor in CIOs’ ability to deliver on this value proposition is their relationship with business leaders. Such are the results of a new report, “Creating Enterprise Value as CIO,” issued today by New York-based research and consulting firm Novarica. The report targeted 111 members of its more than 300-member Novarica Insurance Technology Research Council, a moderated membership group of senior insurance IT executives from both the property/casualty and life/annuity sectors.

What would it look like for an insurer to do everything right with today’s technology?

Guardian Life Insurance is actively recruiting hundreds of business professionals looking for a new line of work.

Chartis has named Murli Buluswar its new Chief Science Officer, a newly created position responsible for establishing research and development operations that enhance the insurer’s global commercial and consumer business strategies.

Forrester's Global Tech Market Outlook for 2012 and 2013 finds the next 24 months marked by a pair of transitions: a temporary spending slowdown following a post-recession bounce; and an accelerating shift of spending from old to newer technologies.

Farmers New World Life Insurance Co., the primary life subsidiary of Farmers Group, is in production with LifeSuite Automated Underwriting solution, a product of StoneRiver Inc., an insurance technology partner with solutions across multiple business lines.

A survey at the Insurance Information Institute’s (I.I.I.) annual Property/Casualty Insurance Joint Industry Forum finds respondents somewhat sanguine about the industry’s financial prospects.

Although China's total insurance premiums in 2011 rose 10 percent to 1.43 trillion yuan ($226.64 billion) from a year earlier, many insurance companies have not kept up with "the profound changes in the external environment," according to the country’s regulatory body.

As the industry faces shrinking distribution, profitable growth is a top priority for life insurance executives in 2012. This is the essence of LOMA's annual industry forecast, which includes the results of executive interviews conducted on topics such as sales, distribution, use of technology and social media, as well as the effects of regulation during the next 12 months. LOMA is an industry group comprising life insurance professionals.

The National Insurance Crime Bureau (NICB), a not-for-profit organization dedicated to preventing, detecting and defeating insurance fraud and vehicle theft through data analytics, investigations, training, legislative advocacy and public awareness, is celebrating 100 years in 2012.

Propertycasulaty insurers got some more bad news this morning, this time from Ernst & Young, which predicted their ongoing struggle to succeed against a tide of further economic ills.

Small business owners prefer to speak to financial advisors of the same sex, with men exhibiting a stronger gender bias than their female counterparts, notes study results released today by The American College, a non-profit educational institution devoted to financial services.

Control over end user devices, once a given at so many companies, is loosening. Employees insist on being able to use their Apple, Android and BlackBerry devices for work and being able to access all their apps and files however they want to. Along with smartphones, consumers are adopting tablets such as Barnes & Noble Inc.'s Nook, Apple Inc.'s iPad, and Amazon Inc.'s Kindle.

Consumers want more technology in their vehicles, both for safety and infotainment purposes, and they expect it to appear in all vehicles, not just luxury lines, according to a new study from Accenture.

Global professional services company Towers Watson has released updated versions of its RiskAgility MoSes enterprise financial modeling software and RiskAgility Economic Capital (EC) Aggregator software.

This morning, A.M. Best made a number of announcements regarding the outlooks of many segments of the insurance industry.

The top marketing executive at a sizable US retailer recently found herself perplexed by the sales reports she was getting. A major competitor was steadily gaining market share across a range of profitable segments. Despite a counterpunch that combined online promotions with merchandizing improvements, her company kept losing ground.

A new report that provides an analysis of residential building codes in the 18 hurricane-prone coastal states along the Gulf of Mexico and the Atlantic Coast was released today by the Insurance Institute for Business & Home Safety (IBHS). The IBHS is an independent, nonprofit, scientific research and communications organization supported by the property insurance industry. Intended to increase the safety and integrity of structures, thereby reducing deaths, injuries and property damage from hurricanes and a wide range of other hazards, building codes are relied upon by property/casualty insurers as one of several pieces of data used to qualify risk.

The U.S. insurance industry saw a 3.3 percent increase over November’s jobs figures, adding 3,300 jobs in December, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Insurers are warming to the notion of standardized product approval according to a report from consulting and actuarial firm Milliman Inc.

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services has issued an interim final rule to require adoption of standards and operating rules for electronic funds transfer and remittance advice HIPAA transactions.

As the New Year unfolds the insurance industry will double down on data, according to a new report from enterprise and application architecture consultancy X by 2.

The use of telematics by personal lines insurers may have reached a tipping point, according to a new report from Celent.

In its report, “Forecast: Master Data Management, Worldwide, 2010-2015," the research and advisory firm predicts a 21 percent increase in MDM revenue from 2011. By 2015, MDM revenue is anticipated to swell another 40 percent to $3.2 billion. Regionally, the U.S. and Europe will lead the MDM market, though the fastest rate of MDM software revenue growth will be in Asia by 2013.

The always-on, always-up digital culture that has been so readily adopted by younger Americans is having an impact on direct mail, according Mintel Comperemedia, a firm that provides competitive intelligence services. The firm reports that direct mail volume to consumers from life, health and property/casualty insurers is down 11 percent in Q3 2011 compared to Q3 2010.

The next major development in IIABNY’s legal effort to overturn a New York regulation mandating producer compensation disclosure will occur Jan. 10, 2012, reports the Independent Insurance Agents and Brokers of New York.

While the Affordable Care Act remains a source of controversy one of its primary tenets, the creation of state-based health insurance exchanges enjoys considerable support, according to a new survey from the AARP.

A survey by the National Committee for Quality Assurance (NCQA) finds health insurer Cigna’s health plans in healthy shape.

Frank Cowan Co. has selected the RC Inspection software solution from Risk Control Technologies Inc., a provider of loss-control software solutions for insurers, to streamline its loss-control operations. Frank Cowan will equip its team of risk-management inspectors with tablets complete with the RC Inspection application for loss-control management.

The largest insurance company in the Czech Republic, Ceska pojistovna, is using IBM technology to help prevent IT issues and support core business functions, such as claims processing and customer management.

Two groups focused on reigning in costs have established a primary care physician practice in North Carolina. Blue Cross and Blue Shield of North Carolina (BCBSNC) and UNC Health Care announced Carolina Advanced Health to eligible BCBSNC customers last month.

A day after the Insurance Information Institute released figures declaring 2011 the costliest year for P&C insurers covering U.S. cat losses, Munich Re and I.I.I. announced global cat figures.

On Thursday, Massachusetts Mutual Life Insurance Co. filed a lawsuit against J.P. Morgan Securities LLC and four other financial firms claiming that $200 million in residential mortgage-backed securities it purchased through the firms were now "junk."

Looking to round out its core system offerings, Cover-All Technologies Inc. has acquired BlueWave Technology for an undisclosed amount of cash.