Digital Platforms

Individual life insurance sales increased 4% in 2010, says LIMRA.

PROSPX RELEASES INSIDERCONNECT

The technology and related processes are effective at improvement risk selection and pricing, which leads to greater profitability, notes Towers Watson.

Utica National Insurance Selects edgeConnect

Scientists have built a system that lets you steer with your thoughts, but insurers will have a tough time rating drivers.

According to a Wisconsin news outlet, the insurer will lay off 40 of the 140 employees in its Wausau office, shift local operations to Ohio.

Report examines inconsistencies in the technology and reporting requirements for EHR meaningful use incentive program.

Guidelines issued by Lloyds reveal tightness of implementation timetable.

New insurance lead market review notes increased lead generation from property/casualty insurers fighting for online business.

Study shows employers want what graduates don’t have: experience.

TST will support A.I.M. Mutual’s mission to provide excellence in workers’ compensation services to Massachusetts and New Hampshire employers.

Competitors such as Travelers Cos. and Chubb Corp. also booked profits after finding that they had set aside more than needed.

The association awarded its top carriers of 2010 in three categories: personal, commercial and surplus lines.

LIMRA has developed a social media training program designed to help guide advisers through any potential legal and cultural social media landmines.

AIG, AEGON, Erie and MassMutual all released their year-end numbers.

Not many of the insurers that already have reported their fourth quarter and year-end results in recent weeks seem to have faced as much speculation leading up to their report as American International Group Inc.

Survey finds that only 55% of enterprises confident in their ability to retrieve lost data quickly.

New NICB data show uptick in auto glass fraud.

Mission-critical platforms changing infrastructure toward extreme information, Gartner says.

Insurers may be interested to learn how banks are using cloud to manage their disaster recovery needs.

A new report notes life insurers are investing in purpose-built underwriting solutions to help contain costs and reduce cycle times.

The most severe earthquake to hit New Zealand in 80 years seen as the most expensive natural disaster since Hurricane Ike hit the United States in 2008.

Independent financial advisers say that improving efficiency and time management is a goal for 2011, and carriers can help them achieve it.

Organizations have not yet automated many of the data integration and sales analytics operations needed, Ventana says.

Business analytics portfolio gets in-memory, integration and mobile add-ons.

Lawmakers set a series of ambitious deadlines, requiring regulators to complete roughly 170 new rules by July.

Survey finds cloud emerging as new outsourcing platform.

Organizations that transmit or modify protected health information for covered entities now are covered under the HITECH Act’s strengthened provisions of the HIPAA privacy and security rule.

A.M. Best, Fitch Ratings and Standard & Poor's announced ratings updates. The following are some of the most recent:

The company’s edgeConnect user experience platform joins other insurance solutions chosen to provide building blocks designed to help insurers to transform their business processes.

A.M. Best report reveals hopeful signs in the industry’s capital position and liquidity, but warns of interest rate-related risks.

American subsidiary of Japanese insurance giant selects hosted solutions to enter markets in multiple states.

Large sports cars have the highest average collision claims costs and passenger vans have the lowest, notes the U.S. Department of Transportation’s National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA).

HP software to help State Auto Group improve policyholder communications.

AXA, ING, Marsh and Swiss Re all released their year-end numbers.

ETran to provide robust, yet flexible, solution to meet needs of Mutual of Omaha.

Benchmark study shows health insurers rank last among 17 industries, including auto, homeowner and life insurers, in customer loyalty.

Amica Mutual, USAA among insurers on J.D. Power and Associates’ list of 40 service champions.

Lincoln Financial fined $600K for failure to protect customer information from public access.

MBIA Inc. and Assured Guaranty Ltd. claim they were tricked by banks into insuring toxic residential mortgage-backed securities.

Although nine insurer groups experienced asbestos and environmental (A&E) losses of at least $100 million during 2009, up from six groups in 2008, the increase is still “manageable,” notes A.M. Best.

Global financial institutions need to get up to speed with appropriate technologies and procedures to protect their organizations from a rising tide of payments fraud, says fraud and detection expert Dena Hamilton.

Policy admin, agent portals and business intelligence (BI) top insurers’ priority lists for 2011, all with a goal of improving business agility, insights and service quality, according Novarica’s 2nd annual “state of the industry” report.

Insurer says JP Morgan knowingly sold risky mortgage-backed securities.

Web-based service VTXcompare created to mitigate risks inherent to changes in data.

Despite many major analyst firms' estimates of slight increases in IT spend for 2011, Matthews International Capital Management believes they're thinking way too conservatively.

How do insurers compete? How will they grow top-line revenue and market share? And where will their growth come from in 2011? The nature of these questions may elicit familiar discussion among insurance business line executives, yet three insurance technology executives lent their views to these subjects and more at the Celent 2011 Insurance CIO Roundtable last week in New York.

Results of a new survey indicate customers are willing to pay more for simpler products and experiences, but rate insurance last, viewing it as the most complex of all industries.

U.S. insurers can't ignore E.U. actions in an era of harmonizing global regulations.

According to a survey, 64.3% of insurance producers do not follow up on prospective customer lists at least once per week, and nearly 16% do not employ a pipeline management system.

Read daily recaps of how Watson is faring against Jeopardy!'s two greatest champions.

Elizabeth Warren's comments came even as House Financial Services Committee Chair Spencer Bachus questioned her role at the CFPB.