Digital Platforms

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.

Insurers and agents may want to keep an eye on how their financial services brethren are serving their clients via the mobile space.

No going back from a wireless world; research says 2011 is tipping point of consumer devices in the enterprise.

Fitch and S&P react to AIG’s $4.1B charge for Q4; S&P clarifies Allstate’s rating after announcement that it's exiting the banking business; A.M. Best, Moody’s and S&P assign ratings to CNA’s forthcoming senior unsecured notes.

The Dutch financial services firm reportedly is considering IPOs in Europe and the United States for its insurance operations; struck two deals to divest its real estate investment management business.

Computer’s appearance on “Jeopardy!” offers glimpse of future business functionality.

The CMO Council researched the misalignment, and found isolation and mutual distrust in both camps.

Insurance professionals who want to stop the unauthorized flow of data to criminal sources should start by looking within their own enterprises.

In the first three quarters of last year, bank holding companies tallied $9.73 billion in insurance brokerage fee income—up 7% from the same period in 2009.

The administration will issue a "financial crisis responsibility fee" of $30B on institutions with more than $50B of assets that took TARP money to be paid over the next 10 years.

Just in time for Valentine’s Days, a study finds 29% of American drivers have engaged in romantic contact while driving.

To navigate through the changing market, insurers will think, act and spend differently in 2011.

Insurer using iPipeline’s cloud to integrate iGO e-App data into back-end systems to speed processing.

Pacts forged with MarketSpace and Kinetic Analysis.

The U.S. property and casualty market appears to be experiencing a scene from the movie “Groundhog Day,” operating in a market where little has changed from a year ago, notes A. M. Best in its 2011 Review & Preview report for the insurance industry. How P&C carriers may respond, however, reflects a market where change will be mandatory.

Broker-dealers and advisers must not only learn to appreciate social media, but be willingness to actively use it in order to woo this client base.

MedRisk's new RIBI unit is set to roll out a new reporting platform featuring state-of-the-art graphics and outcomes analytics.

Allstate, Aon, CNA, Humana all released their year-end numbers.

VPs of IT will see salary spikes, while CIOs and database administrators’ salaries will remain flat.

What the SEC says and thinks it wants and what will most likely materialize figures to be a much different story.

The rise of ubiquitous and mobile computing is creating a range of new innovations, limited only by imaginations.

As Mubarak's regime teeters, there are plenty of risk management considerations for insurers.

Fastest growth rate in three years; hardware spending on storage, mobile devices and network equipment led the drive, says IDC.

Federal panel laments doing little to affect the way corporate America pays its top talent.

Carriers making the best use of new technologies are getting their due at the 2011 Celent Model Insurer Awards in New York.

Total annuity sales have grown 24% since they hit a low in January 2010.

A new report from New-York-based Novarica offers a framework for insurers to use when making decisions about one of the most important arms of its distribution channel: the agent portal. The report, based on interviews with benchmark companies and vendor activities in the area of agent portal software, points to some clearly emerging trends:

What do customers want? Whether an insurance carrier is selling direct to consumer or though a multi-layered distribution network, the customer presents an ongoing challenge. Insurance marketers are often trying to hit a moving target as they evaluate the secret sauce to customer engagement.

The cyber barbarians are at insurers’ gates—is your data secure?

In a joint letter, trade associations ask Financial Stability Oversight Council to delay rulemaking.

American International Group Inc. announced today that it plans to raise the loss reserves for its Chartis property/casualty business.

Gartner suggests open source adoption offers companies a competitive advantage; formal policy is key.

Willis Global is intended to bring together Willis' entire array of specialist expertise for the benefit of its clients.

Even robots can make mistakes, but when a human life is involved, who takes the blame?

The Phoenix Cos., Genworth’s U.S. life insurance companies and AXA and Aviva all receive updates

A new report lists the hottest insurers based on yesterday's trading activity.

New survey reveals that insurers are making headway modernizing their legacy systems.

Web-based tool to enable leading managing general agent to replace legacy system.

SunGard's social media surveillance system is designed to monitor and archive content posted to social networking websites.

AIR Worldwide estimates that last week's blizzard racked up between $790M - $1.4B in insured losses.

Insurers may want to keep an eye on how banks deal with IT needs in the face of still-lagging profits.

The United States experienced a net gain of 11,800 IT-related jobs in January, according to employment statistics released last week by the Department of Labor's Bureau of Labor Statistics. The gain, which represents all sectors, plays out to eight straight months of positive job growth in IT labor segments.