Digital Platforms

According to a survey conducted by Fierce-Wireless-Bluefire Wireless Security this year, more than 80% of financial services respondents say their organization's use of handheld devices had increased over the past two years. Meanwhile, 87% say they are concerned about the security of e-mail access to corporate server-based accounts and of remote access to corporate networks, and 85% say that access to Web-based e-mail had become a significant security concern.

What do Carriers Need to Increase Market Share?

TOOL HELPS EMPLOYEES MANAGE THEIR BENEFITSPlanAdvisor, a benefits management tool from Milwaukee-based Zywave Inc., features a Plan Selector module to enable employees to review their own health costs. PlanAdvisor generates management reports without carrier data feeds, analyzes the effects of changes in the plan design and calculates projected plan costs, based on trend and claims information. It also offers benchmarking, modeling, and analysis to allow brokers to deliver information based on industry comparison data and actuarial factors, which can help clients make informed decisions.

CAPITOL SELECTS STG BILLING SYSTEMMiddleton, Wis.-based Capitol Insurance Cos. chose Renaissance Billing Solution from New York-based Systems Task Group International Ltd.'s (STG) to support billing and accounts receivable operations. The system will replace Capitol's existing billing systems and will enable the consolidation, centralization and the streamlining of Capitol's cash management and accounting operations. It will provide Capitol with advanced technology support, flexibility and configurability.

Boston - As helpful as technology can be, insurers are not immune to technology glitches. One such case, as reported by The Boston Globe, hit Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts. The Boston-based insurer found itself sending out automated phone calls to Massachusetts senior citizens with Medicare drug benefits, asking them to repay up to $1,400 because the monthly premium automatic deduction from their Social Security checks failed to work.In March, The Tampa Tribune reported that hundreds of thousands of seniors received inaccurate Social Security payments because of problems with Medicare Part D drug coverage premiums, according to The Boston Globe. Most were overpaid because the premiums were not being deducted. Others received accidental refunds that averaged $215 and were asked to return the money.

Boston - Senior insurance IT executives are increasingly focusing on strategic spending to meet market demands and showing some concern over a softening property/casualty market, according to Celent LLC's new report, "Insurance CIO/CTO Pressures, Priorities, Projects, and Plans for 2007 Survey Results.""There is continued focus on meeting market demands for speed to market and ease of doing business, and on new projects involving core systems, data mastery, and distribution," says Matthew Josefowicz, manager of Celent's insurance group and author of the report. "Budgets and staffs are generally flat or growing modestly, but strategic investments continue. However, there are some indications that large property/casualty insurers may be keeping their powder dry until they can gauge the impact of the softening market."

Hartford, Conn. - Claims effectiveness is fast becoming a differentiating competitive feature among property/casualty companies as new measurement and process controls change the way claims are quantified, according to a new study by Hartford, Conn.-based Conning Research & Consulting Inc.The study, "Property-Casualty Claims Management: Unlocking Value" is based on a survey of senior property/casualty claims executives and on statutory data analysis. It examines changes in the insurance environment, and particularly in claims, including technology, staffing, outsourcing, regulatory and catastrophe issues.

Needham, Mass. - In 2007 and beyond, the global financial services industry will increasingly grapple with three major strategic shifts: reinventing financial services at its core; repurposing financial services relative to the global diversity of a changing customer base; and helping restore confidence in an uncertain world, according to a series of research reports from Needham, Mass.-based TowerGroup.The reports examine the top business drivers, strategic responses and technology priorities that will fuel core sectors of the global financial service industry in 2007.

Washington - The U.S. Department of Justice recovered a record $3.1 billion in fraudulent claims in fiscal 2006, with 72 percent of the recoveries in health care. A single hospital chain, Dallas-based Tenet Healthcare Corp., paid back $920 million in one of the year’s largest settlements with the federal government, according to the Justice Department.

Philadelphia - With a focus on customer service, Philadelphia Insurance Companies launched a new corporate Internet site, www.phly.com. The Philadelphia company, which designs, markets and underwrites specialty commercial and personal property and casualty insurance products for select target industries or niches including nonprofit organizations; the health, fitness and wellness industry; select classes of professional liability; the rental car industry and more, says the new Web site will provide self-service functionality to all agents and policyholders. The project quickly evolved into an Internet "program," reports the company. The creation of a program provides the framework to efficiently and strategically prioritize and bundle enhancements that will ensure alignment with business goals. The new Philadelphia Insurance Web site is designed to make doing business easier for a select group of "preferred agents" and a broader network of independent agents, which consists of 38 regional and field offices across the United States. The new site includes enhanced menu navigation, and updated search functionality. Also enhanced is the site's login authentication, now featuring one login per agent or customer. Visitors to the site can browse policies, view claims, invoices, active lists, quotes, and auto ID cards. The carrier also added an online payments feature. The project goals included an aggressive timeline, and the carrier's IT department and automated services division (project management/business requirements group) collaborated using in-house tools to manage information. The ultimate goal, says a company representative, is to provide feedback capabilities that enable a two-day response to any incoming question. Source: Philadelphia Insurance Companies

Cincinnati - A technology overhaul is continuing at Cincinnati-based Great American Insurance Co. with the decision to replace the company’s policy and customer system of record.

Sydney, Australia - Insurance Australia Group Ltd. (IAG), announced its intention to make its global operations carbon neutral within five years."As an insurance company we have been very concerned about the risks and impact of climate change on our community for a number of years," says Mike Hawker, IAG's CEO. "We have been working on ways to reduce our own CO2 emission footprint, alerting the community about the risks of climate change, and researching opportunities for our customers to benefit from CO2 reducing activities. We are furthering our efforts, by announcing our intention to be carbon neutral within the next five years."

El Segundo, Calif., - Insurers feel the need to develop original approaches to attracting and retaining customer in various market segments. During a two-day conference hosted by Computer Sciences Corp. (CSC), a few insurers gave examples of these approaches.Panelists at the conference noted that insurance marketing programs must appeal to three distinct generational groups: Generation Y (ages 18-29), Generation X (ages 30-40) and baby boomers (ages 41-59). Each group has distinct demands for service; therefore, insurers must offer different Web-based services that address their consumers' varying levels of comfort with technology.

Blue Bell, Pa. - Almost one in every three of the more than 1,700 senior-level corporate and technology leader respondents in a new international survey do not trust their companies' own abilities to handle private or sensitive information, and that same number are either unsure or don't believe that most of their business partners consider them to be trusted enterprises.These and other findings are part of a broad research project from Blue Bell, Pa.-based Unisys Corp., called the Unisys Trusted Enterprise Index, a survey designed to measure the importance, impact and influence of trust, privacy and security within the corporate world. Conducted in partnership with the Ponemon Institute, an Elk Rapids, Mich.-based privacy research organization, the study also found that despite a growing awareness of risk management and security issues in the corporate world, more than one-third of companies polled do not task senior leaders with protecting the trust that customers, investors and even their own employees have in those companies.

Hartford, Conn. - Aetna Inc. is offering an interactive voice response (IVR) system called Voice2Form to enable members with both Aetna disability and medical insurance to provide consent to participate in the insurer's Integrated Health and Disability (IHD) program. Aetna's integrated informatics studies show that the IHD program may reduce short-term disability durations by as much as 10.7% or 5.6 days per claim.

Orlando - The latest release of ISO HomeValue, a residential replacement cost estimator, now allows personal lines insurers to assess catastrophe risk for individual properties using Boston-based AIR Worldwide Corp.'s (AIR) industry standard catastrophe models. The goal, says the companies, is to provide access to essential catastrophe risk data from a single web-based application, ISO HomeValue enables improved underwriting decisions. "After the large hurricane losses of 2004 and 2005, companies were reminded of the importance of assessing a property's catastrophe risk as part of the underwriting process," says George Davis, vice president at AIR. "However, most personal lines insurers have historically had very limited and inefficient ways to assess the catastrophe risk for individual properties. Now, ISO HomeValue provides residential underwriters with immediate catastrophe risk information at the individual property level in a seamless manner." By accessing AIR's catastrophe models from within ISO HomeValue, underwriters can generate real-time estimates of catastrophe risk, as characterized by the estimated average annual loss. Insurers can use this assessment of the catastrophe risk to automate, for example, simple issue/decline decisions, rating plan selection, and price adjustment under consent-to-rate procedures. ISO HomeValue captures a variety of property characteristics necessary for catastrophe modeling, including location, construction, building type, and year built. Additional property characteristics that may mitigate damage-such as storm shutters for hurricane risk-can also be entered to assess rate credits for such structures. In many cases, basic property data can be automatically pre-filled using the ISO PushPin database. ISO PushPin contains specific and detailed data on key building features for more than 50 million residential properties in the United States. Agents, underwriters, and inspectors can enter additional property information into ISO HomeValue to enhance the completeness of the data. "By employing ISO HomeValue to gather and maintain high quality property data, insurers can obtain more reliable estimates of an individual property's catastrophe loss potential, in addition to its replacement cost," continued Mr. Davis. Source: AIR Worldwide Corp.

Boston - Insurance carriers have invested heavily in project management, but large projects continue to fail. A new approach is required, according to a new report, “The 18 Month Rule: Avoiding the Endless Project.” The Boston-based insurance practice of research firm Celent LLC released the report this week as a guide to address the pitfalls of large IT projects.

New York - More than three-quarters (77%) of life insurance CFOs cite the growing level and complexity of regulations as their biggest concern for the market and economic environment in 2007, according to the latest CFO survey from the New York-based Tillinghast business of Towers Perrin. Interest rates were a close second, with 70% of respondents citing concerns about potential volatility in rates as a key challenge.

Minneapolis - Thanks to the combination of rules-based management and mobile healthcare technologies, patients with long-term health conditions may be on the road to a faster recovery based on receiving early detection, continuous remote care, prediction of care demands, and quality of life improvement.Swedish technology company Kiwok AB is integrating Blaze Advisor business rules management technology from Fair Isaac Corp., a Minneapolis provider of analytics and decision management technologies, to enable intelligent out-of-hospital monitoring of patients via Kiwok's mobile healthcare monitoring network.

Waltham, Mass. - Results of a study analyzing the actual compliance-training records of more than 2.5 million employees (working at approximately 350 companies) who completed online ethics and compliance courses cite financial integrity as the respondents' number-one compliance issue. Insurers represented 10 of 350 companies studied, or roughly 153,000 employees, notes study author Integrity Interactive, a Waltham, Mass., provider of Web-based tools for managing and mitigating corporate ethics and compliance risk. The study reveals the top-12 ethics and compliance training topics addressed by major companies in 2006. Leading corporations have begun to address compliance risks proactively instead of waiting to react after problems arise, say the findings. The Integrity Interactive study quantifies which ethical violations companies fear most, identifies emerging compliance risk-management trends, and provides concrete examples of how top compliance-training topics map to corporate governance scandals dominating business headlines today. Financial integrity is the top compliance-training topic covered by major corporations today. Financial integrity has been among the Top-3 most-popular course topics every year since 2000, and also tops the most-popular list for the present decade, reflecting the persistent determination of many companies to proactively prevent compliance violations such as backdated stock options and inaccurate financial reports. Proper use of computers ranks second on the list of ethics and compliance topics, reflecting the desire of companies to protect their leaders, employees, and themselves from embarrassing, inappropriate, or even illegal uses of computers, the Internet, instant messaging and related information technologies. Four new concerns surfaced in the study: Sarbanes-Oxley & internal controls (ranked #6) and data safeguarding (ranked #8) appear in the top-12 list for the first time. The popularity of these course topics reflects corporate efforts to respond to important legislation adopted in recent years at the national and state levels. Human rights (ranked #10) and privacy (ranked #12): These two also appear on the top-12 list for the first time and constitute powerful evidence of senior management's desire to respond to broader values-based concerns gaining traction in society as a whole. Another aspect of the study revealed that company size influences risk-management priorities. Very large corporations (90,000+ employees) have made financial integrity their leading priority. Large (10,000+ to 90,000 employees) and mid-sized (1,000 to 10,000 employees) companies cite mutual respect as their top priority (closely followed by proper use of computers). And mutual respect appears among the top-3 most-popular training priorities for companies in all size buckets (mid-sized, large and very large). The near-universal applicability of the mutual respect course explains its popularity with companies of different sizes. Antitrust (a risk-area of particular concern to sales and marketing personnel) is another compliance-training topic popular with companies of all sizes. Source: Integrity Interactive Inc.

Springfield, Mass. - Massachusetts Mutual Life Insurance Company (MassMutual), Springfield, Mass., is setting a best practice example that may not have a technology angle or result in increased premium revenue, but it has a long-term business benefit just the same. The company is bringing its LifeBridge Free Life Insurance Program to the Tucson, Arizona area. MassMutual's LifeBridge is a national philanthropic program in which the company issues 10-year term life insurance policies to eligible working parents to help pay for the cost of their children's education in the event they die. Through LifeBridge, $50,000 life insurance policies are issued to a trust on the life of qualifying parents or legal guardians to help pay for the education of their eligible children who -- in the event of a parent's death during the policy's term -- may not be able to afford to complete their schooling. All premiums are paid entirely by MassMutual, with no fees for qualified parents or their children. MassMutual has provided more than 5,800 10-year term life insurance policies since launching the now popular LifeBridge program in 2002, representing more than $290 million in free life insurance coverage. Louise Orozco, CLU, of Generational Wealth Strategies, LLC, a MassMutual Agent based in Tucson, teamed up with the Women's Foundation of Southern Arizona to offer the LifeBridge Program to eligible families. "We are extremely excited to bring LifeBridge to the Tucson area," says Louise Orozco. "We want to help ensure that access to educational opportunities exists for children of working families and not just those who are lucky enough to have parents with adequate financial means. There is absolutely no cost to the insured for a policy under the LifeBridge program." To be eligible to apply for a term life insurance policy under the LifeBridge program, applicants must be: * Between the ages of 19-42; * A permanent, legal U.S. resident; * The parent or legal guardian of one or more dependent children under the age of 18; * Currently employed -- either full- or part-time -- and have a family income between $10,000 and $40,000 on their most recent income tax return; * The only family member who has applied for the LifeBridge program; and * In good health, as determined by MassMutual's underwriting guidelines. The money will be paid to a trust administered by The MassMutual Trust Company, FSB on behalf of the children. The trust will pay the educational expenses of the children directly to the educational institution they attend. Various types of schools qualify, including, but not limited to, pre- school, private school, vocational school, community college, universities, art and music schools or graduate schools. Some of the educational expenses covered include books, tuition, and room and board. Source: MassMutual

Hartford, Conn. - In the latest of several insurance-specific vendor mergers and acquisitions, Innovation Group, a U.K. provider of P&C outsourcing and technology, is acquiring Boston-based claims-reporting outsourcer First Notice Systems, Inc. from Concentra Operating Corp., Addison, Texas. Innovation Group counts among its U.S. customers the California State Automobile Association, Nationwide Indemnity and The Auto Club of Southern California. First Notice provides services to Pemco and The Hanover Group, among others. The announcement follows close on the heels of another outsourcing deal, Capgemini's acquisition of India-based Kanbay, a provider of outsourcing services to the financial services sector. Capgemini will acquire all of the outstanding common shares of Kanbay for $29 per share in cash. Kanbay claims to have more than 200 customers in the insurance sector, which, say analysts, has the potential to strengthen Capgemini's presence in North America by providing it with an improved banking and financial services focus. The Boards of Directors of Capgemini and Kanbay have already approved the transaction, which is set to increase Capgemini's presence in India (+89% based on Q3 figures). The combined company will have headcount reaching 12,000 employees by the end of 2006 in India, reports the popular press. The Innovation Group, meanwhile, is set to pay (U.S.) $51.55 million in cash, comprising consideration of $50 million and related payments of $1.55 million for First Notice. The acquisition, which is subject, to shareholder approval and certain other customary finance and closing conditions, is expected to close in the fourth quarter of 2006, providing a platform for the company to grow its insurance outsourcing business in the U.S. First Notice's principal focus is on processing-on behalf of its clients-the first notice of loss (FNOL) made by an insurance company customer of a claim or a potential claim. First Notice currently processes approximately two million claims a year and makes 10 million outbound distributions on behalf of its client base, which comprises more than 100 insurance clients, including carriers, third party administrators and self insured businesses. With U.S. headquarters in Hartford, Conn., Innovation Group's deal adds claims to its portfolio software-led business processes for the handling of the breadth of the administrative processes of insurers and risk carriers - including back office functions such as claims management and sales, as well as software technology for both policy and claims administration that can be utilized in connection with its outsourcing operations or implemented on a stand-alone basis. Source: The Innovation Group, The Business Wire

Phoenix – Six of every 10 Arizona school principals believe their students don’t get enough exercise, but help has arrived from Blue Cross Blue Shield of Arizona (BCBSAZ).

Dallas - It won’t be idle chatter when the words, “You’re hired,” are uttered Nov. 29 at an educational event scheduled for Dallas. For the second straight year, organizers are basing the program on “The IT Apprentice,” a take-off on Donald Trump’s hit TV show, with a lucky attendee chosen for a very real job.

NEEDHAM, Mass. -- Many executives concede that their companies are late in automating the life insurance underwriting process, according to a survey by the Needham, Mass.-based TowerGroup consulting and research firm. TowerGroup worked on the study in partnership with Insurance Networking News.

London -- Mergers and acquisitions increased by more than 70% in the U.S. technology sector during the first half of 2006, compared with the corresponding period a year earlier, according to Datamonitor, a London-based market analysis firm with regional offices across the United States.

Emerging nanotechnol-ogies have the potential to influence and change our lives in ways we could not have imagined as recently as a decade ago. A generic term for applications at the molecular level, nanotechnology will eventually influence every aspect of our lives; from the way we communicate to the methods used to diagnose and treat illness. Nanotechnology will improve efficiencies in energy, computer storage capacity and data processing, security, clothing, food, and shelter.The potential of nanotechnology is reflected by the amount of revenue currently projected for these technologies, between $1 trillion and $2 trillion within the next 10 to 15 years. And just in time, because according to World Resources 2000 and United Nations press releases, within the next 50 years-less than one lifetime-the world population is expected to grow by 50%, world economic activity is expected to grow 500% and world energy and materials use is expected to grow by 300%.

Insurance has always been about risk, and insurance companies, armed with actuarial tables and reinsurance, have generally handled it well. But there are risks that go beyond the ordinary-storms that wipe out a city's worth of houses and businesses and create enormous correlative exposure; lawsuits that result in liability where none existed before, or threaten to remove exclusions. These sorts of risks can drain capital reserves and put the entire company in jeopardy.To protect themselves, insurance companies increasingly step back and take a holistic, enterprisewide view of risk, and align their reserves to meet not just everyday actuarial and financial risk, but risks that cross organizational silos.

When it employees at Cincinnati-based Great American Insurance Co. got wind late last year that their new CIO would be Piyush Sing, former CIO of the Peoria, Ill., multi-line P&C carrier RLI Systems, they probably took a deep breath-rightly assuming that big changes would be coming in how the company uses technology to conduct its specialty commercial lines business. Sing's reputation for building front-end technology to match his previous company's unique requirements (RLI's motto was to provide "Fundamentally Sound Innovation" to the insurance industry) preceded him.As expected, Sing came to Great American Insurance with a similar plan, and a vision to overhaul the 130-year-old company's front-end applications for insurance processing with a service-oriented architecture (SOA) and Web services approach. Especially critical to Sing's vision: the ability to manage the appointments, interactions and state-by-state compliance requirements of a U.S. distribution network comprised of 8,000 active agents.

HARTFORD TEAMS WITH TECH GROUPThe Hartford Financial Services Group Inc., Hartford, Conn., is working with the largest technology trade association in Washington State to offer policies designed for the technology industry. The insurer will market the insurance to members of the Seattle-based WSA (formerly the Washington Software Association) through brokers and independent agents. Nationwide, the Hartford insures more than 50,000 technology companies.

WHITEHILL SOFTWARE HELPS CREATE POLICIESWhitehill Technologies, Moncton, New Brunswick, has shipped a new release of the InSystems product line, which helps create insurance policies. IStream Publisher 3.2 simplifies production of insurance documents by managing the process from the first draft of the contract language through the issuing of the policy. The software also supports service-oriented architecture (SOA), which increases IT agility, and includes predefined services for retrieval, assembly, rendering, delivery and storage.

Insurance Networking News asked David Pedersen, senior vice president at Insurity, Hartford, Conn., to explain how a data integration project can evolve from an enterprisewide objective to a successful way of life.INN: Do most insurance companies have a data strategy, and why is it important?

Liability Insurance Administrators (LIA), Santa Barbara, Calif., was drowning in paper and all the costs associated with generating it, filing it and keeping it around. With an average of 15,000 to 20,000 active existing insurance policy underwriting files, the firm, which provides error and omissions policies to real estate appraisers, found itself having to hire new clerical staff to handle processing, as well as finding new space for all the documents."In the beginning, we just had one clerical person who would answer phones, do the filing, issue quotes, and do all other clerical work," says Robert Wiley, LIA assistant vice president. "As the company grew year after year, we had to start divvying up those duties to stand-alone positions, receptionist, clerical staff and filing staff. Eventually we had to keep increasing our filing staff, and we're now at the point where we're an office of about 29 people. And we have four full-time file staff and three part timers."

CAT CLAIMSCustard Insurance Adjusters, a Norcross, Ga., independent loss adjusting company, contracted with Marshall and Swift/Boeckh (MSB), New Berlin, Wis., for MSB's IntegriClaim tool for field estimating and for its IntegriClaim Administrator, which provides a paperless, Web-enabled work environment, for use in Custard's catastrophe and home office claims divisions. The technology package will send claims seamlessly from the carrier to independent adjusters.

The rapid proliferation of enterprise content, such as electronic documents, audiovisual files, instant messaging (IM), recorded phone conversations and e-mail, is having significant impact on the global insurance industry.Insurers now face severe penalties if they are unable to produce legally viable records of business conversations and transactions. Additionally, globalization, the dispersion of data and strict compliance regulations are key drivers of this emerging industry mindset.

Durham, N.C. -- Former Secretary of State Colin L. Powell is slated to address the Insurance Accounting & Systems Association 2007 IASA Annual Educational Conference and Business Show in Minneapolis June 4.

Boston -- If laws, regulations and public opinion combine to prevent carriers from using credit scores to set insurance rates, the industry will need to find new ways to assess risk, according to speakers at the Casualty Actuarial Society Seminar on Predictive Modeling this month in Boston.

Columbia, S.C.-- BlueCross BlueShield of South Carolina cleaned up in the annual Workgroup for Electronic Data Interchange (WEDI) awards. The company took the Leadership in Technology Award, while Jim Daley, the company's Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) program director, was picked for a WEDI Award of Merit.

Hartford, Conn., October 23, 2006 – To help agents speed up the decision process and provide quotes for eligible small business customers, Travelers Select Accounts division of Hartford, Conn.-based St. Paul Travelers Cos. Inc. has introduced TravelersExpress for Master Pac.TravelersExpress is an approach to processing new small commercial policy applicants because risk evaluation and pricing are delivered to the agent up front during the submission process. It will be available initially to agents in Illinois, Utah and Nevada and rolled out nationally in 2007.

Pearl River, N.Y. - To eliminate redundant information requests, the ACORD-User Groups Information Exchange (AUGIE) is promoting a new questionnaire form, available online, that lets independent agencies organize data commonly requested by carriers.The form, Agency Questionnaire (ACORD 812), was developed after agents and brokers expressed concern that too much time is spent filling out multiple questionnaires, according to AUGIE leaders. "Every carrier seems to ask agencies the same questions every year," says Jo Ann Litwin, who chaired the AUGIE working group that addressed the problem. "The questions are generally valid, but many are also redundant--from year to year and carrier to carrier."

New York - New York Life Insurance Co. has launched a Web site called www.nylcareersforwomen.com to provide information about careers in life insurance for women at all stages of professional development.The site offers details on opportunities in sales and field management. A questionnaire on the site helps readers assess their interest in a sales career. In addition, the site provides information about working for New

Los Angeles - Farmers Insurance Group of Cos. introduces its new Mobile Catastrophe Command Center bus, which is designed to help its customers immediately after a catastrophe that may strike anywhere in the contiguous United States."The new Farmers Mobile Command Center bus was chosen as the catastrophe center-point for handling claims and servicing our customers," explains Frank Soldano, state executive, Farmers Insurance Group, Kansas. "The bus is equipped with the most state-of-the-art equipment available anywhere in the United States. It will enable Farmers claims representatives to offer claims help to our customers immediately following a catastrophe," Soldano said.

Richmond, Va. - Genworth Financial Inc. completed its acquisition of AssetMark Investment Services Inc. AssetMark is a Pleasant Hill, Calif.-based provider of open architecture asset management solutions to independent financial advisors, with approximately $9 billion in assets under management.Under terms of the agreement, Richmond, Va.-based Genworth paid $230 million for AssetMark and will make additional performance-based payments of up to $100 million over the next five years.

Kansas City, Mo. - StateBasedSystems.com, a Web site from The National Association of Insurance Commissioners (NAIC), headquartered in Kansas City, Mo., is designed to help insurance regulators and industry customers access services more quickly via SBS. It simplifies the regulatory processes, according to the NAIC, thereby reducing the workload for state insurance department staff, providing significant advantages to consumers, producers and insurers who do business with the state.Through SBS, customers can electronically file complaints, apply for licenses, verify license status and print copies of licenses without having to send letters, file forms or talk with someone on the phone.

Bethesda, Md. - Suitability standards for annuity products and long-term care insurance that will apply nationally are the centerpiece of new standards just issued by the Insurance Marketplace Standards Association (IMSA), a Bethesda, Md.-based standards-setting organization for the life insurance marketplace. The new IMSA suitability standards incorporate the essential elements of the NAIC model regulations for annuities and long-term care. Inclusion of these provisions means widespread, national application of these consumer protection standards by IMSA companies. They will cover the 60% of the life insurance marketplace represented by IMSA-qualified companies. "These standards exemplify the best in the marketplace," said Leon Roday, chairman of IMSA chairman and senior vice president and general counsel at Genworth Financial, Richmond, Va. "The national application of the suitability standards among IMSA-qualified companies will benefit consumers with more consistent protections. These uniform standards will also be good for IMSA companies as they will be implementing one set of high standards rather than many different state standards." In addition to suitability provisions, the new IMSA standards adopt a streamlined methodology to more closely track the compliance approach of companies and regulators. The new IMSA standards are effective immediately with a compliance date of January 1, 2008. "This latest revision of IMSA's standards is the result of 18 months of work from a wide cross section of our companies including all sizes and product lines," said Brian Atchinson, IMSA president and CEO. For the first time, the group received input from a Standards Advisory Committee made up of representatives from NASD, AARP, NAIC, Standard and Poor's, A.M. Best, and the National Association of Insurance and Financial Advisors (NAIFA), added Atchinson. To qualify for IMSA membership, a company must successfully complete an internal assessment of its policies and procedures, and then an assessment by an independent examiner to confirm that it meets IMSA's rigorous Principles of Ethical Market Conduct. To maintain IMSA qualification, a company must demonstrate that ongoing business operations abide by IMSA's strict code of ethical market conduct with a new independent assessment every three years. Companies that qualify for membership in IMSA commit to maintaining high ethical standards and to being fair, honest, and open in the way they advertise, sell and service life insurance, annuity products, and long-term care insurance in the individual market. For more information about IMSA and a list of IMSA-qualified companies, visit www.IMSAethics.org. Source: IMSA

Washington - The commercial property/casualty market continued to soften during the third quarter, with indications that some insurers are finding an appetite for business in which they previously were not interested, according to the latest commercial market index survey by The Council of Insurance Agents & Brokers (CIAB). As has been the case the entire year, however, coastal property and catastrophe-prone risks remain costly and hard to place, brokers responding to the survey said. The Council represents domestic and international commercial insurance brokers and agents who annually write more than 80% of the commercial property/casualty premiums in the United States and administer billions of dollars in benefits accounts. Six out of 10 commercial insurance brokers and agents responding to the survey said their small accounts experienced decreases in renewal premiums during the third quarter, and three quarters of the brokers responding who handle large and medium-sized accounts reported that their customers had drops in premium rates. The majority of the decreases were in the 1-10% range for small, medium and large accounts, the brokers said. An analysis of The Council's survey results by New York-based Lehman Brothers showed that the average premium rates for all commercial accounts decreased 5.3% during the third quarter. The Lehman analysis showed the average small commercial account premium down 3.4%, the average medium account premium down 5.1%, and the average large account premium down 7.3%during the third quarter. As premium prices fall and underwriters become hungry for new business, the agents and brokers said that insurers are starting to be more aggressive in pricing and more liberal in policy terms. Types of properties "normally considered unattractive" such as car dealers, restaurants, not-for-profit and habitational are being looked at with renewed interest, CIAB's report said. Meanwhile, it was another story altogether for coastal exposures, according to CIAB's respondents, with wind, flood and property capacity still tight, deductibles and exclusions on the rise. Some carriers are expanding their definition of coastal property to business within 60-70 miles of the seacoast and categorizing areas such as the Chesapeake Bay as coastal. Any catastrophe-prone property was likely to experience difficulty securing coverage, CIAB reports the brokers and agents said, with premium levels at historic highs. Although the problems appeared to be the worst in Florida and along the Southeast coast, one respondent reported commercial earthquake rates up as high as 50 to 150% in Southern California. For complete regional and national data charts, go to www.ciab.com/marketsurveyQ306.

New York and Saint Paul, Minn. – Metropolitan Life Insurance Co. (MetLife) and Travelers Insurance Group Holdings Inc. renewed their agreement to offer Synchrony absence management services.Synchrony combines group disability insurance and the Family Medical Leave Act (FMLA) administration from MetLife with workers compensation insurance and claim administration services from Travelers to deliver one, integrated approach that can help companies better manage employee absences whether due to occupational or non-occupational events and assist employees in returning to work as soon as medically appropriate. First offered by the two companies in 1998, Synchrony programs currently cover more than 180,000 employees.

Bedford, Mass. - As seen just a day earlier, insurers are embracing SOA (see "Survey Says Insurance Carriers Are Embracing SOA"). But new survey results insist that governance is not keeping pace with the adoption of SOAs at most organizations—of which include financial services, banking, government, insurance, healthcare and pharmaceutical.The online survey, conducted by New Rochelle, N.Y.-based ebizQ and sponsored by Bedford, Mass.-based Progress Software Corp., consisted of 313 respondents. While the survey shows that the majority of organizations are actively pursuing SOA, most are relying on manual processes to enforce SOA governance. Less than 6% have automated runtime monitoring of policies, and fewer than 5% automatically check services for policy enforcement before services are checked into a repository.

Needham, Mass. - The insurance industry is rapidly embracing service-oriented architecture (SOA), as well as related Web services and standards, according to TowerGroup research conducted in partnership with ACORD. TowerGroup interviewed senior leadership executives at more than 12 carriers and conducted more than 150 hours of data gathering and analysis across the industry (covering property/casualty, life and annuity, and reinsurance).Key findings of the study, according to Needham, Mass.-based TowerGroup, include:

Media, Pa. - A network of insurance and financial Web sites is creating an online national directory of business insurance agents, a move that observers are calling another ripple in a movement to expand insurance distribution on the Internet.

Hamilton, Bermuda - Big European insurance companies are embracing industrial operating models to cut costs and improve customer service, according to an Accenture survey of senior executives at 30 carriers based in Europe.The survey revealed that 92% of respondents are assigning high priority to "industrialization"--the use of standardized operating and production platforms similar to those used by manufacturers. The rest of the respondents--the other 8%--say they expect industrialization to become a priority in the next three years.

Houston - The insurance industry, where companies face an average of 1,696 lawsuits, spanning product liability and environmental class actions to directors and officers claims, and even coverage fights over hurricanes and terrorist attacks, faces the most litigation when compared to other industries, according to a survey from international law firm Fulbright & Jaworski LLP, headquartered in Houston. Retailers and energy firms reported average caseloads north of 330 per company, which doesn't even come close to the insurance industry.In its third annual survey of corporate litigation trends—pulling data from 422 in-house law departments worldwide—Fulbright found that U.S. companies face an average of 305 pending lawsuits internationally. For large U.S. companies—those with $1 billion or more in annual gross revenue—the number of lawsuits soared to 556 cases, with an average of 50 new disputes emerging each year for close to half of them.