Digital Platforms

Boston - If benefit managers are to truly control the significant cost from employees missing work, they need a single approach to managing disability and Family Medical Leave Act (FMLA) programs. That's because disability claims cause 55% of employee absences and FMLA drives another 25%, according to the JHA/EBN 2005 Absence Management Survey. The survey also uncovered the high cost of employees being away from work: an employer pays $260.00, on average, each day someone misses work.To give benefit managers the single solution needed to better control those costs, Liberty Mutual recently enhanced a key claims management system. Liberty SystemOne.nxt now offers benefit managers one source for managing both disability claims and FMLA time, simplifying the complex compliance maze and making it easier to strengthen these programs.

Calabasas, Calif. –Myron Hendry has joined Countrywide Insurance Group as executive vice president and chief operations officer. In this role, Hendry is responsible for overseeing central operations, claims and information technology as the organization expands its personal lines and commercial brokerage insurance business and grows its leading positions in various lender-placed insurance business segments.

Tampa, Fla. - Ninety-five percent of companies had inaccurate information on the number and configuration of their IT assets, according to study of IT asset management (ITAM) programs conducted by TekMethods LLC, a provider of IT asset management (ITAM) consulting services and solutions. The research findings also showed that for many enterprises that do have inventories of technology assets, the data is out of date, resulting in inaccurate financial and tax statements.In order for a company to be in full compliance with Sarbanes-Oxley, corporate executives need to be fully aware of all the technology assets owned by the enterprise and must certify financial reports. The potential risks of non-compliance include costly fines, jail sentences and damages to a company's financial health and reputation.

Chanhassen, Minn. - Only 22% of companies have implemented a storage security solution, while nearly 67% believe their companies were either somewhat or extremely vulnerable to data security breaches. These are the findings of a recent survey conducted by Datalink, an independent information storage architecture firm.Regarding host security, 61% felt that their companies were either somewhat or extremely vulnerable. Whereas, 58% of respondents worried that their company's network was not as secure as it could be.

Boston - The 78th Annual Educational Conference & Business Show held by Insurance Accounting and Systems Association Inc. (IASA) concluded today after three days of events. More than 1,100 pre-registered for the show in Boston

Moncton, New Brunswick, Canada, and Dayton, Ohio -- Whitehill Technologies Inc. has purchased InSystems, a wholly owned subsidiary of Standard Register, a document services provider based in Dayton, Ohio. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed."We believe that InSystems will be better positioned for success as part of a software company," says Dennis Rediker, Standard Register's president and CEO. "InSystems is a recognized software technology leader with an attractive customer base in the insurance market."

Chattanooga, Tenn. - UnumProvident's new Web-based enrollment platform, called plane.biz, is now fully functional for all worksite benefits to help employees navigate the complexity of today's benefits arena.Benefits professionals are facing significant issues: The population is aging; healthcare costs continue to increase; pension plans are strained; and employees are demanding more choice in their benefits options. The result is an unprecedented shift to supplemental benefit options and cost-sharing, heightening the need for effective benefit communications.

McLean, Va. - The transformation of core policy administration systems and processes is one of the most critical success factors for property and casualty insurance companies in the coming decade, according to a report issued today by BearingPoint Inc. a McLean, Va., global management and technology consulting firm.

New York - Results from a recent employee benefits benchmarking report and Web-based companion tool issued by New York-based MetLife revealed that for small companies (with between 2 and 49 employees), "retaining employees" is the number one employee benefits objective (57%). Yet retention rates are at risk, as only 29% of employees who work for a small company are satisfied with the benefits offered by their employer - despite the fact that MetLife research indicates a correlation between job satisfaction, employee loyalty and benefits satisfaction. Additionally, only 16% say that their company's benefits communication effectively educates them about their benefits. Their peers at the largest companies (25,000+ employees), however, are much more satisfied with their benefits (48%) and 39% believe that their company's benefits communication is effective.

Newark, N.J.-Prudential Financial Inc. finalized its acquisition of Northbrook, Ill.-based Allstate Financial's variable annuity business through a reinsurance transaction.Prudential's initial investment in the business, reflecting total consideration to Allstate, related taxes and capital requirements, is approximately $591 million. This amount reflects a price adjustment paid to Allstate for market movements between signing and closing. Over the course of a transition period of up to 24 months from closing, Newark, N.J.-based Prudential will assume the administration of Allstate Financial's in-force variable annuities, with account values of approximately $17 billion (value as of March 31, 2006).

From call centers to data centers, the insurance industry continues to turn to outsourcing in an effort to manage costs and secure access to resources. Information technology assets have become vital to ongoing operations and new growth, making these outsourcing relationships more than technology arrangements-they are now critical to business success. Combined with new regulatory mandates, this trend may be forcing carriers to push deeper and engage more proactively with outsourcing vendors.IT industry analyst firm Gartner Inc., Stamford, Conn., calculates that outsourcing will capture up to 33% of all IT services spending across industries by 2008-up from 26% in 2003. The analyst firm also predicts the insurance sector will be spending more than $10 billion on outsourced services by that time.

SAFECO NAMES WILLIAM JENKS AS CIO

NEW CSF DESIGNER FEATURESMetavante Corp., Milwaukee, has added a number of features to its CSF Designer document composition application:

Insurance CFOs seem to be get-ting a bad rap. According to a recent study, insurance finance executives are so busy dealing with compliance obligations and administrative duties, they are finding it difficult to support their CEOs' growth initiatives.Developed in cooperation with The Economist Intelligence Unit, a London-based provider of industry analysis information, IBM's 2005 Global CFO Study reflects the responses of some 900 senior finance executives across the communications, distribution, financial, industrial and public sectors in 74 countries. Of those 900, 44 respondents came directly from the insurance industry.

The NAIC formation of a task force to examine climate change comes on the heels of devastating back-to-back hurricane seasons that caused a record $30 billion in U.S. insured losses in 2004 and as much as $60 billion in insured losses from Hurricane Katrina alone in 2005. Insurance Networking News magazine recently interviewed Tim Wagner, director of the Nebraska Department of Insurance, who is co-leading the task force, to find out what the NAIC hopes to achieve.INN: Who at the NAIC became aware of the issue, and how was it pushed forward on the agenda?

Last year was a turning point for cyber attacks. It was the year when the predominant threats on the Internet transitioned from being perpetrated by hobbyist hackers to criminals.This is according to a recent report issued by Counterpane Internet Security Inc., a Mountain View, Calif.-based provider of network protection services, and MessageLabs Ltd., a provider of messaging security with regional headquarters in New York City.

For some time now, insurance companies have made technology investments a priority. The result? Instead of disparate, paper-based information residing in hard-to-access metal file cabinets, all kinds of e-data languish in disconnected computer systems.Now, insurance companies are realizing that if they do not find a better way to use this data, the whole foray into information technology might go for little more than naught. That's where performance management "scorecard" systems come into play.

ADOBE, ITEMFIELD JOIN FORCES ON E-FORMS DEALItemfield, a San Mateo, Calif., provider of data transformation software, will work with San Jose-based Adobe Systems Inc., to develop a solution designed for the insurance industry. The companies plan to combine Adobe's intelligent forms, which support the ACORD XML data standard, with Itemfield's process-specific business rules and complex data transformation capabilities to help insurers increase efficiency by accelerating the processing of transactional data in electronic forms, such as quotations and new business submissions.

UNIVERSAL SIGNS SEVEN-YEAR BPO AGREEMENTUniversal Insurance of North America, Sarasota, Fla., has signed a seven-year agreement with CGI Group Inc. valued at between $45 and $75 million for policy and accounting business process services (BPS). Montreal-based CGI will process Universal's personal lines (book of business) including homeowners, dwelling-fire, auto, and umbrella in Texas and Florida. CGI will continue to support Universal's business processing needs as they expand their services into new markets. As part of this agreement, CGI will open a processing facility in Tampa to support Universal Insurance and other Florida-based insurance customers. CGI will initially hire 50 professionals and expects staff to grow to more than 200 professionals over the next two years.

Hamilton, Bermuda - Accenture Ltd. launched a technology delivery center in Pune, India, for software outsourcing and systems integration services. The facility is Accenture's ninth delivery center in India and represents further expansion of the company's Global Delivery Network.The new delivery center provides application outsourcing and systems integration services across the full range of technology capabilities. The center develops capabilities in enterprise technologies from Germany-based SAP and Siebel (Oracle Corp., Redwood Shores, Calif.); Net-centric technologies like Java and Microsoft; business intelligence and testing.

Durham, N.C. - The Insurance Accounting & Systems Association (IASA) reports that more than 125 insurance industry CFOs have registered to attend the 3rd Annual IASA - CFO Roundtable on Tuesday, June 6 in Boston. As part of IASA's Executive Education Program, the sessions to be presented have been designed to cater to the specific needs and interests of professionals in high-level insurance financial positions.

Boston, Mass. - Players in the global financial services industry must invest in innovation to drive competitive differentiation both with other financial institutions and adjacent industries - as well as to achieve bottom line results.

Fort Collins, Colo.-The U.S. Atlantic basin likely will experience another active hurricane season, but coastal regions may face fewer landfalling major hurricanes than last year, according to the Colorado State University, Fort Collins, Colo., forecast team. The team maintained its earlier predictions for the 2006 hurricane season, which starts on June 1.Colorado State's forecast for the 2006 hurricane season anticipates 17 named storms forming in the Atlantic basin between June 1 and November 30. Nine of the 17 storms are predicted to become hurricanes, and of those nine, five are expected to develop into intense or major hurricanes (Category 3-4-5) with sustained winds of 111 mph or greater.

Boston - AIR Worldwide Corp. (AIR) released Version 8.0 of CLASIC/2, CATRADER, and CATStation, AIR's catastrophe risk management systems. The version 8.0 releases include updates to several of AIR's catastrophe models and a number of software enhancements to make catastrophe analyses more efficient.

Hartford, Conn. - Cycle management is the key driver of P&C insurance company investment strategies today, according to a new study by Conning Research and Consulting, Inc.

London - Already in use by leading insurance companies, the IT Infrastructure Library (ITIL) will continue to gain popularity, notes London-based independent market analyst Datamonitor.

LAS VEGAS, Nev. - Recognizing outstanding accomplishments and achievements as well as leadership in the implementation of standards, The Association for Cooperative Operations Research and Development (ACORD), Pearl River, N.Y., held its 14th Annual ACORD Awards ceremony at the ACORD LOMA Insurance Systems Forum in Las Vegas this week.

Englewood, Colo. - Online insurance shopping service company InsureMe, is rolling out its Insurance Resource Center, the Englewood, Colo., company announced. The center, which contains numerous articles on the topics of auto, home, life and health insurance, was designed to educate consumers about insurance, as well as provide them with relevant shopping information and tips for saving money on coverage.

Las Vegas, Nev. - While the independent agency system has benefited by real-time communication improvements among carriers, agencies and customers, frustration remains over multiple workflows brought on by carrier-unique systems, according to findings in the ACORD-User Groups Information Exchange (AUGIE) 2006 Agency Technology Survey. The results were announced in Las Vegas at a panel presentation of the annual ACORD LOMA Insurance Systems Forum, sponsored by the Association for Cooperative Operations Research and Development (ACORD) Pearl River, N.Y.

Las Vegas, Nev. - The Association for Cooperative Operations Research and Development (ACORD), Pearl River, N.Y., released the first component of the ACORD Standards Framework, the organization announced at its annual meeting this week. The framework, an initial content release (ICR) of the single business data/information dictionary, brings together three groups of information:

Fremont, Calif. - A recent study on underwriting in the $222 billion commercial lines insurance industry has revealed that U.S.-based property/casualty insurers are taking new approaches to risk assessment and acceptance to sustain profitable growth in their business. The study, commissioned by Infosys Technologies Ltd. and conducted by TowerGroup, was designed to assess the strategic direction and readiness of the commercial underwriting market, from both business and technology perspectives.The study found that P&C commercial insurance companies are choosing to make the strategic shift toward "flow" and "transaction" underwriting to build competitive advantage and gain profitable market shares. Flow underwriting promotes straight-through underwriting for risk classes that were previously underwritten through manual, subjective evaluation by underwriters.

Boston - Fidelity Investments and WebMD Health Corp. are expanding their relationship to integrate WebMD's health care cost planning tools with the Fidelity HSASM, Fidelity's health savings account (HSA) product launched in December.

Hartford, Conn. - If you heed the latest research, you, too, may be a mergers and acquisitions (M&A) statistic soon. Insurance industry mergers and acquisitions increased in 2005 to the highest level since 2001 and may foreshadow an acceleration of activity this year and the next, according to a new study by Conning Research and Consulting, Inc., Hartford, Conn.

Hartford, Conn. - The Hartford Financial Services Group Inc., headquartered in Hartford, Conn., has created a new office in the greater Chicago area dedicated solely to processing claims that arise out of catastrophic events.The new catastrophe office will function as part of The Hartford's existing property claim operations in Chicago, and will focus on significant losses that arise from either man-made or natural disasters.

Boston - American International Group Inc. (AIG) adopted a policy to manage risks and capture business opportunities posed by climate change, and the president of Ceres, a Boston-based national coalition of investors and environmental groups, applauds it. "I commend AIG for being the first U.S. insurance company to address climate risk," says Mindy Lubber. "This is an important step that signals to the market and policy makers that climate change is a critical insurance issue. We look forward to working with AIG to expand on this commitment."

Edison, N.J. - Software and integration service provider MajescoMastek, the U.S. subsidiary of Bombay-based Mastek, will introduce an enterprise service-oriented architecture (SOA) platform for life and annuity companies next week at the ACORD LOMA Insurance Systems Forum in Las Vegas.

Springfield, Mass. - Massachusetts Mutual Life Insurance Co., Springfield, Mass., is taking podcasting to new levels by using it to provide its field sales force with company news, product information and marketing tips.

Redmond, Wash.-The life insurance division of Pacific Life Insurance Co., a Newport Beach, Calif.-based provider of life insurance products and services, selected Redmond, Wash.-based Microsoft Corp. to help standardize Pacific Life's data infrastructure, reducing overall costs and bringing improved business intelligence (BI) capabilities to more than 800 employees nationwide.The company's life insurance division was faced with a strong dependency between business and IT workers. Executives, business analysts, finance personnel and customer service groups that rely on corporate data found it difficult to access and analyze important business information due to Pacific Life's complex data schema.

Chicago - Aon Consulting announced that Thomas Avery and Bruce Pixley joined the company's high-tech investigations unit of its IT risk consulting group, which is a part of its Financial Advisory and Litigation Consulting Services practice. Aon Consulting is a division of Aon Corp., a Chicago-based provider of risk management services, insurance and reinsurance brokerage, management consulting, and specialty insurance underwriting,

Stamford, Conn.-Senior executives in the insurance industry are becoming increasingly concerned about their exposure to patent trolls. This concern is highlighted by the recent $600-million dollar settlement (in the field of telecommunications) that Research in Motion, makers of BlackBerry mobile email devices, had to pay to patent holding company NTP, to avoid having the courts shut down the Blackberry email system.LOMA will focus on this topic by hosting a presentation entitled Patent Trolls in the Insurance Industry at the upcoming LOMA Financial Inforum 2006 to be held in Las Vegas May 21-24, 2006.

Newtown Square, Pa., SAP AG has published a book, titled Enterprise Services for Financial Services: Taking SOA to the Next Level, which reveals the growing importance that service-oriented architecture (SOA) and enterprise services will play in banking and insurance organizations as the financial services industry continues to transform.As financial services companies face shifts in customer behavior, consolidation and increasing regulatory requirements, the book outlines a road map to better cope with these pressures and help simplify technology adoption.

Redmond, Wash. - In an effort to reduce millions of dollars of integration pain on the part of insurance customers, Microsoft Corp. is releasing a new architecture to assist insurance companies in developing service-oriented architectures (SOAs) and deploying pre-integrated software applications around core insurance business processes.The Microsoft Insurance Value Chain (IVC) Architecture v1.0, which will be demonstrated at the ACORD/LOMA Insurance Forum in Las Vegas this month and completed by late June, is an industry-standards-based approach designed to enable workflow across multiple insurance applications--on or off the Microsoft platform. The architecture is the result of newly launched integration labs, held monthly on Microsoft's Redmond, Wash., campus.

New York - The Group of North American Insurance Enterprises (GNAIE) has launched its newly redesigned Web site, http://www.insuranceaccounting.org, to serve as a central source of news, research and analysis on the development of accounting standards for insurance companies."An important part of the GNAIE mission is to communicate effectively with insurers worldwide as well as the U.S. and international accounting standards community. The new Web site is a crucial component of that communications endeavor," says Richard Carbone, chairman of GNAIE, who is CFO of Prudential Financial Inc.

Boston - AIR Worldwide Corp. issued a white paper titled, "Understanding Climatological Influences on Hurricane Activity: The AIR Near-term Catalog." The paper reviews the current state of research on climatological impacts on hurricane activity and explains the approach used to create AIR's near-term sensitivity catalog, which quantifies the influence of sea surface temperature (SST) forecasts on insured losses for the next five years."Our analyses confirmed the correlation between elevated sea-surface temperatures and overall hurricane activity in the Atlantic basin," says Karen Clark, president and CEO of AIR Worldwide Corp. "However, there is considerable uncertainty in the expected magnitude and time horizon of potentially elevated risk along the coastline and, most importantly, the impact on regional insured losses."

Richmond Hill, Ont. - In an effort to help IT security professionals make smarter purchasing decisions, ITinfosecure has enhanced its no-cost, online community and resource center for researching and evaluating the latest security products and services.Located at http://www.itinfosecure.com/, the site features a new collection of up-to-date and unbiased profiles on more than 100 vendors and 300 products and services. In addition to its new look and feel, the site now offers users a comprehensive virtual resource center with an easy-to-use searchable catalog, with nearly 2,000 Webcasts, white papers, case studies and data sheets.

Chicago - UniCare has launched a newly redesigned and improved secure member Web site designed to provide members and their families more streamlined access to personalized online health and benefit information.The changes make the site easier to navigate by requiring fewer clicks in order for members to access information specific to their health care needs, according to UniCare. The site now provides members easier access to personal online health information through single sign-on log-in capabilities. In addition, if members have misplaced or forgotten their username, they can request it online without having to call customer service support.

Okemos, Mich. - The Pennsylvania Insurance Department has turned to Sircon Corp. and partner Thomson Prometric to streamline the state's resident licensing process.Pennsylvania insurance law requires that all individuals applying for an initial resident insurance producer license must be fingerprinted in order to facilitate background checks, which are performed by submitting fingerprint images to the FBI's Criminal Justice Information Services Division (CJISD) through the Pennsylvania State Police (PSP).

Denver - InsureMe, an online insurance resource for consumer and agents, has launched the InsureMe Insurance Blog, targeted at consumers with insurance-related questions.The blog, an online forum where authors post short articles and commentary, addresses top news in health, life, home and auto insurance, as well as state-specific issues and related topics facing consumers. The blog is interactive, which enables readers to post their questions and comments on each entry.

Cleveland - Members can do everything from determining deductibles to accessing claims information on the redesigned Web site of Consumers Life Insurance Co. at http://www.consumerslife.com/.Creating a Web presence that would help members better understand and use their health insurance benefits was a priority, according to Chris Hoffman, manager of Internet communications.

Hartford, Conn. - Aetna Global Benefits, the international business of Aetna, is offering a new feature for its members: payment of applicable wire transfer fees for international health care claim reimbursements. In the past, members who received their claims reimbursements through wire transfers were responsible for any transaction fees charged by their banks. AGB has the capability to issue these claims reimbursements in over 100 currencies."By covering these fees, which could be in excess of $25 (U.S.) per transaction, we feel that we significantly improve one of the ways that members currently receive claim reimbursements," says Martha Temple, head of Aetna Global Benefits (AGB). "This is part of our continued effort to provide high-quality, concierge-level services to our members around the world."

London - The majority of European insurers believe that Solvency II will improve their companies' risk and capital management functions, and half have already enacted formal programs to address the proposed European Union (EU) directive, according to results of a survey released today by Bermuda-based technology services company Accenture.

Newark, Calif. - In response to a growing insurance industry need, Risk Management Solutions (RMS) completed of a probabilistic model for assessing the risk of influenza pandemics across multiple countries.Many published studies have already illustrated the effects of various pandemic scenarios, most commonly a repeat of the 1918 influenza pandemic that had a mortality level of 0.67% in the U.S. and even more severe effects in other countries. Analysis of the virology and epidemiological science shows that more severe pandemics are possible, and probabilistic estimation of virus characteristics incorporating the recent H5N1 suggests that there is a one in five chance of a pandemic that is more severe than that experienced in 1918.