Distribution

New York - The Guardian Life Insurance Company of America has launched a new proprietary Web-based system designed to help financial representatives use the Internet to enable their clients to instantly gauge their financial health.Using the system, financial representatives and their clients can coordinate accounts from a menu of more than 3,000 financial institutions, access copies of legal and financial documents from anywhere in the world, and get an up- to-date snapshot of their financial well-being through a "Living Balance Sheet."

Farmington, Conn.-InsurBanc, a federal savings bank organized in 2001 specifically to serve independent insurance agents, brokers and their clients, is focusing its efforts to offer competitive personal banking products such as checking accounts, savings accounts, certificates of deposit, retirement accounts, credit and debit cards and online banking."Now that more and more agents have placed their trust in us and realize our commitment to helping them succeed and plan for their business futures, they are also looking to us for competitive personal products," says David W. Tralka, president and CEO of InsurBanc.

Des Moines, Iowa - Recognizing the value of saving time and money with online access to disability claim information, The Principal Financial Group is offering enhanced employer reporting capabilities for long-term and short-term disability. A new report design will give employers daily access to information such as claim status and trend data."When we started seeing a need from a few customers for this type of reporting, we realized this reporting model would benefit all of our group disability customers," says Cindy Ford, claims director, the Principal Financial Group. "Our goal is to provide employers not only with the information necessary to understand their current employee claims, but also with a trend reporting program that might help reduce claims going forward and enable employees to continue working."

Honolulu - St. Paul Travelers has released a new and enhanced dashboard for e-CARMA, the customer portal to its risk management information system.Launched at the Risk and Insurance Management Society Inc. (RIMS) conference, e-CARMA is available for demonstration. Customers can view a choice of three distinct dashboards that are available directly from e-CARMA's home page. These dashboards automatically organize and visually present actionable information (red flags), performance trends, and claim outcome and metric drill-down analysis.

Fairfield, Ohio - The Ohio Casualty Insurance Co. has launched real-time issuance of policies and endorsements for several commercial lines of business through its agency interface system, P.A.R.I.S. Express. In addition, the company has enhanced its download capabilities by offering download, through its PARIS Connect technology, for commercial auto, businessowners, workers' compensation, general liability, property, package, and its new artisan contractors preferred package to the independent agents who sell its products.In providing these enhancements to its automated systems, Ohio Casualty is aiming to deliver on its promise to its agents: "to handle it efficiently, handle it once," when it comes to overall policy processing for business policyholders.

Sun Prairie, Wis. - Agents across General Casualty's Midwestern and Northeastern operating territory can now quote, submit and bind business auto coverage through the company's Web site.This new capability is designed to complement the company's existing online quoting/submission systems for its commercial marketplace (BOP), contractors and workers' compensation products, making it possible to submit an entire account via the Internet.

Warwick, R.I.--InsureMyTrip.com, a worldwide on-line travel insurance aggregator, has expanded operations into Canada, providing a new resource for the Canadian travel consumer. InsureMyTrip.ca allows consumers to analyze, rate, compare and purchase travel insurance from Canada's top travel insurers, all on one site.

Mayfield Heights, Ohio - The Progressive Group of Insurance Cos.' national catastrophe response team (NCRT) stands at the ready to handle increased claims volume resulting from weather-related events including hurricanes, tornadoes, hailstorms and floods.The company has opened its first permanent catastrophe response center in Mayfield Heights, Ohio, claiming it is even better positioned to deliver 24/7 claims service when people need fast, accurate claims resolution most.

Boston - Financial institutions that make online retirement tools readily available can increase consumer retirement account participation and action. That's the conclusion of a study conducted by Compete, Inc., a market research firm, with MSN and Media Contacts.The study, titled " Consumer Adoption of Online Retirement Planning Tools," was initiated to understand how consumers use online retirement tools at leading financial sites to develop and execute their wealth accumulation strategy. It revealed that every month an average of 180,000 consumers use online retirement tools, and consumers who are aware of the availability of online retirement tools and use them, are more likely to take action, according to Mike Bailey, managing director, financial services practice, Compete Inc. "Retirement sites need to seize this opportunity to leverage tools that develop relationships with consumers who will evolve into active customers with higher value accounts."

Baltimore - Carriers considering new agents pay close attention to how much experience, data and information the agent provides in its pitch, says a major provider of commercial insurance, reinsurance and risk management services.