Distribution

Needham, Mass. - In the next five years, analysts predict more than 77 million individuals in the U.S. will be of traditional retirement age, and this segment of the population is predicted to be the dominant demographic for a period of 20 years or more. TowerGroup, a Needham, Mass., research firm, expects that this explosion in the retired market will ultimately redefine the U.S. financial services industry, accelerating industry consolidation across banking, securities and investments, and insurance.

Atlanta - Consumers can now apply online for health insurance through Kaiser Permanente of Georgia's Personal Advantage online consumer portal, which is powered by the Southborough, Mass. -based ikaSystems' enterprise-wide technology platform. Kaiser Permanente's Personal Advantage product has several plan offerings targeting the individual market."Since implementing the portal just over a month ago, we've received 1,116 Personal Advantage applications," says Nancy Melton, Kaiser Permanente's Personal Advantage product manager. "This represents a significant increase over any previous month in the past year."

Just as the Internet reached its one-billionth user last year, recent consumer research indicates that online transaction failures can have a huge detrimental effect on businesses.The vast majority of consumers (89%) say they experience problems when conducting online transactions, and 41% of all online shoppers say they'll turn to a competitor, either online (27%) or offline (14%), when that happens.

E-mail, the one-time productivity marvel, has turned into an unwieldy menace to many insurance companies. Once heralded as the ultimate purveyor of near real-time collaboration, e-mail's utility and business value is now in question.Despite the best filtering technology, more than 60% of what seeps into corporate in-boxes is spam, Business Week reports. And ePolicy Institute, Columbus, Ohio, reports that 50% of workplace instant messaging (IM) users send and receive risky content including attachments, jokes, gossip, confidential information and pornography.

One of the most frustrating aspects of life for American consumers in the 21st Century is trying to complete a transaction or obtain information from a company over the telephone.Whether it's ordering a new pair of shoes, checking the status of a utility bill, or seeking help with a computer problem, the experience can be both exasperating and mind numbing.

TRANSAMERICA RECEIVES SIX 'BEST IN CLASS' RANKINGSAs a testament to its relationship with its clients, Los Angeles-based Transamerica Retirement Services received six "Best in Class" ratings from the Chatham Partners' 2005 Client Satisfaction Analysis. Transamerica received "Best in Class" ratings: timeliness of contributions, distributions and loans, accuracy of contributions, overall satisfaction with processing of employee transactions, accuracy of participant statements, clarity of participant statements, and courtesy and professionalism of personnel.

Several years ago, a rising deluge of spam, much of it offensive to the firm's largely female workforce, prompted Tollman & Wiker InWest (TWIW) Insurance Services, LLC, to seek better ways of protecting its incoming e-mail."We felt as employers we should protect our staff from this stuff," recalls Kevin Dickmann, who, as technology manager, ran IT single-handedly for the 85-person insurance agency based in Ventura, Calif. "Every morning, our employees were finding 30 to 40 messages they had to review and delete." What's more, e-mail's importance to daily operations was growing by leaps and bounds, so keeping it safe and sound was critical.

WEALTH RISK MANAGEMENTThe Chubb Group of Insurance Cos., Warren, N.J., has selected New York-based Risk Control Strategies to support its new Signature Suite offering of luxury personal risk management services. Signature Suite is designed to help identify potential threats and help affluent individuals protect their families and wealth. Risk Control Strategies will provide Chubb's high-net-worth and family office customers with a complimentary personal risk assessment. Risk Control Strategies will also offer Chubb's clients an array of services including cyber crime investigations, identity theft prevention and response, and premise security strategy and implementation.

New York - Lexington Insurance Co., a member company of American International Group, Inc. (AIG), has expanded it online training on its Web site at www.lexeplhelp.com for customers carrying employment practices liability (EPL) insurance.Launched in 1999 and formerly called www.eplselect.com, the Web site was developed to provide EPL insureds with free risk management resources and training tools.

Westborough, Mass. - According to a recent national survey, 54% of organizations have experienced cyber attacks, with 21% of the cyber attacks causing more than $100,000 in measurable damages, and 11% causing more than $500,000 in measurable damages.The 1st Annual Enterprise Security Survey, generated through an online survey of security decision makers spanning a wide range of industries, indicates that a vast majority of businesses are reliant on the Internet to conduct business and have experienced some form of cyber attack in the past year. Additionally, the survey demonstrates a trend in the change in security spending habits due to government regulations such as HIPAA and Sarbanes-Oxley.