Distribution

Carriers that provide coverage for rare, valuable items understand that it's ill-advised to assign appraisers who specialize in fine art or jewelry to assess the valuation of an expensive item outside their realm of expertise.Selecting the wrong appraiser can result in an inaccurate assessment-one that not only negatively impacts an insurer's risk exposure, but also can affect the price a policyholder pays for coverage.

As insurers "Web-enable" their core applications to provide agents, claims professionals, customer service representatives and customers access to data and transactional functions, poor Web site performance becomes more than an annoyance to end users. It becomes a critical component to a company's success.A London-based firm that operates a hub for cedants, brokers and reinsurers to collaborate, share data and transact business online realized the importance of this issue when London users of its Singapore-hosted data management center (DMC) application reported slow page refreshes and data downloads.

Cedar Rapids--Fiserv Insurance Solutions, a unit of Fiserv, Inc. and an innovative solutions provider for the insurance industry, announced availability of the 1.2 version of Fiserv Advanced Billing, a Web-based system utilizing the J2EE (Java 2 Enterprise Edition) platform.

NEW YORK-- A poll of attendees at The Conference Group's 16th Annual Executive Conference for the Property-Casualty Industry has found that executives expect changes in the brokerage and regulatory models to have fundamental and long-lasting effects on the industry, including downward pressure on industry compensation, with pricing likely to increase.

EL SEGUNDO, Calif.--Computer Sciences Corporation

PORTSMOUTH, NH--Bottomline Technologies today announced the expansion of the company's financial Business Process Management (fBPM) solutions. These fBPM solutions are designed to streamline paper-driven order-to-cash and purchase-to pay processes -- enabling organizations to more effectively manage their financial assets and trading partner relationships.

Newark, Calif.--Risk Management Solutions (RMS), the world's leading provider of products and services for the management of catastrophe risk, today announced that it provided the risk analysis for a securitization of U.S. hurricane and earthquake risk by The Hartford Financial Services Group, Inc.

Seattle--Safeco announced it is once again expanding the product breadth available on its single-platform online sales center Safeco Now. In a breakthrough move for small-business insurance sales, the company has introduced functionality allowing independent distributors to quote and issue commercial multi-peril (CMP) policies in as little as five minutes.

Ken A. Crerar, president of The Council of Insurance Agents & Brokers, issued a statement in response to testimony at the Nov. 16 hearing of the Senate Governmental Affairs Subcommittee on Financial Management, the Budget and International Security.

DARIEN, Ill.--Quotesmith.com Inc., a provider of insurance quotes from over 200 leading companies, has received a subpoena requesting documents and seeking information from the State of Illinois Department of Financial and Professional Regulation, Division of Insurance. Quotesmith.com intends to cooperate fully with the Illinois Division of Insurance.