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Less than two years ago, San Francisco-based Internet auto insurance provider eCoverage Inc. made a proclamation seemingly as bold as it was preposterous.Promising that "the insurance industry is history," eCoverage executives launched an automated quote-to-claim operating model intriguing enough to make even ardent dot-com skeptics sit up and take notice.

Insurance agents by their nature tend to be anxious, especially when it concerns customer information. Coverage confirmation, billing information and personal data are critical pieces of information in any agent's customer database, and fast access to up-to-date data is an important customer service criteria.At DS Barkley Insurance Management Services, a Scottsdale, Ariz.-based managing general agency that underwrites nonstandard auto insurance in five states, meeting these informational needs for its 150 agents was more than a full-time job for its support staff.

ess than a year after launching an ambitious program targeting small-business owners via the Internet, Wausau Insurance has shut down its eWausau operations.The decision was stunning, given that the company in April partnered with InsureZone to offer its products to banks and Web portals.

The Internet will continue to be a major focus of insurers' technology spending plans, according to the findings of a new global survey of insurance industry leaders.The survey, conducted by The Economist Intelligence Unit and PricewaterhouseCoopers, reveals that spending on technologies supporting e-business initiatives will increase 89% over the next three years. More than 150 leading insurance providers including carriers, agents/brokers, reinsurers, banks, broker-dealers and dotcoms, participated in the study.

Although the insurance market has proved to be a hard nut to crack for dot-com startups, that hasn't deterred new entrants from trying to gain a foothold on the Internet.One of the more recent entrants is NetInsurance, an online insurance agency that, claiming to be the first operation of its kind, offers customers the ability to comparison shop for and buy auto insurance in a single online session.

Nearly 40 years ago-long before Gramm-Leach-Bliley (GLB) was ratified-Charlotte, N.C.-based First Union Corp. was diligently establishing a modest insurance program designed to complement its core banking competencies.

As a provider of group pension programs, New York-based Guardian Life Insurance Co. of America understands that when it comes to mutual fund policyholders, many have an insatiable desire for data that will help them maximize their investments.Unlike typically static health and life coverage, 401(k) plan participants regularly juggle fund portfolios on a weekly or monthly basis. Even if they don't engage in fund reallocation, group pension customers are inveterate monitors of their fund balances-many doing so on a daily basis.

Because their fortunes hinge significantly on fickle Mother Nature-such as natural disasters and other weather-related occurrences-farmers are meticulous about their insurance coverage.

Making good on its promise to vigorously defend a lawsuit filed Feb. 20 by eHealth-Insurance Services Inc., InsWeb Corp. filed a countersuit March 22 in U.S. District Court, Northern District of California, San Jose.InsWeb is denying allegations made by eHealthInsurance that InsWeb sent a considerable number of illegitimate referrals to a co-branded Web site built and maintained by eHealthInsurance (see "eHealthInsurance Sues InsWeb," April).

Darwin's theory of natural selection proclaims that the strong species will thrive, while the weak will vanish. It's not unlike carriers' Web sites, where the best ones may have the inside track on survival.In the mid-1990s, when insurance carriers were developing corporate Web sites, many discovered they could do little wrong in the eyes of their online constituency-particularly casual users with modest expectations.