Insurance

Stamford, Conn.—A recent release from Pitney Bowes Inc. announced its Pitney Bowes Group 1 Software and Pitney Bowes MapInfo business units, acquired separately, will combine into a single software company. The move is effective immediately, and the businesses will merge operations over the next several months.

New York – New York Life Insurance Co. promoted Richard Eppink, Jr. to vice president in the Special Markets Department, reporting to first vice president Victoria Buhrow. Eppink is now responsible for developing and executing strategic direct marketing plans for the AARP Lifetime Income Program, New York Life's Tampa-based operation which markets and administers income annuity products to AARP members. Eppink joined New York Life in 1999 as an assistant vice president of marketing with the AARP Life Insurance Program, and was promoted to corporate vice president in 2002.

Smithtown, N.Y. — Bank of Smithtown Insurance Agents & Brokers Inc., a wholly-owned subsidiary of Bank of Smithtown, acquired all assets of Payne & Palmieri Inc., an independent insurance agency located in East Setauket, N.Y.

Los Angeles - Farmers Insurance Group of Companies appointed Keitha Schofield, president and chief operating officer of Farmers Services, a new support services entity which will include finance, audit, human resources, communications, procurement, real estate, service point/service centers and information technology. She also serves on the Farmers Group, Inc. board of directors. Schofield joined Farmers in 1995 as senior vice president and CIO and until this recent appointment served as executive vice president—support services.

New York - New York Life Insurance Co. promoted Alexander Burbatsky to senior vice president in the corporate information department--giving him responsibility for all aspects of delivery of infrastructure services.

New York - Empire BlueCross BlueShield launched its Empire Prism suite of health plans, the New York company reports.

Toronto — Camilion Solutions Inc., a Markham, Ontario-based provider of product development solutions and next-generation policy administration systems to the insurance industry, announced that accelerated business growth has necessitated a relocation of their corporate headquarters to a facility twice the size of their previous location.

Los Angeles - The Automobile Club of Southern California (Auto Club), the largest AAA affiliate in the nation, has selected the ClaimCenter product from Guidewire, San Mateo, Calif. ClaimCenter will consolidate and ultimately replace the company’s existing legacy claims systems, performing end-to-end claims handling functionality for all Auto Club lines of business.

Westlake, Ohio - Hyland Software Inc. released of version 7 of its OnBase enterprise content management (ECM) software suite. OnBase 7 introduces process modeling and business activity monitoring (BAM) capabilities to help organizations model, monitor and continuously improve document-driven business processes. The new release features the ability to search the OnBase repository using Microsoft Office SharePoint Search as well as several new content-enabled vertical applications for hospitals, law enforcement agencies and universities.

Miami - To deliver on the commitment to promote ecosystem-based innovation and collaboration, Walldorf, Germany-based SAP AG announced that the industry value network (IVN) for insurance will join 13 existing industry-focused IVNs hosted by SAP. The IVN for insurance will bring together independent software vendors, system integrators and SAP to co-innovate with insurers to help them improve profits, customer relationships and their competitive position through effective applications and a flexible IT environment. Members of the IVN for insurance will initially focus on issues facing property/casualty insurers in the North American market in the areas of claims, customer service, sales and distribution, and underwriting and policy processing.Plans for the IVN for insurance currently include key innovative partners in the insurance industry: Adobe, CGI, IBM, MSG, Opentext, Planetsoft and Skywire. The partners and SAP will initially collaborate to bring together industry expertise, knowledge and capabilities in a multi-vendor ecosystem to address the high-value business needs of customers. Customers will be invited to participate in the second phase of the IVN.

New York — New York Life Insurance Co. was the No. 1 seller of fixed immediate annuities in the first quarter 2007, according to LIMRA International, U.S. Individual Annuity Sales Survey, Fixed Immediates, First Quarter 2007 results. (Fixed Immediates include Fixed Period Annuities.) New York Life's guaranteed lifetime income annuity sales rose 45% in 2006 on the strength of its product suite and distribution, and continued on that pace in first quarter 2007.

Baltimore, Md. — Metastorm, a provider of business process management (BPM) software for organizational agility, innovation and governance, announced the acquisition of Proforma Corp., the leading provider of enterprise modeling solutions for enterprise architecture (EA) and business process analysis (BPA). Metastorm says the combined company will deliver an integrated enterprise software platform that unifies business strategy and architecture, process analysis and optimization, and managed human- and system-centric process execution.

The Hague and New York — AEGON and Merrill Lynch announced they will form a strategic business relationship in the areas of insurance and investment products. As part of this relationship, an AEGON company has signed an agreement to acquire Merrill Lynch Life Insurance Co. and ML Life Insurance Co. of New York for U.S. $1.3 billion in cash. The purchase price includes excess surplus of approximately $425 million. The transaction is expected to close before the end of the fourth quarter of 2007, subject to customary regulatory approvals and closing conditions.

Denver - Colorado Casualty's appointed agents in Arizona and New Mexico are the first in the Liberty Mutual Group member's six-state territory to be equipped with Commercial IQ, the company's, Web-based technology for commercial lines quoting, binding and policy issuance.Commercial IQ is designed to deliver an automated underwriting process with expanded, yet simplified, eligibility criteria, and a sophisticated pricing system with multiple price points, which results in fewer referrals, less intervention, the best price up front and quicker policy issuance. Commercial IQ's "Quick Quote" feature enables agents instant access to a faster online quote with minimal entry of information, according to Liberty Mutual Group. Agents also can select the most appropriate product for a commercial risk using Commercial IQ's SmartNav, the pre-qualification tool that requires only a business class code and responses to a few basic eligibility questions to best meet customers' needs.

Brookfield, Wis., and Norcross, Ga. — Fiserv Inc., a technology solutions provider, and CheckFree Corp., a financial e-commerce services and products provider, entered into a definitive agreement whereby Fiserv will acquire CheckFree in an all-cash transaction valued at approximately $4.4 billion. Under terms of the agreement, CheckFree shareholders will receive $48 in cash for each share of common stock.

Dublin, Ireland - FINEOS Corp., a global provider of enterprise software solutions for insurance, bancassurance and social insurance, has extended its relationship with IBM to enable the FINEOS Claims solution to now run on IBM System z. The IBM System z enablement will allow insurers that rely on mainframes at the heart of their enterprise infrastructure to run FINEOS solutions on their preferred platform, says FINEOS.

Los Angeles — Farmers Insurance Group received the "Sammy Award" and five other top awards at the Insurance Marketing Communication Association's (IMCA) Annual Meeting and Showcase Awards in Newport, R.I. The Showcase Awards are given for creative excellence in insurance advertising.

State College, Pa. — Optical Image Technology Inc. (OIT), creator of DocFinity workflow and document management software, announced a strategic business partnership with Bethlehem, Pennsylvania-based DBSi. This alliance is expected to benefit customers and prospects of both companies through expansion of offerings in workflow and document management for DBSi and high-availability disaster recovery and managed hosting for OIT. Both OIT and DBSi support mission-critical enterprise environments within healthcare, financial services, technology and other market segments; the focus is on their clients being "always on" since disruption of services or inability to access information can have a notable impact on their clients.

Fort Myers, Fla. and Milwaukee — Sitkins Group Inc., a Fort Myers, Fla.-based consulting firm providing services relating to sales, management and operations for independent insurance agencies and Sitkins 100 has partnered with Zywave Inc., a Milwaukee-based provider of insurance technology services for insurance brokers, to allow for the marketing and promotion of Zywave tools to Sitkins 100 members.

Bermuda and Bahrain — Scottish Re Group Ltd., a global life reinsurance specialist based in Bermuda, announced the sale of its Middle East Life portfolio to Arab Insurance Group (Arig), Bahrain-based reinsurance companies in the Middle East and North Africa.