4 Policy Admin Vendors Announce Upgrades, News at IASA

As the sun rises on the opening day of IASA 2009 in Orlando, Fla., with it came major announcements surrounding policy administration services vendors.

AQS Inc., a provider of policy admin and business-support services to property/casualty insurers, publicized the formation of an executive partnership with solutions provider Axiom to add claims capabilities to its policy offerings. The partnership gives AQS exclusive rights to market .Claim, Axiom's flagship product, for P&C insurers.

"This alliance enables us to offer a world-class claims product to our customers and to other P&C insurers," says Dave Kerford, AQS' CEO. "The functionality of .Claim is superior. It provides the cost-effectiveness and convenience of being entirely Web-based. And on the heels of our recent acquisition if AscendantOne (now AQS Access), it positions us to be a comprehensive provider of P&C administration services."

Duck Creek Technologies announced the release of Policy Administration 4.0— the latest version of its policy admin system designed to further streamline processes for P&C insurers. The company says this release has an improved out-of-the-box user interface, a new customizable dashboard, refined client-data storage model and increased consumer access functionality.

Also for the P&C market, Sapiens Americas heralded the release of its policy admin system for small and mid-sized carriers. Targeted specifically for low-cost and quick implementations, the new release is Web-based with a complete library of available Web services; has customer and agent portals; offers policy, billing, claims, reinsurance and other modules; and integrates with many third-party providers.

"We are pleased to offer a product targeted specifically to the small and mid-sized carriers that provides great flexibility and functionality on a sound technical platform,” says Roni Al-Dor, CEO and president of Sapiens International. “With this addition to the Sapiens INSIGHT product family, we are now able to offer policy administration solutions to any size carrier.”

Insurance Systems Inc. (ISI), another provider of Web-based solutions for the P&C industry, announced the opening of its first U.S.-based office in Novi, Mich. Having experienced significant growth in the past 18 months, especially among its U.S. client base, the Toronto-based company opened this office to better manage future U.S. growth and demand with an established client services presence.

ISI says its new, U.S.-based, client services team will focus on the company’s premiere product, WebWriter Enterprise, a fully-integrated, browser-based P&C policy administration suite that includes all major modules to allow insurance companies to run their businesses effectively. In addition to the core processing modules for policy administration, claims, billing, accounting and reinsurance, WebWriter Enterprise includes various supporting sub-systems such as document/knowledge management, contact management and reporting.

“Our client base continues to grow rapidly, and we understand the importance of having a team on the ground that can offer immediate support,” says David Hanley, VP of operations and business development for ISI. “We plan to ramp up our U.S. staff further with highly skilled insurance professionals who will help grow our presence and serve the needs of all ISI clients.”