Insurance Networking News, the independent authority on the latest technology to support insurers' business strategies, kicked off its annual
The mission of the unique two-phase program -- administered in partnership with
"At a time when the insurance marketplace is changing at a record pace, insurers depend on the most cutting-edge solutions available," said Pat Speer, editor-in-chief of INN. "INN's coverage of these best practices helps fuel further innovation within the industry."
Winners of both Phase One and Phase Two will be recognized at an exclusive event held in conjunction with the
Phase One
This phase, beginning today, invites executives and staff from North American insurance companies, including property/casualty, life/health, and reinsurance, to identify their preferred technology providers. Carriers can participate in the survey by visiting. Those who participate in the survey will be entered into a drawing for one of five $500 American Express gift cards. The deadline for voting is November 30, 2011.
INN modified this year's VIP Phase One honoree categories to reflect insurers' migration from a focus on products and data to one that places the customer at the center. The new categories include:
Back Office Solutions & Technologies: software and services that cross functional boundaries to deliver enterprise value, such as SOA, networking, integration, and other technologies that support core solutions and decision support, and more.
Core Solutions: Software and support for solutions that drive core business functions, including billing, policy admin, and underwriting, among others.
Customer Experience Solutions: Front office technologies that drive customer loyalty, satisfaction and retention, for example social media, portals, customer service, distribution, AGENT, channel management, and more.
Decision Support Solutions: Software and support that manage data capture, storage, search, mining, sharing, and analytics used to improve business processes and decisions, which include BPM, workflow, and BI, among others.
Strategy Partners: May include third party and outsourcing firms that provide consulting, analysis, and delivery services in support of IT projects.
Phase Two
The second phase of the INN VIP Awards program allows the top-ranked solution providers from Phase One to nominate an insurance carrier as a "visionary" for use of a specific technology. The honorees are, then, judged by INN's editors, its Editorial Advisory Board comprising technology leaders from across the industry, and insurance research analysts from Celent. As part of the judging process, solution providers are encouraged to illustrate the role, if feasible, that ACORD data standards play in their business and technology success story. This part of the program begins December, 13, 2011, and will close on January 20, 2012.
Celent, a respected source of independent insurance technology and business research and advisory services, will conduct and manage the program's survey distribution, data collection and analysis.
"We are excited to be a part of this program because we believe that the meaningful intelligence garnered from the VIP results will help carriers make smart decisions on their technology spend going forward," says Craig Weber, senior vice president of Celent's insurance practice.
To further help insurers map their own success, INN and Celent will segment the results by respondent type and title as well as by how ACORD standards have helped facilitate the leading technology's application success.
