FCCI INSURANCE CHOOSES SWORD INSURANCE PORTAL
FCCI Insurance Group, Sarasota, Fla., has selected AgencyPortal, enhanced with Toolkit and AgencyConnect products, to launch a transactional Web system for agents.
The portal is a product of Boston-based Sword Insurance, a provider of Web-based product distribution solutions to the P&C insurance industry. Sword says FCCI determined the need to extend its Web offering beyond its current scope, conducting an extensive search for the right approach and partner.
AgencyPortal is designed to enable P&C carriers to quickly and easily execute key business transactions with their agents, brokers, MGAs and consumers, minimizing the cost of distributing new and existing products, and letting companies intelligently and cost effectively grow direct written premium. With the addition of a Toolkit, Sword says FCCI's front-end Web system will go to market faster, while allowing business analysts to intuitively create, update and manage products within AgencyPortal. AgencyConnect will provide agents with an easy-to-use, streamlined workflow solution for uploading data from vendor systems to the FCCI web portal, Sword adds.
"This is a strategic shift in the way FCCI does business," says Mason Power, VP of product and market strategy for Sword Insurance. "The new FCCI Connect product will allow the company to expand into new markets with new products quickly and easily."
Sword says FCCI will go live in phases, with internal testing of the new portal beginning in spring 2011.
SYMETRA LIFE SELECTS WYNSURE SYSTEM
Symetra Life Insurance Co., Bellevue, Wash., has selected Wyde Corp.'s Wynsure system as the end-to-end administration solution for its expanding group life and disability income insurance business.
Eagan, Minn.-based Wyde says that, when fully implemented, Wynsure will support policy quoting, underwriting, policy administration and claims, with the first phase, scheduled to be implemented this year, covering new business and policy administration.
"With our plans to expand Symetra's group life and disability income insurance operation, we need an integrated systems solution to support us as we grow," says Michael Fry, EVP of Symetra's Group Division. "Wynsure will be a key component of this important growth initiative."
UNITED EDUCATORS SELECTS CGI EDGE
Chevy Chase, Md.-based United Educators Insurance, a Reciprocal Risk Retention Group, has selected CGI Edge, a policy, billing and claims administration system, in a competitive procurement to replace its existing legacy systems.
The Edge solution is a product of CGI Group Inc., a Montreal provider of information technology and business process services, and includes software, services, hosting and maintenance.
CGI says the Edge implementation project will transform business systems by eliminating the current siloed environment that houses United Educators' legacy policy, claims and associated billing systems.
With CGI Edge, United Educators will implement a fully integrated solution with a single source of data that is critical to drive timely business decisions, and meet the needs of increased transparency and accountability to their members, says CGI.
COUNTRY FINANCIAL UTILIZES EASTERN SHORE CONSULTING
Eastern Shore Consulting, a Halifax, Nova Scotia-based consulting firm specializing in insurance software selection services, has completed the management and oversight of an extensive project with Bloomington, Ill.-based COUNTRY Financial focused on the evaluation, selection and procurement of multiple, new core processing systems. According to Eastern Shore, it helped COUNTRY Financial establish a formal and disciplined methodology to be used for future software evaluation and selection efforts.
Eastern Shore says the core processing systems that were the focus of the project included P&C policy administration, rating and billing; life/health policy administration; a human resources system for leadership resource; and a finance system for account reconciliation.
In addition to addressing COUNTRY Financial's current new system requirements, Eastern Shore says the engagement has provided the insurer with a reusable and proven methodology for future efforts.
The process guides the project from RFP through contract negotiations, and includes RFP development, the vendor list, an RFP process, a bidder's conference, scripted demos, proof of concept, due diligence, and contract negotiations, according to Eastern Shore.
NODAK MUTUAL USES COSENTRY'S CLOUD NETWORK
Fargo, N.D.-based Nodak Mutual Insurance has selected Omaha, Neb.-based CoSentry's secure cloud network to build a new high availability platform to protect advanced imaging and replication systems. The platform will enable Nodak to continue to quickly grow in response to market demand for their new products and acquisitions, CoSentry says. The recently completed build is expected to improve operations while substantially reducing incremental costs.
"We were looking for a smarter, faster way to accommodate increased demands in power and capacity, yet we require complete control of privacy and security," explains Larry Marxen, director of information systems at Nodak Mutual. "The CoSentry solution made a lot of sense. It allowed us to intelligently protect our iSeries and Intel-based systems, take advantage of the financial advantages of virtualization and the important LAN replication technology available from the Never Fail product. More importantly, using the CoSentry network of centers allowed us to meet our critical uptime needs in a cost-effective manner."
The contract, an extension of a previous relationship, will improve test intervals, need for redundant connectivity routes and will allow for future migrations in either a physical or virtual mode.
TUFTS HEALTH PLAN EXPANDS PARTNERSHIP WITH BENEFITFOCUS
Tufts Health Plan, Watertown, Mass., expanded its use of the Benefitfocus platform, offering online billing to its large group, small group and individual customers. Charleston, S.C.-based Benefitfocus says it has provided Tufts Health Plan with online enrollment technology for its small and large group markets since 2007. With this expanded agreement, Tufts Health Plan's fully insured groups use the Benefitfocus Platform to view, pay and adjust bills online, says Benefitfocus, adding that self-funded, Administrative Services Only (ASO) groups manage administrative fees on the platform. By providing Benefitfocus technology for both enrollment and billing, Tufts Health Plan offers its customers a consistent, user-friendly interface across all business processes, from open enrollment and HR reporting to invoice payment and reconciliation, the company says.
In addition, Benefitfocus says the platform's electronic invoice presentment and payment technology allows Tufts Health Plan to:
* Provide an online portal for customers to view and pay bills
* Offer a variety of payment options, including recurring AutoPay
* View and approve invoice adjustment requests
* Offer list billing to fully insured and ASO groups and accept binder payments for individual customers
* Track payment status online
The platform also allows Tufts Health Plan to integrate enrollment and billing data, enabling customers to adjust bills online, in real time, to reflect their most recent enrollment data, including off-cycle membership changes, the company says.
PHYSICIANS MUTUAL SELECTS INSPRO ENTERPRISE
Physicians Mutual, an Omaha, Neb.-based provider of individual health, life and retirement insurance products, has selected the InsPro Enterprise application suite for full administration of its insurance product portfolio, says Eddystone, Pa.-based InsPro Technologies Corp.
InsPro says implementation of the system will include the entire InsPro Enterprise suite to consolidate Physicians Mutual's three existing policy administration systems to a single platform in an InsPro hosted environment.
The system is designed to enable Physicians Mutual to better manage multiple product lines, and help the company quickly deploy new products, according to InsPro.
