FARMERS SELECTS 360VALUE TO ESTIMATE HOME COSTS
The Farmers Insurance Group of Cos., Los Angeles, selected 360Value to estimate reconstruction costs for its high-value home program. Developed by a team from ISO subsidiaries Xactware Solutions Inc., Orem, Utah, and Boston-based AIR Worldwide Corp., 360Value is a Web-based reconstruction-cost estimator designed to provide easy-to-calculate reconstruction-cost estimates for residential, commercial and agricultural properties.
As a component-based reconstruction-cost estimator, 360Value accounts for material and labor costs associated with rebuilding high-value properties. The individual unit costs are highly localized and extensively researched by a dedicated team of construction experts. 360Value also gives Farmers the ability to estimate current construction pricing when offering to renew existing policies.
"360Value brings strong property-valuation capabilities to our high-value home program," says Todd Brooks, VP of underwriting for Farmers. "We're pleased by the extensive level of detail we're able to enter about individual properties, which is important when estimating the reconstruction costs of high-value homes."
360Value provides synergies that complement Farmers' underwriting workflow, according to Jersey City, N.J.-based ISO. Currently, Farmers uses ISO's LOCATION (PPC and Wildfire Services) and A-PLUS in connection with the underwriting of its property business. This data can be accessed through the 360Value user interface or integrated directly into Farmers' policy management systems.
MARYSVILLE MUTUAL SIGNS CONTRACTS WITH CONNECTIVE
Connective Technologies Inc., Houston, announces the signing of contracts with Marysville, Kan.-based Marysville Mutual Insurance Co. for licensing and implementing TEAM-UP Download and TEAM-UP Translation Solutions. The TEAM-UP suite of products provides once-and-done processing in an industry compliant, data-secure environment for agency downloads.
"After completing a market survey with our agencies and identifying agency Download as a top requirement, we decided to invest in this automation," says Trent Moser, president of Marysville Mutual. "We had been evaluating the TEAM-UP product suite for more than a year and determined that its SOA technology framework, feature/function robustness, and ease of use would provide a value-added, premier service for our agencies and policyholders. All of which allow us to achieve our goal of making it easier to do business with Marysville."
TEAM-UP Download is designed to be an Internet-secure offering leveraged by more than 50 P&C carriers in providing accessibility to more than 20,000 communicating agency pairs using more than 40 different agency management systems throughout the United States.
CAPITA LIFE AND MAJESCOMASTEK EXPAND LICENSE
MajescoMastek's parent company, Mumbai-based Mastek, expanded its license and service arrangement with London-based Capita Life & Pensions for its Elixir software to support the customer base of Capita's business process outsourcing (BPO) operations in the UK life and pensions market.
This expanded agreement, signed on May 29, includes an enhanced support and maintenance arrangement based on Elixir as the strategic platform of choice for the new product launches and legacy migrations/consolidations.
"Having Elixir as part of our overall life and pensions BPO solution proposition gives Capita a real competitive advantage," says Steve Parkinson, managing director Capita Life & Pensions. "Capita already administers a significant number of policies on Elixir on behalf of our customers, and with this new capability and expanded service arrangement, we are confident we can expand this to cover the majority of the 22 million policies we currently administer."
BCNEPA SELECTS AUDIO SEARCH SOLUTION
Nexidia Inc., an Atlanta-based provider of audio search and speech analytics solutions, announced that Wilkes-Barre, Pa.-based health insurer Blue Cross of Northeastern Pennsylvania (BCNEPA) selected Nexidia's speech analytics solution to improve service quality and member satisfaction.
With Nexidia's Enterprise Speech Intelligence (ESI) solution, BCNEPA was able to quickly analyze their call center audio data and pinpoint the root causes behind a spike in call volume within the first 30 days of solution deployment, according to Nexidia.
To understand the increase in call volume in late 2007, BCNEPA turned to speech analytics to find answers to help maintain their superior member satisfaction and service levels. BCNEPA turned to Nexidia's QuickStart Solutions for contact centers to categorize customer conversations by call type and analyze call patterns.
With Nexidia's hosted OnDemand deployment option-minimizing deployment time as well as additional hardware or software investments, BCNEPA determined the specific system, process and policy changes in their claims processing operations that contributed to the persistent spike in call volume.
"In our industry, we face the constant pressure of providing fast, responsive and accurate service, while also keeping on top of compliance and confidentiality issues, so we turned to speech analytics to gain a much higher degree of visibility and understanding over our call volume patterns and trends on an ongoing basis," says Bob McDonald, director of customer service of BCNEPA.
HEMIC TURNS TO PREDICTIVE ANALYTICS SOLUTION
Honolulu-based Hawaii Employers' Mutual Insurance Co. (HEMIC) selected Denver-based Valen Technologies Inc.'s UnderRight predictive analytics solution to provide additional rigor, insight and precision for HEMIC's workers' compensation underwriting process.
Given the challenges of today's soft market combined with an increasingly competitive environment, HEMIC looked to Valen for predictive analytics technologies to complement and maximize the expertise of HEMIC's underwriting staff, according to Valen.
"The combination of Valen's data, experience and product made for a very compelling value proposition," says Bob Dove, HEMIC CEO. "We were impressed with Valen's predictive analytics solutions, but their knowledge of the workers' compensation underwriting process and their experience developing predictive models also were very attractive to us."
"Predictive modeling will provide us a competitive edge in this tough market," Dove says. "Being able to segment and closely analyze our business will enable us to credit aggressively and accurately on an account-by-account basis."
NORVAX AND WELLPOINT LAUNCH QUOTING FEATURE
Norvax Inc., a Chicago-based provider of technology and Internet tools for insurance sales, has teamed with WellPoint Inc., an Indianapolis-based health benefits provider, to launch a new quoting platform intended to help agents and brokers to better serve the Medicare-eligible health insurance market.
The new senior quoting feature is designed to enable agents to generate and compare multiple Medicare supplemental plans in seconds. Agents also can increase their Web site's lead-generating capability by embedding the Norvax senior quoting engine, which enables visitors and clients to run self-service quotes 24 hours a day, according to Novax.
"Baby boomers are the biggest segment of the population, and seniors make up the fastest-growing market in individual health insurance," says Kris Schneider, staff VP Strategic Partners at WellPoint. "This tidal wave of 70 million boomers is creating a huge opportunity for health insurance agents. With the Norvax senior quoting engine, agents will be equipped to satisfy this demand. They'll be able to serve more seniors-faster and with more options."
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