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INN editors asked the industry's top analysts and consultants one question: What is the most innovative technology and/or project you encountered in 2011?The following is what raised eyebrows among some of the industry's most forward-thinking minds.
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Stephen Applebaum, Senior Analyst, Aite Group

"The most exciting thing in insurance technology during 2011 occurred at the three-way confluence of social media, mobility and telematics/core insurance processes. The infusion of personal information and mobile technology into insurance work streams enabled the creation of several potentially transformative P&C insurance industry applications. Carriers benefit in underwriting with custom product and pricing configuration, in claims with customer self-service, fraud management and customer service excellence, and in marketing and distribution through enhanced customer relationship management, use-based auto insurance products and a generally enhanced understanding of customers. Consumer benefits include real-time safety, roadside and travel assistance and lower auto premiums for the safest, lowest mileage drivers."
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Michael Costonis, Managing Director, Accenture’s North American insurance practice

"We have been working with a major life insurer on an exciting agile analytics initiative. Accenture’s Technology Labs, using Big Data technologies, such as Hadoop, Greenplum and Tableau, take internal and external data stores to digest and gain insight from them. We created visualizations that, among other things, helped identify the company’s higher performing financial representatives and the characteristics they share. We found that six or seven points of information can predict how representatives will perform over a period of time within 90-percent accuracy. Company leadership will now have timely and efficient access to information and will be able to use it in actionable ways."
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Ellen Carney, Senior Analyst, Forrester

"What happens when Silicon Valley meets the Red River Valley? You get The Climate Corporation’s Total Weather Insurance. The company is targeting the farm market with a risk product that, at first glance, looks like crop insurance, but in reality complements crop insurance by protecting the difference in the profit between projected crop yields and actual crop yields. Not only does the company provide a great online experience that a lot of personal lines carriers ought to take note of, it pushes leads to local agents in agricultural communities and automatically disburses a claim check should that farmer have bad weather during the growing season. And if this interesting insurance product during a time of extreme weather events isn’t intriguing enough, the company’s pedigree is sure to be interesting: It’s primary investor is Google Ventures, and CEO David Friedberg and CTO Siraj Khaliq are both Google veterans. Finally, take a peek at jobs they’re looking to fill: Climatologists, a Big Data engineer, and a variety of flavors of quant heads. And by the way, there’s a consumer version that complements travel insurance by covering those rainouts that can spoil that family trip to DisneyWorld."
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Scott Mampre, VP of insurance, Capgemini

"One of the coolest, most impactful technologies we saw in 2011 was the tablet. For example, we saw Sun Life Financial make a commitment to use RIM's Playbook. We are actually seeing a lot of companies moving in this direction. It may have started as an executive perk to allow them to review presentations and use at meetings, but tablets are increasingly being used by agents as well."
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Karen Pauli, Research Director, TowerGroup

"I had an eyebrow-raising moment at the end of our research on social media this past winter. We researched insurer social media presence in August 2010, and insurers were in a “lurking” mode, without real definition. When we revisited this research in March 2011, insurers really rocketed ahead with branding initiatives. Most notable was Farmers, which adopted a gaming strategy with Farmville. This was a brilliant way to up its brand awareness with a younger demographic that might see the name 'Farmers' and associate it with agriculture and disregard Farmers as a potential choice."
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Deb Smallwood, Founder, Strategy Meets Action

"At SMA, our research continues to reflect that insurers and solution providers are bringing a variety of software applications and technologies together to significantly elevate the business value of insurance solutions. This convergence is really powerful. The one example that just blew me away involved a combination of advanced imaging technologies on a mobile device along with a mobile application – all integrated with a modern policy admin system. The result: the ability to take content from something like a driver’s license and an insurance card and then populate the required quotation data capture to get a point-and-click insurance quote. Now that was amazing! Just imagine the combinations of applications and technologies that are possible with mobile devices. Just think how exciting it is going to be to watch the solution value escalate in our industry."
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Rod Travers, EVP, Robert E. Nolan Company

"A leading health insurer built a world-class Mobile Technology Management (MTM) capability for managing solutions (devices, apps and infrastructure) to serve the company’s growing mobile customer base. This was a strategic decision to avoid piecemeal apps and devices by building standards and core capabilities. A dedicated team put in place the people, processes and technology infrastructure to provide a management approach and detailed guidance for building, deploying and supporting smartphones and tablet computers; standardized mobile technology development and support infrastructures to enable long-term needs; and consolidated/shared technologies that achieve economies of scale.The resulting program delivers cost-effective mobile solutions that serve rapidly evolving customer needs."
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Craig Weber, SVP, global insurance practice, Celent

"Among many of great examples, one jumps out: the use of mobile technology in support of innovative products, such as limited duration/coverage policies. This idea really sings because it combines a consumer trend (mobility) with product innovation ("disposable" insurance) and leverages new technology to pull it off (location awareness on a mobile device). I don't know if it will lead to profits or lifetime customer loyalty, but I do know that it has lots of people looking at insurance through a new set of eyes. And that's exciting."