Last week in Las Vegas at the ACORD LOMA Forum, Insurance Networking News hosted the seventh annual Vanguards in Insurance Practices Awards ceremony. More than 150 software and service providers received votes from their customers. Six insurers, including AXA Global Direct and Zurich North America, and nine vendors walked away with awards this year.
Lloyd Chumbley, ACORD's VP of Standards (left), chats with attendees before the ceremony begins.
Chuck Johnston, research director for Celent, opens up the ceremony with an explanation of the methodology and takeaways from the results.
The mPhasis team enjoys some commentary from Johnston.
Holli Gronset of INN (left) and Johnston congratulates Wendy Gibson of BenefitMall (center), which received two third-place awards: Customer Experience Solutions and Insurance Core Solutions.
Bruce Winterburn of Vertafore accepts all five of the company's second-place awards in the categories of Back Office & Support Systems, Customer Experience Solutions, Decision Support Solutions, Insurance Core Solutions and Strategic Partner.
Guidewire takes home five first-place awards for Strategic Partner, Insurance Core Solutions, Decision Support Solutions, Customer Experience Solutions and Back Office & Support Systems. Accepting, here, is Brian Desmond.
LexisNexis' Bill Agee accepts the third-place award in the Emerging Technologies category.
The team from winning LexisNexis cheers on the other winners.
IBM takes home a second-place award in the Emerging Technologies category and a third-place award in the Strategic Partners category. Accepting here is IBM's Carey Ellexson.
Chumbley explains the Phase II portion of the awards and about why standards are still the keystone to effective insurance operations.
Grange Insurance receives a runner-up award. Accepting the award from INN's Carrie Burns (center and Chumbley is Avi Greenfield of HP (left), which is the company that submitted the nomination.
Hiscox Small Business Insurance receives a runner-up award. Accepting the award is Ernie Hursh, of Bolt Solutions, formally SeaPass Solutions, which is the company that submitted the nomination.
Jim Schallert accepts the runner-up award on behalf of Mutual of Enumclaw (nominated by Hyland Software).
The Dominion of Canada General Insurance receives third place. Accepting the award is Liza Smith of OneShield, which is the company that submitted the nomination.
AXA Global Direct Avanssur receives first place for its claims processing project. Accepting the award is Denise Garth of Innovation Group, which is the company that submitted the nomination.
The Vertafore team sets up its own photo shoot to celebrate its five awards.