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Essent Guaranty Inc. marked its arrival Thursday, announcing that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac have approved it as an official mortgage insurer, making the Radnor, Pa., company one of only eight with such a designation.

Variable annuities (VA) sales experienced a rough start to 2009—a decline of 26% in the first six months of the year. But, the fourth quarter numbers—up 3% to $32.6 bllion—softened the blow. VA sales were only down 18% for the year, as quarterly VA sales slowly improve from the first quarter, according to LIMRA's U.S. Individual Annuities quarterly sales survey. VA sales totaled $127 billion.

Just about everyone dreams of making that big splash, that big score or that big impression that catapults themselves into fame, stardom, renown and/or lots of money. Just ask the thousands who waited for days at each of the audition sites for a chance to sing for 20 seconds in front of the American Idol judges.

Ironshore Inc., a provider of specialty commercial property and casualty coverage, announced that its Specialty Casualty division will now offer Employment Practice Liability Insurance (EPLI) for its public entity clientele. The new employer insurance emerged from an announcement earlier this month that the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) had received a record number of employment discrimination complaints in the previous year, a trend the EEOC expects to continue to flourish due to the current economic climate.

Claims officers, more than ever, face rising loss costs, increased levels of litigation and higher rates of fraudulent claims, according to results from Towers Watson’s fourth “Property & Casualty Insurance Claim Officer Survey, The Economic Landscape and Operational Performance Metrics.”

Liberty Mutual Group announced plans to spend $300 million to expand its global headquarters in Boston. As a result of the expansion, the company expects to add 600 new full-time jobs.

Zurich announced the release of Zurich Pro Plus, an enhanced Errors & Omissions (E&O) coverage to address the needs of a broad range of business professionals, including consultants, and media and information technology customers.

As I write this, near-term predictions are multiplying for improvement in leading indicators; however, the pressure on cost containment remains strong. How should quality play into this cost reduction discussion? That question is likely to evoke strong opinions.

Instead of purchasing new software, more than half of nearly 2,200 IT executives and technology decision-makers from Forrester's Business Data Services survey say they will be spending IT budgets on the operation and maintenance of existing applications in 2010. The fastest-growing small to midsized software markets will be customer relationship management or information and knowledge management, more than 20% of all small- and medium-size businesses (SMB) have concrete plans to implement these in 2010 or later.

A.M. Best http://www.ambest.com, Fitch Ratings http://reports.fitchratings.com, Moody’s Investors Service http://v3.moodys.com/Pages/default.aspx and Standard & Poor’s (S&P) http://www.standardandpoors.com/home/en/us released ratings updates. The following are some of the most recent:

Insurers seeking to improve operational efficiency using predictive analytics will have new solutions from which to choose, and professional assistance in their implementation, thanks to an enhanced partnership between Dublin-based Accenture and Cary, N.C.-based SAS, announced today.

In a recent conversation with a vendor, I was asked if there was any way in which we [Celent] could encourage/support the standardization of request for information documents sent out by insurers. Think ACORD Standards for RFIs! At the heart of her question, was a sense of deep frustration at the evaluation process which inhibits the vendor from highlighting or differentiating themselves. I have some sympathy with this view.

Master Data Management, MDM, is one of those great ideas that everyone agrees on, like maintaining a good diet and getting exercise. But then everyone resists actually doing it. Small wonder my friend Dave Linthicum once said the biggest job in MDM was “Managing Dumb Meatheads.”

Amsterdam-based financial services firm ING is stressing retirement planning in its latest marketing campaign.

Christopher Swift, previously vice chairman and CFO at American Life Insurance Co. (ALICO), an operating company of American International Group (AIG) with $89 billion in assets and operations in 54 countries, will join The Hartford Financial Services Group Inc. as EVP and CFO. Effective March 1, Swift, a 27-year insurance industry veteran, will replace Lizabeth Zlatkus, who will assume the chief risk officer role at The Hartford.

Toronto-based Manulife Financial Corp. announced that it has decided to establish separate audit and risk committees that will be populated by board members.

The Risk and Insurance Management Society Inc. (RIMS) says pay-disclosure rules created by the New York Insurance Department are insufficient to protect consumers and urged the department to reopen a period of public comment on the proposal.

Much has changed in the use of standards and technology during the past four years, and the Association for Cooperative Operations Research and Development, (ACORD), Pearl River, N.Y., intends to confirm how those changes are affecting efficiencies in the insurance industry.

Customer satisfaction with the goods and services that Americans buy remained strong in the fourth quarter of 2009, according to the American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI), produced by ACSI LLC. The same doesn’t hold true for the property/casualty insurance industry. While the full index, which measures buyer satisfaction of 200 companies in 44 industries and government agencies, is largely unchanged (dipping 0.1%), the P&C industry declined 1.2% to an ACSI score of 80 (on a 100-point scale).

At a time when drivers and their habits—especially in regard to cell phone usage—are under a microscope, The Allstate Foundation released information regarding the behavior and attitude of teenage drivers.