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Needham, Mass. – For service-oriented architecture (SOA) to fulfill its potential, carriers and vendors need to become more aggressive in establishing enterprise governance, in adopting process and data standards, and in testing and managing service-oriented solutions, according to a study by TowerGroup, a research company based here.

Mountain View, Calif. – Vimo.com, an Internet comparison-shopping site for health insurance, shows that premiums are higher in states regulated by "guaranteed issue," which requires health insurance companies to accept applicants regardless of their health.

Stamford, Conn. - A study of catastrophic life insurance conducted since the September 11 (9/11) tragedy confirms that the life insurance industry's catastrophe reinsurance buying habits and risk management needs have changed significantly over the past five years. The study, conducted by Towers Perrin, explores how the life insurance industry's practices have evolved, what factors are driving the changes, and the industry's level of satisfaction with the exposure management tools currently available."In the years following 9/11, there has been a lot of discussion regarding how the life catastrophe market has changed. This survey provides important and non-anecdotal industry data about how insurers are managing their risk concentrations, and how they are evaluating reinsurance and risk retention strategies. The overwhelming sentiment among insurers is that coverage is still expensive relative to the perceived risk of life catastrophes," says Michael Plappert, vice president with Towers Perrin's life, accident and health practice, which is housed within the Reinsurance business.

Dearborn, Mich. - The Auto Club Group (ACG) plans to launch a Web-based service that provides special limited-time discounts and offers to AAA members. The program, DynamicDeals, gives consumer product and services companies an opportunity to provide discounts and savings to AAA's 4.1 million members throughout the Midwest.DynamicDeals, which is set to launch on June 1, 2007, will operate in conjunction with the Auto Club's current member savings program, Show Your Card & Save, but will be more oriented toward time-sensitive, targeted savings opportunities.

Des Plaines, Ill. – The nation's property and casualty insurance companies are calling for a united front in the fight against fraud after completing a two-year study that showed the industry’s efforts have been fragmented and inadequate.

WARREN, N.J. - When agents and brokers suggested that stories about losses are an effective way to illustrate the need for specific insurance products, the Warren, N.J.-based Chubb Group of Insurance Cos. listened.

New York - Insurers have made great strides in combating money laundering but many have yet to apply the power of IT to the problem, a trend some experts see as troubling.

Kansas City, Mo. - The National Association of Insurance Commissioners (NAIC) has adopted a model law development framework as part of an effort to respond to state, federal and international regulation.

Boston – Liberty Mutual Group, which has headquarters here, is acquiring Fairfield, Ohio-based Ohio Casualty Corp. for $44 per share in cash. The transaction is valued at about $2.7 billion.

Washington - Federal, state and local governments, the private sector, and American citizens themselves must be substantially better prepared to face the devastating impact of future mega-catastrophes, according to The Financial Services Roundtable, headquartered in Washington.

Minneapolis - As part of the association's Executive Education Program, the Insurance Accounting & Systems Association (IASA) will present the 3rd Annual CIO Roundtable program on Tuesday, June 5. This exclusive, "by invitation only" event will feature expert educational sessions sponsored by IASA associate member companies, including: AT&T, Document Sciences, Duck Creek Technologies and OnBase Insurance Solutions by Hyland Software. Admittance to the CIO Roundtable is complimentary to any qualifying chief information officer registered to attend the 2007 IASA Annual Educational Conference & Business Show, June 3-6 in Minneapolis.

New York - Joyce A. Phillips will join American Life Insurance Company (ALICO), a subsidiary of American International Group, Inc. (AIG), as its president and chief operating officer, effective July 9. Phillips will report to AIG Executive Vice President Rodney Martin, Jr., who is ALICO chairman and chief executive officer and chief operating officer of the organization's Worldwide Life Insurance division.

Washington - Americans show a strong interest in controlling their own electronic medical records, according to a national survey released at a health IT conference.

Insurance company IT people began kicking around the phrase "service-oriented architecture" at least four or five years ago. For short, some call it by the two-syllable name "soa," while others prefer to spell out the letters "S-O-A."However it's pronounced, SOA refers to a way of thinking nearly as old as computing itself and bound to remain relevant far into the future. It's all about creating services that save time and money because applications developers can re-use them-often on mainframes.

Feeble information technology systems simply won't meet the Herculean challenges faced by workers' compensation insurance carriers. It's a lesson executives learned the hard way at Crawford & Co., an Atlanta-based third-party administrator (TPA) that handles workers' compensation claims.After identifying the need for software to help with regulatory compliance, Bob Stevens, Crawford assistant vice president of operational compliance, recruited a purchasing team. The team embarked upon the typical purchasing path-searching the Internet for software systems, gathering software information at trade shows and listening to vendor demos.

One of my product managers recently returned from a conference on business process management (BPM). Among the many predictions he brought back was the notion that document and content management are headed for a convergence with BPM.Analyst firms such as Gartner have started examining the BPM components of content management suites, giving higher marks to those with "extended business process management functionality." (Magic Quadrant for Enterprise Content Management, October 2006.)

Malvern, Pa. – Members of the CPCU Society (Chartered Property Casualty Underwriter designation) now have access to an online tutorial that offers fundamental information about captives, the association reports. In its CPCU Society's May CPCU eJournal monthly electronic publication, "Captive Insurance Industry-What is it? Where is it? Why is it Important?," the association attempts to explain the mysteries of the captive insurance industry in plain English, starting with the history of captive insurance, the differences between captive insurance companies and traditional insurance companies, and the future market for captive insurance. The issue was written by Dennis Childs, CPCU, ARM, AMIM, ARe, RPLU, ASLI, MSIM. Childs is currently assistant vice president, commercial lines, product development, for Ohio Casualty Group. He received his CPCU in 1986 and has 35 years of experience in the insurance business in various underwriting and marketing roles with national carriers. Childs holds a B.A. degree from Transylvania University, and an M.B.A. from Boston University, with a specialization in insurance company management. Childs says that captive insurance companies have several definitions, but for the purposes of this article, he uses the following, from Kathryn Westover of the International Risk Management Institute: "A captive insurance company is a company that is wholly owned and controlled by its insureds; its primary purpose is to insure the risks of its owners, the primary beneficiaries of its underwriting profits are its insureds.” Beginning with the history of the captive insurance industry-with the first captive formed in Bermuda in 1963-Childs explains the multiple reasons behind the formation and subsequent growth of the captive insurance industry. He says the primary reason for the increase in popularity of this form of insurance was "the failure of the traditional insurance companies to meet the needs of an ever-growing and complex business unit." Childs also explains where the more popular captive domiciles are located and why captive insurance companies are important to the insurance industry and to commerce in general. Some current market status facts that Childs presents include the following:* There are 4,355 captive insurance companies worldwide.* Bermuda is the leading captive location of domicile, with 1,400 captives.* Currently 65 percent of Fortune 500 companies utilize a captive to meet at least one or more of their insurance needs.· Tillinghast estimates that the captive market now has $30 billion in annual premiums, and $130 million in assets worldwide. Childs concludes with some comments on what the future may hold in this area of insurance, saying "to meet the needs of corporate risk management for innovative and unique solutions to individual risk management, the need for captive insurance solutions will continue." The CPCU Society is headquartered in Malvern, Pa. Source: CPCU Society

For many carriers, policy administration systems are the ultimate "legacy applications." Many were custom-built years ago by in-house development teams and still run on mainframe systems with "green-screen" terminal interfaces.However, as carriers begin to explore ways to open up these systems-and make applications and data available to end-users across the enterprise-they are finding themselves at a crossroads, faced with the dilemma of whether to modernize or to replace core policy administration systems.

Customer satisfaction can make or break any business. When it comes to insurance, an agent's ability to provide top-notch customer service can have long-term consequences for revenue and can make or break a carrier's image in the marketplace. That may be why so many carriers provide agents with portals that create a win-win situation."Unknown [or objects of curiosity] a mere seven years ago, agent and policyholder portals are now required channels and are nearly ubiquitous at insurers," says "The Technology Foundations of Advantage for Insurers," a report from Boston-based Celent LLC.

To those questioning whether standards truly make a difference in our ability to function efficiently in the insurance industry, imagine a world without any. Like a congested intersection without benefit of traffic lights, chaos is bound to ensue.Agreed-upon standards embody the ultimate in collaboration: technical, personal and political. Their development requires agreement across disparate areas and agendas, yet those hard at work in their creation tend to ebb and flow with the technology requirements of the industry and focus on the promise of a win-win for all involved.