Subject Root Tag

I had the pleasure recently of meeting malcom gladwell, the well-known New York author of "The Tipping Point" and his latest treatise, "Blink." Gladwell had been invited to speak to a group of insurance and banking executives on the theories contained in his new book; namely, that great decision-makers are not those who process the most information or spend the most time deliberating, but those who have perfected the art of "thin-slicing."Thin-slicing refers to the snap (in the blink of an eye) decisions we make based on the ability to filter-from an overwhelming number of variables-the very few factors that matter to the subject at hand.

UNICA ACQUIRES SANE SOLUTIONSWaltham, Mass.-based Unica Corp. has acquired Sane Solutions, a supplier of Web analytics. This acquisition accelerates Unica's vision for delivering enterprise marketing management solutions that improve results across all channels and operations for brand, interactive and relationship marketing. Unica made the decision after looking at Sane Solution's open data architecture, ease of use and on-premise and hosted deployment options earned them a loyal customer base.

Anti-money laundering (AML) Compliance Prog-ram: Hopefully, this term is not new to you, because the deadline for 31 CFR 103.137 compliance is May 2, 2006.This regulation, which is part of the USA PATRIOT Act, was developed to better protect a class of financial institutions from potential abuse by criminals and terrorists, which will in turn enhance protection of the U.S. financial system, according to the Federal Register.

You have heard, and probably have even used, the phrase: "Time is of the essence." No one knows that better than insurers answering requests from customers who want their information now. Hence, the real-time phenomenon in the industry.After discovering customer data wasn't easily accessible, executives at Sioux Falls-based South Dakota State Medical Holding Co. Inc. (Dakotacare) decided the company needed a business intelligence tool to retrieve claims data from its database of 140 million records.

Insurance Networking News recently interviewed Steven Hauck, co-founder and president of AgencyPort Insurance Services Inc., a Boston-based provider of Web-based agency portal and agency interface software for P&C companies. Hauck's experience with Web-based standards includes nine years in a variety of financial services sales and marketing management positions with The E*Trade organization, New York. Hauck has been active in the insurance industry since founding AgencyPort in 2000.INN: What are the benefits to carriers of incorporating ACORD XML standards into agency-facing Web technology?

When Brigitte Hamilton looks back on the humble beginnings of her organization's intranet, there were only six divisional areas of the site and upwards of about 500 pages.That was in 1997. Since then, Oregon's largest workers' compensation insurance company, Salem-based State Accident Insurance Fund of Oregon (SAIF), has added nearly a dozen other divisional areas to its Web site, resulting in a page count pushing 15,000.

SEEC UNVEILS ENTERPRISE WORKSPACE AND PROOF OF VALUE FOR SOASEEC Inc., a Pittsburgh-based provider of business component software for the insurance and financial services industry, has unveiled its Enterprise Workspace Suite, an integrated set of Web-based services-oriented business applications (SOBAs) for life/annuities and property & casualty carriers. The SEEC Enterprise Workspace Suite comprises four customizable applications, or "workspaces," that integrate data and logic from business-critical systems. Those workspaces include a producer/agent workspace, agency workspace, a policy workspace and a customer self-service workspace. The company also is offering prospective customers a license-free, no-risk opportunity to try its business component software. With this proof of value program, SEEC will customize, integrate and deliver two SOA components from the SEEC Advantage Library at a customer's site inless than 30 days.

NEXT PHASE OF SEGMENTATION: CAT RISK SCORESChicago-based Aon Re Inc. has studied the results of companies that have implemented more sophisticated customer segmentation strategies over the past few years, and the results show improved financial results in the non-catastrophe personal lines property business. The next phase in personal lines property will include improvements to customer-level segmentation on catastrophe risk, according to Aon Re. The ability to pair the catastrophe scores at the policy and location level with insurance, credit and other core multivariates will enable insurers to improve the quality of pricing for all of the risks insured within the policy, the company claims.

LIFE POLICY ADMINISTRATIONSecurian Financial Group Inc., a St. Paul, Minn.-based provider of financial products, selected the AdminServer Policy Administration System from AdminServer Inc., Chester, Pa. The system will be implemented as a common platform for the rapid development, launch and efficient administration of Securian's new life insurance products. The implementation also includes IllustrationServer, which uses AdminServer's Common Calculation Architecture. This will provide Securian a processing model with a common set of business rules between policy illustration and policy processing.

The best analogy for insurance technology solutions may be "trying to put a square peg in a round hole." And I suppose no matter which cliché you use, the meaning is the same: making an inappropriate object or solution fit where it doesn't really belong.With a plethora of similar technology solutions invading the insurance industry, determining which one really is "next-generation," "cutting-edge" or "the perfect fit" is often virtually impossible. For instance, the confusion surrounding one of today's most useful and functional technology solutions-enterprise content management (ECM)-has put more than one insurer in a tough spot.

New York - In an effort to improve the quality, availability and performance of its Web-based Policy Express policy issuance system, Hastings Mutual Insurance, a regional insurance company serving the Midwest, has deployed AppSight Application Problem Resolution System from Identify Software. Policy Express is a vital business application that is accessed by nearly 850 Hastings agents each day as they quote and write customers' policies. Ninety percent of all new homeowners and personal automobile policies that Hastings issues are processed though Policy Express."We were initially looking for a performance management solution to improve our service levels by detecting application performance problems before they become a productivity issue for our agent community," says Bob Eshelbrenner, CIO of Hastings Mutual Insurance. "With AppSight, we can not only identify our applications' performance problems faster, we also gain the visibility to rapidly determine the root cause, leading to a much faster resolution, which is the end-game after all."

Overland Park, Kan. - Brooke Franchise Corp., a subsidiary of Brooke Corp., is acquiring all property/casualty retail customer accounts from InsWeb Insurance Services. These auto and homeowners policies were written through InsWeb's Web site. Most of the acquired accounts are located in geographical areas where Brooke franchises are located and Brooke Franchise plans to sell these accounts to existing franchisees who want to generate additional revenues.Brooke Franchise also acquired from InsWeb a significant amount of account information that provides cross-selling and other opportunities to Brooke franchisees. This marketing information will be analyzed by Brooke's advertising center and distributed to local franchisees in a manner that protects customer privacy.

New York - The Guardian Life Insurance Company of America has launched a new proprietary Web-based system designed to help financial representatives use the Internet to enable their clients to instantly gauge their financial health.Using the system, financial representatives and their clients can coordinate accounts from a menu of more than 3,000 financial institutions, access copies of legal and financial documents from anywhere in the world, and get an up- to-date snapshot of their financial well-being through a "Living Balance Sheet."

Farmington, Conn.-InsurBanc, a federal savings bank organized in 2001 specifically to serve independent insurance agents, brokers and their clients, is focusing its efforts to offer competitive personal banking products such as checking accounts, savings accounts, certificates of deposit, retirement accounts, credit and debit cards and online banking."Now that more and more agents have placed their trust in us and realize our commitment to helping them succeed and plan for their business futures, they are also looking to us for competitive personal products," says David W. Tralka, president and CEO of InsurBanc.

Toronto - IT Governance 2006, a symposium designed to equip financial services and other organizations with the knowledge needed to identify and implement a sound IT governance framework, including the IT Infrastructure Library (ITIL) and Control Objectives for Information and Related Technology (COBIT), will be held August 6-8 in Orlando.

Chapin, S.C. - With roots in the insurance industry, General Information Services Inc. (GIS) claims to be one of the two original providers of nationwide background investigations.

Toronto - One of the country's largest providers of health, dental, group, life, disability and long-term care benefits, Aetna Inc. has selected CiRBA's data center intelligence (DCI) solution to capture and better understand the attributes and dynamics of the company's data center assets and resources"Aetna is expanding its business through acquisition and organic growth at an accelerated rate, with revenues increasing to over $22.5 billion in 2005," says Patti Schlosser, head of server & storage services, of Aetna Information Services. "Supporting an employee base of 28,000, Aetna's business segments demand increased flexibility, performance and reliability from its IT resources. With the growth of our business, the size, diversity and complexity of our IT infrastructure have dramatically increased, requiring us to have a firm grip on the management of the technologies and processes within that environment. We view CiRBA's Data Center Intelligence (DCI) as a solution that will immediately address Aetna's configuration management and compliance reporting requirements."

Baltimore - With last year's record catastrophe losses of $58 billion still fresh in listeners' minds, AIR Worldwide President and CEO Karen Clark warns property/casualty claims professionals that they face "a 5% chance we'll have losses greater than Hurricane Katrina in 2006."In her keynote remarks at the 2006 PCS Catastrophe Conference, Clark also predicted catastrophe losses "will double about every 10 years due to increases in the numbers and values of properties at risk."

Des Moines, Iowa - Recognizing the value of saving time and money with online access to disability claim information, The Principal Financial Group is offering enhanced employer reporting capabilities for long-term and short-term disability. A new report design will give employers daily access to information such as claim status and trend data."When we started seeing a need from a few customers for this type of reporting, we realized this reporting model would benefit all of our group disability customers," says Cindy Ford, claims director, the Principal Financial Group. "Our goal is to provide employers not only with the information necessary to understand their current employee claims, but also with a trend reporting program that might help reduce claims going forward and enable employees to continue working."

Honolulu - St. Paul Travelers has released a new and enhanced dashboard for e-CARMA, the customer portal to its risk management information system.Launched at the Risk and Insurance Management Society Inc. (RIMS) conference, e-CARMA is available for demonstration. Customers can view a choice of three distinct dashboards that are available directly from e-CARMA's home page. These dashboards automatically organize and visually present actionable information (red flags), performance trends, and claim outcome and metric drill-down analysis.