Northbrook, Ill. - Allstate's board of directors today announced a changing of the guard that includes a leadership transition strategy that will occur over the next eighteen months. Current chairman and CEO Edward Liddy will step down as CEO at the end of 2006 and will be succeeded by Thomas Wilson, who currently serves as president and COO. Wilson was elected to the Allstate board of directors, and will retain the role and title of president, leaving the position of COO vacant. Liddy, who will be age 62 at his retirement in 2008, will stay on as chairman until at that time. Wilson, 48, joined Northbrook, Il.,-based Allstate in 1995 as vice president of finance and was elected CFO later that year. He was appointed president of Allstate Financial in 1999 and president of Allstate Protection, the company's largest business unit, in 2002. He assumed his current role of president and COO in May 2005. Allstate, which celebrates its 75th anniversary this year, saw its shares go up about 60% since Liddy took over, compared with a gain of about 40% in the Standard & Poor's insurance index. Allstate shares rose 60 cents to $60.72 in Monday afternoon trading on the New York Stock Exchange. In a statement, Liddy referenced Allstate's "deep management bench," and stated that Allstate is in a very strong position, "making this an ideal time for a leadership transition." Sources: PR Newswire, Reuters

Old Greenwich, Conn. - Insurance carriers recognize the need for a business continuity plan, according to a recent survey, but much work still needs to be done in the area of disaster recovery to be completely prepared. Last year's hurricane season, the September 11 terrorist attacks, and the concern over the avian flu have changed the way businesses operate, and the insurance industry is no exception, reports IVANS, the Old Greenwich, Conn., networking solutions provider that conducted the survey.Keeping your business operation up and running after a catastrophic disaster depends heavily on being able to access company data and resources. According to the IVANS survey, which was conducted in May 2006 during the ACORD/LOMA conference in Las Vegas, NV., more than 82% of insurance carriers have business continuity plans in place. However, only 25% include natural disasters; 19%, acts of terrorism; 20%, cyber terrorism; and less than 15% take into account biological/public emergencies.

Philadelphia - CIGNA Group Insurance (CGI) enhanced its disability claims reporting platform to provide customers more robust self-service capabilities via the Internet. Through one site designed to be secure and easy to navigate, employers now have access to a variety of critical operational claims information, such as advice-to-pay reports, individual claims status and new claim notifications, as well as analytical information, such as year-over-year trending data and health care reports (for customers who also have medical coverage with CIGNA HealthCare).The reporting capabilities are available to all new and existing self-insured and fully-insured disability customers who purchase any of Philadelphia-based CGI's short- or long-term disability products. The new platform, which includes a custom ad-hoc report builder is designed to help employers:

London - Eighty percent of major European insurance companies have begun their Solvency II implementation program, and, two-thirds (61%) see it as a means to improve all aspects of their risk management across the whole business, according to London-based Ernst & Young Global Ltd. However, while the benefits are welcomed, there is still much work to be done."The 2006 Solvency II Readiness Survey: Readiness and Beyond," published by Ernst & Young's Global Insurance Center, interviewed senior managers with responsibility for Solvency II in 54 of Europe's largest insurers, spread across 16 countries, with an average asset size of 110 billion Euros.

Boston - Markets in Financial Instruments Directive (MiFID), a European Union (EU) directive going into effect by November 2007, may affect the conduct of business and approach to operational risk of insurers that operate within the EU and who either provide or procure outsourced services.The directive will require that U.S. financial institutions—including insurers--operating within the EU that outsource an operational function to:

New York - New York Life Insurance Co. named Mark Sanders CTO and senior vice president of its Corporate Information department, reporting to COO and senior vice president Eileen Slevin. He joins New York Life from New York-based BKF Asset Management Inc., where he served as CTO.Sanders is responsible for New York Life's information technology vision, strategy and planning, overseeing the Enterprise Architecture and Engineering division in the Corporate Information department. In addition to serving as the CTO for BKF Asset Management prior to joining New York Life, he served as chairman and CEO of BevAccess, a combination online procurement site for licensed retail buyers, and trade media group for the alcohol beverage industry. Sanders was also a senior director for Merrill Lynch, and held leadership positions at Salomon Brothers Inc., J.P. Morgan, Sun Microsystems and Grumman Aerospace.

Portland, Maine - Companies across the disability insurance industry face similar challenges managing their claims processes largely due to rapid advancements in technology, according to results of a study of group and individual disability carriers' claims technology. The study--sponsored by Portland, Maine-based ClaimVantage Inc. and conducted by JHA, a disability reinsurance, consulting and research firm also located in Portland, Maine--revealved that 46% of the respondents indicated lower productivity levels and dissatisfaction with their current claims management technology.Some of the major issues identified in the study involve claims payment solutions, customized or over-engineered systems and image-enabled systems. Seventy percent of the respondents have semi-automated payment capabilities, while the remaining are fully automated on legacy systems with up to 20 years of in-house development built-in.

New York - American International Group, Inc. (AIG) today named Anastasia Kelly executive vice president, general counsel, and senior regulatory and compliance officer.

Chicago - Aon Consulting, the human capital consulting organization of Chicago-based Aon Corp., report that Anne Kemp and Kathleen Skapik have joined the electronic discovery business unit. This unit is part of the IT Risk Consulting group, a division of the company's Financial Advisory and Litigation Consulting Services practice.

Portland, Maine – Results of a study measuring insurance industry challenges as well as how technology can assist disability carriers in successfully managing claims operations indicate that carriers are dissatisfied with their current claims management technology.

Insurance Networking News recently interviewed Michael Bieniek, a partner in Lord, Bissell & Brook LLP's Business Technology Group, Chicago. With more than 26 years of experience in various technical and legal roles relating to computer technology, Bieniek provides advice on negotiating outsourcing and IT agreements, and on various issues relating to intellectual property, such as copyright protection for Web sites and trademark licensing.INN: What is the typical duration of an insurance outsourcing contract?

IT INFRASTRUCTURE OUTSOURCING CONTRACTThe Netherlands subsidiary of Blue Bell, Pa.-based Unisys Corp. has expanded its relationship with long-time client REAAL Insurance through a new five-year outsourcing contract with a value estimated at $11.6 million (U.S). By managing the company's IT infrastructure, Unisys will provide support 24 hours a day, seven days a week, to REAAL and its agents. REAAL hopes to achieve significant cost reductions through consolidating infrastructure outsourcing services under one vendor. REAAL will consolidate its hundreds of existing support contracts and suppliers to one central contract with Unisys, and will reduce the number of services suppliers from 20 to one.

According to 2000 U.S. Census figures, 17.9% of the U.S. population (47 million people) speak a language other than English at home. In fact, from 1980 to 2000, the number of people in the United States who speak a language other than English at home doubled.U.S. Census projections issued in 2004 state these numbers will continue to trend upward. The current number of Asian people living in the United States is 3.6% of the population. In California, this jumps to 10.9%. And the 2004 U.S. Census projections predict the percentage of Asian people in the United States will grow over time.

Zurich, Switzerland - Zurich Financial Services Group, a property/casualty insurance company, promoted John LaGrassa to senior vice president and director of ceded reinsurance.In his new position, LaGrassa will be responsible for all of Zurich's ceded reinsurance functions in North America, including the placement and analysis of all treaties for Zurich North America Commercial business units and Zurich Global Corporate in North America. LaGrassa also will have governance responsibility for treaty, captive and facultative reinsurance.

If it can do all it's purported to do, business process management (BPM) has a tall order to fill. As a structured approach to employing methods, policies, metrics, management practices and software tools to manage and continuously optimize activities and processes, BPM holds great promise. But whether the insurance industry and vendor community fully grasps its capabilities remains to be seen.Like a supersonic jet liner, BPM, also known as business process optimization, is taking off, and a host of insurance carriers and vendors alike are riding the contrails hoping for a quick lift.

Overall IT spending among U.S. insurers in 2005 will be $28.8 billion, accounting for a little less than 3% of total net written premiums, and will grow to $42 billion by 2010, according to reports from Boston-based Celent LLC.How are IT departments going to manage that spending? What software will they buy? Which software should they toss or keep? What kind of return are they getting? Insurance executives want to know answers to these questions in their own companies.

The insurance industry is awash these days in acronyms. Adding to the influx of acronyms is the confusion they tend to cause: Many don't describe what they truly represent. The number of definitions for what business process management (BPM), also known as business process optimization (BPO), is-and what it can do-are numerous. Yet, as stated in INN's cover story, its popularity is soaring."Insurance companies are relying on vendors to tell them two things: where to use it, and where not to use it," says Marc Cecere, vice president of the financial services team at Forrester Research Inc., a Cambridge, Mass., research firm.

WEB-BASED POLICY PROCESSINGAgent X Press, a suite of processing capabilities, is designed to enable small insurers to support their agents and MGAs with Web-based policy processing. The suite from Wyncote, Pa.-based IDP Inc. is available to new and existing clients of IDP's VISION 21 policy management system. Agent X Press' functionality includes online policy inquiry for billing and claims information; and quoting, application submission and issuance. Agents enter a customer's name or unique identification data, such as policy number. They can then obtain the status of a bill or a claim, or obtain an accurate quote, within seconds, according to IDP. Subsequent to providing a quote, Agent X Press will permit the agent to electronically submit the application to further speed the process.

Build it and they will come. Such was the faith in location intelligence technology from Church Mutual Insurance Co.'s leaders back in 1999 when the Merrill, Wis.-based provider of insurance for religious institutions began looking for a way to improve its claims operations.Seven years later, the insurance company is using mapping technology from Troy, N.Y.-based MapInfo Corp., in some surprising ways.

The Data Warehousing Institute based in Seattle came to the conclusion in its August 2005 report, "Strategies and Technologies for Deploying Business Intelligence," that 66% of organizations in different industries are trying to transform business intelligence (BI) from a departmental solution to an enterprise one. Only 17% of organizations have completed the task, while the remaining 17% will continue to deploy BI departmentally. This data shows that BI has a ways to go until it reaches maturity in most organizations.Newport Beach, Calif.-based Pacific Life Insurance Co. seems to have the maturity factor under control. It has implemented an enterprise server equipped with BI features.