Hartford, Conn. - In addition to traditional checks and electronic fund transfers, which deposit emergency funds directly into a customer's bank account, those who sustain losses from a natural or man-made disaster now have the option of receiving money for certain covered expenses with an emergency claim card from The Hartford. This can include coverage for the costs associated with smaller, but vital, day-to- day living essentials.The Hartford Emergency Claim Card is a debit card, issued by JPMorgan Chase, which can be used at ATM machines nationwide to withdraw cash or at stores that accept point-of-sale purchases. Point-of-sale purchases require a Personal Identification Number (PIN), unlike credit card purchases, which require only the card and a signature.

Mayfield Village, Ohio - The Progressive Corp. has appointed John P. Sauerland as the president of the Progressive Direct Group of Insurance Cos. Mr. Sauerland, 41, who currently serves as the claims general manager for the Midwest region, first joined Progressive full time in 1991 as an assistant product manager. He served at different times as the auto product manager for various states as well as the general manager for Mississippi, Minnesota and Wisconsin.CEO and President Glenn Renwick says: "I am very excited to announce John's new role. The depth of his experience in product, pricing and Claims as well as his leadership skills make him the ideal choice for leading our Direct organization in the next phase of our quest to become consumers' #1 choice for auto insurance."

Boston - If benefit managers are to truly control the significant cost from employees missing work, they need a single approach to managing disability and Family Medical Leave Act (FMLA) programs. That's because disability claims cause 55% of employee absences and FMLA drives another 25%, according to the JHA/EBN 2005 Absence Management Survey. The survey also uncovered the high cost of employees being away from work: an employer pays $260.00, on average, each day someone misses work.To give benefit managers the single solution needed to better control those costs, Liberty Mutual recently enhanced a key claims management system. Liberty SystemOne.nxt now offers benefit managers one source for managing both disability claims and FMLA time, simplifying the complex compliance maze and making it easier to strengthen these programs.

Boston - The 78th Annual Educational Conference & Business Show held by Insurance Accounting and Systems Association Inc. (IASA) concluded today after three days of events. More than 1,100 pre-registered for the show in Boston

Remember the old days of paying an electric bill or making a car payment-writing out a check, putting the bill and check into the provided envelope, slapping a first-class stamp on it and tossing it in the mailbox? Thanks to technology, much has changed, and the insurance industry is changing right along with it.The process of paying bills online has been catching on for consumers over the past few years. And, according to a recent Computer Sciences Corp., El Segundo, Calif., survey conducted by Columbia, S.C.-based MarketSearch Corp., car and homeowner insurance customers would be willing to pay their insurance bills over the Internet.

From call centers to data centers, the insurance industry continues to turn to outsourcing in an effort to manage costs and secure access to resources. Information technology assets have become vital to ongoing operations and new growth, making these outsourcing relationships more than technology arrangements-they are now critical to business success. Combined with new regulatory mandates, this trend may be forcing carriers to push deeper and engage more proactively with outsourcing vendors.IT industry analyst firm Gartner Inc., Stamford, Conn., calculates that outsourcing will capture up to 33% of all IT services spending across industries by 2008-up from 26% in 2003. The analyst firm also predicts the insurance sector will be spending more than $10 billion on outsourced services by that time.

Competition, regulatory compliance and cost cutting still drive life insurance product lifecycle management (PLM).To remain competitive in an economy with a demographic of escalating baby boomer prospects, developing and maintaining a constant flow of new product offerings requires agility, expert communication between work groups and technology to support the effort.

We've seen a lot of wacky technology job titles come and go over the years, especially among those "bleeding-edge" financial and technology companies that found themselves in fast company circles. What ever happened to the "minister of progress" or the "chief imagination officer"? Today we are seeing legitimacy offered to the "business architect," "process analyst" and "SOA enterprise architect."One name that I've always found rather interesting is "data steward." The title has been around for several years, chiefly as additional iterations of "database administrator," "data analyst" and "data master."

SAFECO NAMES WILLIAM JENKS AS CIO

NEW CSF DESIGNER FEATURESMetavante Corp., Milwaukee, has added a number of features to its CSF Designer document composition application:

Insurance CFOs seem to be get-ting a bad rap. According to a recent study, insurance finance executives are so busy dealing with compliance obligations and administrative duties, they are finding it difficult to support their CEOs' growth initiatives.Developed in cooperation with The Economist Intelligence Unit, a London-based provider of industry analysis information, IBM's 2005 Global CFO Study reflects the responses of some 900 senior finance executives across the communications, distribution, financial, industrial and public sectors in 74 countries. Of those 900, 44 respondents came directly from the insurance industry.

For many insurance companies, the challenges involved in processing claims are ongoing. Because claims often involve multiple decisions, data from various sources, and task handoffs, it's clear why carriers see the potential for improved customer service and financial results from streamlining manual claims processing.After recognizing many opportunities to automate its manual processing decisions, Blue Cross and Blue Shield of North Carolina (BCBSNC), headquartered in Durham, decided to dive right in. "We process more than 30 million claims annually, and about 12% have to be manually handled in some fashion," explains Sherman Owens, BCBSNC vice president, quality and compliance. "As you can imagine, there's a lot of costs associated with that."

The NAIC formation of a task force to examine climate change comes on the heels of devastating back-to-back hurricane seasons that caused a record $30 billion in U.S. insured losses in 2004 and as much as $60 billion in insured losses from Hurricane Katrina alone in 2005. Insurance Networking News magazine recently interviewed Tim Wagner, director of the Nebraska Department of Insurance, who is co-leading the task force, to find out what the NAIC hopes to achieve.INN: Who at the NAIC became aware of the issue, and how was it pushed forward on the agenda?

Last year was a turning point for cyber attacks. It was the year when the predominant threats on the Internet transitioned from being perpetrated by hobbyist hackers to criminals.This is according to a recent report issued by Counterpane Internet Security Inc., a Mountain View, Calif.-based provider of network protection services, and MessageLabs Ltd., a provider of messaging security with regional headquarters in New York City.

For some time now, insurance companies have made technology investments a priority. The result? Instead of disparate, paper-based information residing in hard-to-access metal file cabinets, all kinds of e-data languish in disconnected computer systems.Now, insurance companies are realizing that if they do not find a better way to use this data, the whole foray into information technology might go for little more than naught. That's where performance management "scorecard" systems come into play.

UNIVERSAL SIGNS SEVEN-YEAR BPO AGREEMENTUniversal Insurance of North America, Sarasota, Fla., has signed a seven-year agreement with CGI Group Inc. valued at between $45 and $75 million for policy and accounting business process services (BPS). Montreal-based CGI will process Universal's personal lines (book of business) including homeowners, dwelling-fire, auto, and umbrella in Texas and Florida. CGI will continue to support Universal's business processing needs as they expand their services into new markets. As part of this agreement, CGI will open a processing facility in Tampa to support Universal Insurance and other Florida-based insurance customers. CGI will initially hire 50 professionals and expects staff to grow to more than 200 professionals over the next two years.

Business rules have become a hot topic. At an industry event such as ACORD/LOMA, you'll hear many vendors talk about having business rules. We've all been here before; the buzz makes it hard for many of us to consider what we really need in those rules that help us automate processes such as claims and underwriting. Much of what we are struggling with is whether we should buy proprietary business rules capabilities that have been built into our applications, or if we should demand that our application vendors use enterprise-strength business rules solutions.Let's discuss the spectrum of what business rules can be. First, flexibility is important. At one extreme is the ability to change parameters, such as age, within the pre-defined rules for a given decision. At the other extreme are flexible solutions, where any new rule that relates to the problem can be added. The first is great when the rules are known, consistent and won't change. But, often the original application design doesn't consider industry, market and legal changes that cause us to have to define new rules we had not considered might be needed. As we have seen over the past 20 years, flexibility is critical to our ability to keep our application current.

Hamilton, Bermuda - Accenture Ltd. launched a technology delivery center in Pune, India, for software outsourcing and systems integration services. The facility is Accenture's ninth delivery center in India and represents further expansion of the company's Global Delivery Network.The new delivery center provides application outsourcing and systems integration services across the full range of technology capabilities. The center develops capabilities in enterprise technologies from Germany-based SAP and Siebel (Oracle Corp., Redwood Shores, Calif.); Net-centric technologies like Java and Microsoft; business intelligence and testing.

Durham, N.C. - The Insurance Accounting & Systems Association (IASA) reports that more than 125 insurance industry CFOs have registered to attend the 3rd Annual IASA - CFO Roundtable on Tuesday, June 6 in Boston. As part of IASA's Executive Education Program, the sessions to be presented have been designed to cater to the specific needs and interests of professionals in high-level insurance financial positions.

Boston, Mass. - Players in the global financial services industry must invest in innovation to drive competitive differentiation both with other financial institutions and adjacent industries - as well as to achieve bottom line results.