Genworth Financial is streamlining its operations. The $103 billion company, which serves the lifestyle protection, retirement income, investment and mortgage insurance needs of more than 15 million customers, operates in 22 countries, including the U.S., Canada, Australia, the U.K. and more than a dozen other European countries.

San Mateo, Calif. - Siebel Systems Inc. is stepping up efforts to tackle the rise in fraudulent claims, the San Mateo, Calif., provider of customer-facing solutions reports. Analysts estimate that fraud in the U.S. has jumped 63 % in the past four years, and more than 25% of current U.S. insurance claims contain some element of fraud, contributing to an annual cost of at least $44 billion.

Kansas City, Ks. - General Electric Co. (GE) has unveiled a plan to reorganize its 11 business groups into six. The reorganization places GE's largest Kansas City area operation, GE Insurance Solutions, in the corporate giant's commercial financial services division, headed by Michael Neal. Neal, 52, previously was president and chief executive of GE Capital Corp. and has worked in a variety of GE jobs, both in the United States and overseas, since 1979. GE's insurance operations will continue to be headed by Ron Pressman, president of Insurance Solutions in Kansas City. The new commercial financial services group will also include the parent company's leasing, real estate, corporate financial services and health care financial services operations. The restructuring also touched GE's top management ranks. Three senior executives, including Neal, were promoted to vice chairman. The company did not disclose what changes, if any, the reorganization would mean for Insurance Solution's 850-member Kansas City area work force. GE says its Insurance Solutions, formerly known as Employers Reinsurance Corp., is the world's fourth-largest reinsurance company. The other divisions created by the realignment are GE Infrastructure, which includes energy, transportation and aviation manufacturing operations; GE Industrial, which includes industrial chemicals and technology operations; NBC Universal, the company's broadcasting and entertainment operations; GE Healthcare, which includes medical technologies; and GE Consumer Finance, a global collection of financial services providers. Securities analysts quoted by Reuters and other news services said that the changes play important roles in GE's transition to a more technology-driven company.

Chicago - Brokerage giant Aon Corp. has appointed Bill Pieroni global chief information officer. Pieroni joins Aon from IBM, where he was head of that company's global insurance industry practice. He has extensive technology and industry experience, working with insurance companies and other clients on complex information and technology issues. Pieroni, whose appointment is effective Monday, June 20, will have responsibility for global Aon IT-related activities. He will be based at the firm's headquarters in Chicago.

Northbrook, Ill.-Michael J. Roche has been promoted to senior vice president of Allstate Insurance Co. with responsibility for Allstate Protection technology and administration . Allstate Protection combines the Allstate and Encompass property and casualty offerings through Allstate and independent agencies, respectively. Roche is also now a member of the Allstate senior management team.

Oakland, Calif.-A review of hurricane trends by EQECAT Inc. shows a more than a one in three chance of large hurricane catastrophe losses in the United States in the current season, based on current forecasts by the National Hurricane Center (NHC)."Although the current season might not be as severe and unusual as the 2004 season, the potential for large losses in 2005 is likely to be troubling to insurers and reinsurers, which will have to cover the potential hurricane damage claims," says Tom Larsen, senior vice president of EQECAT.

Columbus, Ohio - Healthcare Transaction Processors Inc. (HTP), Columbus, Ohio, announced it is integrating claim overpayment protection services (COPS) into its HTP Transaction Manager suite, which serves health insurers, HMOs, TPAs, IPAs and other medical payment organizations. COPS leverages ClaimsGuard technology from Bloodhound Inc., a Research Triangle Park, N.C., software company. The enhancement will enable real-time editing of claims before they are entered into the client's claim system. Through a series of business and clinical rules and other algorithms, COPS identifies anomalies in clients' claims data, such as potential overpayments, overutilization, duplicate claims and questionable provider billing practices.

Hartford, Conn. - The Innovation Group (TIG), a UK-based provider of policy, claims and conversion technology products and services, will partner with Document Sciences (DocSci), a provider of real-time content publishing products, to automate claims reporting.

Anaheim, Calif. - At the 77th Annual IASA Educational Conference and Business Show held this week in Anaheim, Calif., IASA announced a technology education initiative that will involve a vendor collaborative approach. It has joined forces InsureWorx, an Emeryville, Calif., provider of modular software, to develop and deliver a specialized insurance technology program for IASA member companies. The initiative will be launched with a series of InsureWorx-sponsored Webinars to provide in-depth presentations and discussions on critical topics currently affecting insurance company information technology departments.

Simsbury, Conn. - The Hartford Financial Services Group Inc., appointed Terry Walker as senior vice president and chief information officer (CIO) for its Hartford Life Inc., subsidiary.

Southfield, Mich. - Proforma Corporation, a business process modeling and analysis software company, announced it has joined with business process management (BPM) providers to answer industry demand for interoperability between business process analysis (BPA) and BPM. The consortium agreed to support a common interchange format (CIF) that will facilitate the exchange of business process models between BPA tools, such as Proforma's ProVision BPMx, and other BPM solutions.

Austin , Texas - To improve its policy management business processes, Aflac is implementing a business process management (BPM) platform. The Columbus , Ga. , carrier, which insures more than 40 million people worldwide, said it plans to use TeamWorks software, from Austin, Texas-based Lombardi, to gain new insight into process performance through business activity monitoring.

For insurers, handling claims is not only costly in terms of paying for damages, it ultimately can cost them customers: A poor claims experience will motivate angry policyholders to switch carriers.Processing paper-based claims creates bottlenecks that prevent effective communication between the affiliates in the claims value chain, a condition that inflates claims cycle time and impairs customer relations. As business leaders of claims departments huddle with their information technology counterparts, automating claims to more effectively assign, manage and close claims files has become the order of the day.

From the highest executive to the lowest-level associate, business people in corporate America are creatures of habit-often to a fault.Take paper processing. The reliance on paper documents might represent a drag on day-to-day workflow, but to business people accustomed to traditional processing methods, paper provides a comfort zone-inefficiencies and all.

Avon, Conn. - The traditional business model used by carriers in the benefits arena is about to be challenged, according to Eastbridge Consulting Group Inc., a marketing advisory firm serving insurance and financial services organizations in the United States and Canada .

Andover, Mass. - State National Companies, Fort Worth, Texas, has chosen CGI Group Inc., an independent information technology and business process services company, to provide full regulatory and statistical reporting services for their property and casualty book of business. Privately held, State National Companies includes three affiliates: State National Insurance Company, National Specialty Insurance Company and Texas-based State and County Mutual Fire Insurance Company.

Brookfield, Wis. - Fiserv Customer Centered Solutions (CCS), the customer relationship management (CRM) arm of Fiserv, launched its Enterprise Relationship Management Suite (ERM Suite), an integrated product line designed to address service and sales issues facing CEOs.

Sarasota, Fla.- Kirk A. Sexton will take the reins as chief information officer of Unisource Administrators Inc., a workers' compensation third-party administrator that provides workers' compensation products, claim management, managed care and payroll services, to more than 15,000 employers in the southeastern United States.

Peoria, Ill.- RLI, a property and casualty carrier and provider of surety bonds to niche or underserved markets, established a strategic information services department to manage and develop RLI's strategic and management information services. The newly formed department's goal will be to create accurate and consistent information that can be efficiently delivered to RLI managers and executives to enable them to react to potential problems and opportunities.The new business unit "will be essential in managing our growth and achieving greater profitability," says RLI President & COO Michael J. Stone.

Fireman's Fund Insurance Co. Novato, Calif., has taken a third major step in its total IT transformation by awarding IBM a ten-year $94 million contract to modernize a major portion of the property/casualty insurer's application, development and maintenance software into an On Demand infrastructure that could reduce the number of major applications by 70 percent while improving customer service. When completed, the work could save Fireman's Fund $200 million, more than double the project's actual cost.With IBM's assistance, Fireman's Fund will shift its IT operations to an Internet-based computing model known as a "service-oriented architecture" (SOA) that enables consolidation of costly, redundant applications. Under Fireman's Fund direction, IBM will sift through mission-critical applications using a unique IBM Business Consulting process called Component Business Modeling to determine which applications deliver the most value to the business and which processes can be refined, consolidated or eliminated.