Compliance

Waltham, Mass. - Failure to properly terminate a policy tops the list of reasons property/casualty insurers are found to be out of compliance during market conduct exams, according to research from Waltham, Mass.-based Wolters Kluwer Financial Services' Insurance Compliance Solutions group. On the life/health side, failure to acknowledge, pay or deny claims within specified time frames is the most common market conduct compliance criticism for life/health.

London - Guy Carpenter & Company LLC, a New York-based global risk and reinsurance specialist and part of the Marsh & McLennan Companies, will mandate the use of electronic claims file (ECF) for in-scope claims for all Lloyd's markets from Jan. 1, 2008. This decision follows the successful implementation of Guy Carpenter's ECF initiatives and underscores the firm's commitment to further market reform, according to the company.

Washington, D.C. - The Department of Justice and FBI announced the results of an ongoing cyber crime initiative called "Operation Bot Roast," which has identified more than one million victim computer IP addresses.

Washington, D.C. - The federal government is seeking proposals to conduct trial implementations of the national health information network (NHIN).The Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology in the Department of Health and Human Services has published a request for proposals for health data exchanges of various types. The exchanges will cooperate to ensure they can implement an interoperable “network of networks” over the Internet.

San Francisco - The National Association of Insurance Commissioners (NAIC) today adopted amendments to the Viatical Settlements Model Act during the Association's Summer National Meeting in San Francisco.

New York - More than three-quarters (77%) of the 100 insurance executives representing the property and casualty and life sectors, along with key market participants who attended Standard & Poor's Ratings Services' 23rd annual insurance conference favored an optional charter for insurance regulation."It is not surprising that the conference participants selected optional federal charter with the emphasis on optional," says Standard & Poor's Insurance Practice Leader Grace Osborne. "The insurance market is becoming increasingly global in scope, and the U.S. insurance industry does not have a single voice to advocate U.S. interests with the foreign regulators and various accounting regimes."

The word "governance" has come to prominence in insurance IT circles in just the last few years, partly in reaction to the spate of federal regulation rained down by the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002, the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act of 1999 and the USA Patriot Act, which became law in 2001."The need for governance didn't become apparent until Sarbanes-Oxley and the others came along," says Karen Pauli, senior analyst in the insurance research practice at the Needham, Mass.-based TowerGroup. "SOX made it mandatory to know what's going on."

U.S. CONSUMERS WANT CONTROL OF E-HEALTH RECORDSAmericans show a strong interest in controlling their own electronic medical records, according to a national survey released at a health IT conference.

ARCOT SYSTEMS AND ADOBE WORK ON DIGITAL SIGNINGSunnyvale, Calif.-based Arcot Systems Inc. has collaborated with San Jose, Calif.-based Adobe Systems Inc. to create a new option for digital signing in Adobe Acrobat software and Adobe Reader software using "Roaming Digital IDs."

New York - In an effort to involve its members in government affairs and lobbying initiatives, the New York-based Risk and Insurance Management Society Inc. (RIMS) launched the RIMS Legislative Action Center on its Web site at www.RIMS.org/LegislativeAction."RIMS has made it easy for risk professionals to become more active in government affairs," says Terry Fleming, member of RIMS Board of Directors and director of the division of risk management for Montgomery County, Md. "RIMS is recognized in government as the voice of risk management, but we need members to become more supportive. RIMS Legislative Action Center will provide the risk management industry with the tools necessary to reach out to members of Congress and make their voice heard."

Washington - Life insurance costs could be reduced by billions of dollars annually under an optional federal chartering system, according to a new study, comprised of research from Steven Pottier, associate professor of insurance at the University of Georgia's Terry College of Business.

Tokyo - Most Japanese insurance companies are now pursuing new customer and product strategies due to regulatory reforms that are opening the banking sector as a distribution channel for insurance products, according to an Accenture survey of senior executives at one-third of the insurance companies operating in Japan.

London - Regulatory overkill is the greatest risk facing the global insurance industry, according to London-based Centre for the Study of Financial Information's (CSFI) latest Banana Skins survey, in association with PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) LLP, New York.

North Richland Hills, Texas - Katherine "Kay" Phillips, who joined HealthMarkets in July 2006 as vice president and deputy compliance officer—Corporate Legal, was promoted to chief compliance officer and associate counsel. In her new capacity, Phillips will have responsibility for and direct compliance programs for North Richland Hills, Texas-based HealthMarkets.

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.

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.

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.

As always, discord roils the insurance industry. Factions battle over issues ranging from flood insurance reform and surplus lines legislation to state vs. federal regulation.Yet the splinter groups seem to agree on a couple of things. One is the desire to reduce regulatory involvement in day-to-day business. Why? Because, many carriers say, removing the compliance monkey wrench would reduce costs, increase the bottom line and make it easier to compete in our global marketplace.

VOIP RECORDING PORTFOLIO EXPANDED BY CTI GROUP INC.CTI Group Inc., Indianapolis, a provider of VoIP call recording communications, has expanded its VoIP call recording portfolio to include SmartRecord Cards and Recording-enabled SIP Trunks.