Core systems

A Swampscott, Mass., man was convicted in a Salem Superior Court this week of bilking insurers out of $30K for claims fraud. Owner of two auto repair shops, Robert Giller, 53, plead guilty to 40 counts of fraud, which included 20 counts of filing false insurance claims, 18 counts of felony larceny and two counts of attempted larceny.

The top technologies in use today by P&C insurers today are portal technology, business process management and fraud scoring, according to a new report from Celent. The new study outlines all technologies being used by insurers and lays out their adoption rates.

One week after new data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) shows that the number of children with insurance increased by 1.2 million since President Obama signed the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) Reauthorization Act in 2009, more than $296 million was awarded to states for ensuring more children have health coverage.

For Tony Kerrison, the day has long passed when it made sense to question whether cloud computing had a place in financial services companies' IT plans. Kerrison has been one of the industry's cloud computing pioneers: In 2008 he helped create an internal cloud for data center servers at Merrill Lynch (back then it was referred to as "stateless infrastructure"). This year he took the helm of the Enterprise Cloud Leadership Council, a group of corporate technology buyers developing cloud standards for vendors.

Fidelity National Financial Inc. (FNF) agreed to sell an 85 percent interest in its personal lines business to WT Holdings Inc. for approximately $119 million. Under the terms of the definitive agreement, WT Holdings will acquire Fidelity National Insurance Company, Fidelity National Property and Casualty Insurance Company and FNIS Insurance Services. FNF will retain a 15 percent minority ownership position in the personal lines business.

The top business need driving 2012 P&C insurance technology initiatives is growth, according to a survey released today by technology solution provider StoneRiver Inc. The survey queried IT leaders at U.S. P&C insurance carriers, funds and administrators about priorities, IT direction, and status of services and architecture.

New data from Liberty Mutual and Students Against Destructive Decisions (SADD) reveals that teens believe New Year's Eve is the most dangerous time of year to drive, yet it also is the holiday or event when teens most frequently drive under the influence of alcohol or other drugs.

Encinitas, Calif.-based Work Loss Data Institute (WLDI) released its 2012 State Report Cards for Workers’ Comp this week. The report, which is used to track trends and give states a grade and tier ranking based on their performance, now includes data from a 10-year period. Forty-three states are covered, plus Puerto Rico, Guam and the Virgin Islands.

MetLife Inc. took a step closer to exiting the banking business Tuesday by announcing that it is selling the bulk of its deposits to GE Capital Finance Inc.

American International Group Inc. CEO Robert Benmosche reportedly told the company’s directors that he would like to hold on to his position longer than he previously planned, the Wall Street Journal reported on its website.

With another stroke of the pen, President Obama signed a continuing resolution that keeps the troubled National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) alive until May 31, 2012. The program had been scheduled to expire at midnight on December 23.

Recent calculations from ISO and PCI indicate insurers faced extreme headwinds in their core business—underwriting.

With a net income decrease of over $20 billion and an increase in statutory combined ratio of over 8 percentage points based on year-to-year comparisons of the first nine months of 2010 and 2011, the P&C sector continues to weather a tumultuous storm. High natural catastrophe-related losses have devastated insurers bottom lines and decimated underwriting performance as a whole.

Allstate Insurance Co. is seeking to recover $6.3 million against 83 New York-area defendants in its seventh insurance fraud lawsuit of 2011. The complaint, filed under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO) and principles of common law, alleges that the defendants engaged in separate, but parallel, schemes in which fraudulent and misleading bills were submitted to Allstate for durable medical equipment, medical supplies and orthotic devices.

A call for the revision of a federal law, which allows risk retention groups (RRG) to operate nationally when licensed in a single state, has been lodged by National Risk Retention Association General Counsel Robert Myers, Jr.

Aon Corporation has agreed to pay the Department of Justice (DOJ) and Securities Exchange Commission (SEC) approximately $16.3 million as part of a settlement related to charges of foreign bribery.

Priority Data has added four township mutual partners in Minnesota. In October, Priority Data launched Farm and Home quoting for North Branch Mutual. The company says it also has signed agreements with Sverdrup Mutual, Madelia-Lake Crystal Mutual, and Has San Lake Mutual to launch quoting, rating and underwriting solutions in the first quarter of 2012.

With the stroke of a pen on Saturday, President Obama signed a continuing resolution that bought the troubled National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) another week of funding.

As the rulemaking phase of the Dodd-Frank Act continues, insurers are looking to shape the rules to determine which companies constitute a systemic risk to the larger economy.

Regardless of external factors, companies engaging in M&A activity generally outperform the Global MSCI Index by 2.9 percent based on year-to-date statistics from 2011.