Core systems

According to data from ACSI LLC, P&C insurers are improving customer satisfaction, while life insurers are steady and health insurers are slightly declining. For its American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI), ACSI annually conducts interviews with approximately 70,000 consumers and plugs the information into an econometric model to measure satisfaction with a wide range of industries, products and large companies. The results are released on a monthly basis, with all measures reported using a scale of 0 to 100, and this month it was the insurance industry’s turn.

United Automobile Insurance Co. (UAIC), a privately held P&C insurer specializing in auto insurance, has deployed BillingCenter as its billing management system. BillingCenter is a product of Guidewire Software, a provider of core system software to P&C insurers.

While the insurance industry was an early adopter of mobile technology for basic communication functions, it has lagged in developing and implementing internal and customer-facing applications.

Rising rates in some market segments is attributing to a newly bullish outlook on the financial prospects of insurers.

Given the tough pricing environment, skittish capital markets and litany of catastrophe losses seen in 2011, it’s hard to regard the present as a golden age for reinsurers.

The industry constantly hears about the problem of retiring knowledge workers and that young people aren’t drawn to insurance careers. The Independent Insurance Agents & Brokers of New York (IIABNY) is doing something about it. On December 7 the association hosted more than 50 high school students who participated in InVEST, an insurance industry classroom-to-career education program.

Experts say thanks to a dearth of Federal support, it isn’t a stretch to imagine a power grid cyber attack that takes out the Internet, grinding communications and businesses to a halt in the process.

Columbus Life Insurance, a provider of retirement, estate planning and advanced business planning services, has selected iGO e-App to automate and streamline business processes for independent producers. iGO is a product of iPipeline, a creator of marketing, selling and processing solutions for insurance carriers, distributors and producers.

While insurance products are inherently complex, interacting with insurance companies should not be.

COUNTRY Financial, out of Bloomington, Ill., has licensed the PolicyWriter software suite from Adaptik Corp. to serve as the heart of its next generation personal lines policy administration platform, the companies report.

With another expiration of funding for the National Flood Insurance Program looming, a continuing resolution to keep the program afloat has passed the Senate by unanimous consent.

Warm weather offers favorable conditions for car thieves, while holidays and cold weather bode well for potential victims, according to a new report from the National Insurance Crime Bureau (NICB).

Despite high levels of unemployment, U.S. business leaders say one of the biggest risks they’re facing is a talent and skills shortage, according to the 2011 Lloyd’s Risk Index.

As an IT solution for complex integration, service-oriented architecture (SOA) has seen success in some insurers’ organizations. However, from a business and architecture perspective, it leaves more to be desired, according to a new report issued today by Boston-based research and consulting firm Celent.

In 2012, the U.S. life and annuity insurance industry will be challenged to find ways to manage both capital and risk in an economically and politically uncertain year, while continuing to lay the groundwork for future growth, according to Ernst & Young's new Global Insurance Center U.S. Outlook report.

Insurers in Britain may have a new data set to consider in their predictive analytics endeavors: the increase in claims due to personal lines property/casualty policyholders’ “do-it-yourself” (DIY) home improvements.

American Fidelity Assurance Co. has chosen Wolters Kluwer Financial Services’ NILS INsource and NILS INcompass offerings to help monitor and implement regulatory changes.

Last decade, car crashes were the leading cause of teen deaths, with 16-year-old drivers possessing crash rates two times greater than 18-to-19-year-old drivers and four times that of older drivers. But Allstate and the National Safety Council think they know how to cut into the 81,000 fatalities resulting from crashes involving teen drivers between 2000 and 2009, claiming in a new report that nationwide GDL laws have the potential to prevent over 2,000 such deaths and save $13.6 billion annually.

The soft pricing that has defined the property/casualty market for years may finally be ebbing.

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services has issued a final rule to make available standardized extracts of Medicare claims data to facilitate measuring the performance of providers and suppliers. The rule has significant changes that enable use of clinical data along with the claims data.