Core systems

Knowing that relationships with producers can make or break and insurer, Montgomery Insurance, a Liberty Mutual Agency Markets regional company, developed an online training and development resource for agency partners to grow their businesses. Agent Learning Center is designed to alleviate the time and financial constraints that agencies face in developing new producers and staff.

President Barack Obama laid out the first detailed legislative proposal for health care reforms to the United States’ $2.5 trillion medical care system this morning with an approach that largely follows the Senate’s version of legislation proposed in December.

With their successes in the United States, U.S. health insurers should review growth opportunities overseas, specifically Asia and Europe, according to analysts at Conning Research & Consulting.

After getting wind of unauthorized sale of health insurance products to approximately 2,500 Floridians, Florida Insurance Commissioner Kevin McCarty has ordered seven companies and some of those companies’ officers to stop selling health insurance in the state.

The Group of North American Insurance Enterprises (GNAIE) executive director Douglas Barnet took to the podium at the 12th Global Conference of Actuaries to rally for the use of earned rate for discounting life insurance contracts.

Hewlett-Packard ratcheted up the battle for a share of increasing cloud computing revenues this week by launching a new design service aimed at helping organizations accelerate the adoption of cloud-based infrastructures.

Essent Guaranty Inc. marked its arrival Thursday, announcing that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac have approved it as an official mortgage insurer, making the Radnor, Pa., company one of only eight with such a designation.

Variable annuities (VA) sales experienced a rough start to 2009—a decline of 26% in the first six months of the year. But, the fourth quarter numbers—up 3% to $32.6 bllion—softened the blow. VA sales were only down 18% for the year, as quarterly VA sales slowly improve from the first quarter, according to LIMRA's U.S. Individual Annuities quarterly sales survey. VA sales totaled $127 billion.

Claims officers, more than ever, face rising loss costs, increased levels of litigation and higher rates of fraudulent claims, according to results from Towers Watson’s fourth “Property & Casualty Insurance Claim Officer Survey, The Economic Landscape and Operational Performance Metrics.”

Instead of purchasing new software, more than half of nearly 2,200 IT executives and technology decision-makers from Forrester's Business Data Services survey say they will be spending IT budgets on the operation and maintenance of existing applications in 2010. The fastest-growing small to midsized software markets will be customer relationship management or information and knowledge management, more than 20% of all small- and medium-size businesses (SMB) have concrete plans to implement these in 2010 or later.

A.M. Best http://www.ambest.com, Fitch Ratings http://reports.fitchratings.com, Moody’s Investors Service http://v3.moodys.com/Pages/default.aspx and Standard & Poor’s (S&P) http://www.standardandpoors.com/home/en/us released ratings updates. The following are some of the most recent:

Insurers seeking to improve operational efficiency using predictive analytics will have new solutions from which to choose, and professional assistance in their implementation, thanks to an enhanced partnership between Dublin-based Accenture and Cary, N.C.-based SAS, announced today.

Christopher Swift, previously vice chairman and CFO at American Life Insurance Co. (ALICO), an operating company of American International Group (AIG) with $89 billion in assets and operations in 54 countries, will join The Hartford Financial Services Group Inc. as EVP and CFO. Effective March 1, Swift, a 27-year insurance industry veteran, will replace Lizabeth Zlatkus, who will assume the chief risk officer role at The Hartford.

Toronto-based Manulife Financial Corp. announced that it has decided to establish separate audit and risk committees that will be populated by board members.

The Risk and Insurance Management Society Inc. (RIMS) says pay-disclosure rules created by the New York Insurance Department are insufficient to protect consumers and urged the department to reopen a period of public comment on the proposal.

Much has changed in the use of standards and technology during the past four years, and the Association for Cooperative Operations Research and Development, (ACORD), Pearl River, N.Y., intends to confirm how those changes are affecting efficiencies in the insurance industry.

Customer satisfaction with the goods and services that Americans buy remained strong in the fourth quarter of 2009, according to the American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI), produced by ACSI LLC. The same doesn’t hold true for the property/casualty insurance industry. While the full index, which measures buyer satisfaction of 200 companies in 44 industries and government agencies, is largely unchanged (dipping 0.1%), the P&C industry declined 1.2% to an ACSI score of 80 (on a 100-point scale).

At a time when drivers and their habits—especially in regard to cell phone usage—are under a microscope, The Allstate Foundation released information regarding the behavior and attitude of teenage drivers.

Vendor recognized for document management expertise.

As deadline nears, NFIP extension is dropped from jobs bill.