Core systems

The legislation aims to establish a federal insurance office.

After winning approval last week for federal aid, the insurer is focused on delivering on its “historical strengths.”

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s Federal Emergency Management Agency presented USAA with the National Flood Insurance Program’s Administrator’s Quill Award. The award recognizes the company that writes the highest number of flood insurance policies within a given year.

A.M. Best Co. released ratings updates. The following are some of the most recent:

Surveys have shown that the majority of consumers support the option of a public health insurance plan as part of health care reform. This puts health insurers at a higher level of competition, and they are already stepping up direct mail in anticipation, according to Daniel Hayes, VP of insurance services at Mintel Comperemedia. Congress is crafting health insurance reform proposals now, but insurance companies have already been getting ready for change. The direct marketing competitive intelligence provider saw health insurers increase marketing direct mail offers to individuals by 18% in the past twelve months.

In testimony before the Senate Banking Committee, Treasury Secretary says creditors of the stricken insurer will be paid in full.

An Aon report says changes advanced in 2010 budget proposal will cost property casualty insurers.

The insurer's chairman and CEO will step down as soon as a replacement is found.

ACORD/LOMA saw multiple vendors pushing systems performance dashboards and ease of use for the business side, but does that mean we don’t need IT?

Sen. Bob Corker argued against enactment of sweeping legislation granting the government new resolution powers over systemically important companies, suggesting Congress should give the Treasury authority on a case-by-case basis.

The money, distributed from AIG's Fair Fund, will be mailed to more than 257,000 affected AIG investors in the next few months.

Insurers trying to obtain the sage advice of industry research experts may feel it’s akin to hitting a moving target, but the result is industry analysis excellence.

New research from Forrester finds marketing automation software the No. 1 packaged software application for insurers in 2009.

Greater press reports that senior policymakers are meeting to discuss creation of a commission to regulate financial products.

The announcement comes on the heels of last Friday's news that Ameriprise Financial Inc. also would not accept bailout money.

Karen Clark & Co., a Boston-based firm comprising catastrophe risk, catastrophe models, and catastrophe risk management consultants, reports that it has been selected by the National Association of Insurance Commissioners (NAIC) as the lead consultant in developing a recommendation on the scope, timeline and potential costs of building a national catastrophe multi-peril model for personal lines.

Three-quarters of U.S. consumers prefer buying insurance products through agents and other trusted sources, but younger and higher-income consumers are more inclined to purchase products via the Web than through an agent and are more inclined to switch insurers, according to findings of a survey of more than 1,000 U.S. consumers conducted by Burmuda-based Accenture.

Like many stakeholders in the insurance technology arena, the Association for Cooperative Operations Research and Development (ACORD) took advantage of its annual conference (the 2009 ACORD LOMA Insurance Systems Forum) this week in Orlando to bolster its influence in the industry with several announcements.

When I first set foot in the pastoral environs of the insurance industry some dozen years ago, the producers of the ACORD conference, later to become the ACORD LOMA Insurance Systems Forum, had grand visions for the event.

Service oriented architecture has many benefits, but all too often, many SOA efforts tend to languish and get mired in organizational politics and inertia. There are many reasons why this happens, but perhaps the main reason is that SOA proponents get trapped into thinking they have to take on and sell a massive, business-transforming project, with lots of planning and lots of committee meetings.