Core systems

Hartford, Conn. - The Innovation Group (TIG), a UK-based provider of policy, claims and conversion technology products and services, will partner with Document Sciences (DocSci), a provider of real-time content publishing products, to automate claims reporting.

Dublin, Ireland - Claims management will be the largest IT investment made by US property & casualty carriers looking to improve operational processes this year, growing to $4.5 billion by 2007, according to a report issued by Research and Markets, a market research firm based in Dublin. The report indicates that carriers' objectives will be automating first notification of loss, the initial customer/claimant touch point reducing manual processes, and streamlining workflow throughout the process.

Austin - United Teacher Associates Insurance Co. (UTA) is launching an initiative to Web-enable Medicare supplement insurance enrollment as well as routine agent services. The company recently signed with Cleveland-based IdeaStar Inc. to design, develop and host a state-of-the-art Web site for UTA-appointed agents. The site is targeted for launch this Fall. The site represents UTA's first foray into online, electronic signature-based enrollments for senior health and life products. Top producing UTA agents are eager to obtain online processes as they seek to stay competitive with market forces. The vision of UTA's President Billy Hill is to automate agent enrollment, agent servicing and the Medicare supplement insurance education and enrollment process. The new Web site is expected to process several thousand Medicare supplement applications per month in a paperless fashion. Senior life enrollment and other products will be added in the future.In addition, the new capabilities will help attract other agents into UTA's fold. "Site design and architecture, creating an enjoyable yet efficient and accurate agent experience, are critical in the effort to recruit and retain agents," says Mike Wise, vice president of IdeaStar Insurance Technologies. "The seamless integration with Lifepro, UTA's back-end administration system, will complete the workflow and enable high-speed policy issuance."

Anaheim, Calif. - At the 77th Annual IASA Educational Conference and Business Show held this week in Anaheim, Calif., IASA announced a technology education initiative that will involve a vendor collaborative approach. It has joined forces InsureWorx, an Emeryville, Calif., provider of modular software, to develop and deliver a specialized insurance technology program for IASA member companies. The initiative will be launched with a series of InsureWorx-sponsored Webinars to provide in-depth presentations and discussions on critical topics currently affecting insurance company information technology departments.

Simsbury, Conn. - The Hartford Financial Services Group Inc., appointed Terry Walker as senior vice president and chief information officer (CIO) for its Hartford Life Inc., subsidiary.

Southfield, Mich. - Proforma Corporation, a business process modeling and analysis software company, announced it has joined with business process management (BPM) providers to answer industry demand for interoperability between business process analysis (BPA) and BPM. The consortium agreed to support a common interchange format (CIF) that will facilitate the exchange of business process models between BPA tools, such as Proforma's ProVision BPMx, and other BPM solutions.

Zurich, Switzerland - Swiss Re is aligning its management structure to its strategic objectives, the company reported today. Focusing on profitable growth and the efficient use of capital, Swiss Re will structure itself into three separate business units to be named Client Markets, Products and Financial Services.

New York -- Folksamerica Reinsurance Co. has promoted Brian Kensil to the position of Chief Operating Officer.Folksamerica's claims, information technology, human resources and administration departments will report to Brian in addition to his current responsibility for contracts, underwriting services and risk management.

In part as an industry response to legislation passed this session mandating that insurers give consumers more information regarding insurance policies to help Florida residents better prepare for hurricanes, the Florida Insurance Council announced a Hurricane Central Web site (www.flains.org).

Washington D.C. - The National Association of Insurance Commissioners' (NAIC) plan to apply Sarbanes-Oxley (SOX) corporate disclosure and accounting rules to non-public carriers will take center stage at the National Conference of Insurance Legislators' (NCOIL) Financial Services & Investment Products Committee meeting, which will convene on July 7 from 1:45 to 3:00 p.m., during the NCOIL Summer Meeting in Newport, Rhode Island.

Austin , Texas - To improve its policy management business processes, Aflac is implementing a business process management (BPM) platform. The Columbus , Ga. , carrier, which insures more than 40 million people worldwide, said it plans to use TeamWorks software, from Austin, Texas-based Lombardi, to gain new insight into process performance through business activity monitoring.

Addison, Texas - Universal Conversion Technologies (UCT), an Addison, Texas provider of data analysis and conversion services, today announced that Cincinnati-based Great American Financial Resources, Inc. (GAFRI), a subsidiary of American Financial Group, completed its conversion project. The project included the conversion of 30,000 fixed annuity policies from a recent acquisition, to the PDMA LifePRO system, GAFRI's primary administration system for all lines of business. UCT provided consulting expertise for the data mapping and project management, as well as its data conversion architect conversion.

A growing number of insurers are harnessing technology to improve services to customers victimized by identity theft.Some have established outreach programs that give policyholders access to third-party identity theft restoration services. One of them, Columbus, Ohio-based Nationwide Insurance Co., is providing other capabilities as well.

A national life settlement broker is taking an eBay-like approach to the secondary life insurance market, linking cash-strapped policyholders with institutional investors.In April, Life Settlement Insights drew a handful of institutional investors online to test the open-forward auction format of a new venture called LifeX, an electronic communications network that runs on a proprietary auction platform from HedgeHog Inc. Executives with Cleveland-based Life Settlement Insights claim they've created the life settlement industry's first online exchange and are considering extending the capability to other life settlement brokerages.

Carriers have been addressing Internet security ever since they realized the public network exposed them to denial of service attacks and theft of policyholder information. Firewalls, intrusion detection, encryption, virus scanning, access management-all these tools are staples in carriers' IT operations.But what about insurance agencies? Carriers exchange customer data with agencies via the Internet daily, and agents regularly access policyholder data within carrier systems.

When online insurance marketplaces first appeared on the Internet horizon more than five years ago, they filled an important gap in carriers' online business strategies. At that time, most insurers had Web sites that industry experts mockingly referred to as "brochureware" to describe their informational, non-transactional qualities.Insurance marketplaces attracted the attention of consumers who were surfing the Web to comparison shop for auto, home and even life insurance. Typically frequented by young, Internet-savvy Generation Xers and baby boomers, these online insurance marketplaces provided participating carriers and independent agents with hundreds of leads from consumers who were patient enough to wade through screen after screen of questions before they received their prize: multiple quotes from brand-name insurers.

ZURICH UPDATES SURETY EXPRESSZurich North America, the Schaumburg, Ill.-based commercial property/casualty insurer, has launched Surety Express Release 2, an updated version of its free online surety bond processing system. Offering a number of key enhancements, including improved screens and time-saving features, Release 2 enables agents in all 50 states and the District of Columbia to rate, underwrite, quote, obtain and issue commercial and contract surety bonds directly from the Zurich Web site at www.zurichna.com/surety.

Avon, Conn. - The traditional business model used by carriers in the benefits arena is about to be challenged, according to Eastbridge Consulting Group Inc., a marketing advisory firm serving insurance and financial services organizations in the United States and Canada .

Hartford, Conn. - ACORD XML standards are going a long way for The Hartford Financial Services Group Inc. The Hartford, Conn. carrier has harnessed the standards to provide its agents with the ability to speed up placement of midsize commercial accounts.

New York - Helping members better analyze and report their returns on standards investments, ACORD released a return on investment (ROI) analysis toolset at the 2005 ACORD LOMA Insurance Systems Forum, held in Orlando on May 22-24.