Customer service

Hartford, Conn. -ING, a global financial services leader, has begun offering its defined contribution clients many of the regulatory documents related to their retirement plan accounts in electronic form. Clients can choose to receive account statements and disclosure documents such as prospectuses, prospectus supplements and annual and semi-annual reports via ING's secure site."ING is committed to making it easier for customers to manage their financial information," says Jim Pedrick, senior vice president, worksite and institutional marketing, ING. "Many of our customers have told us they prefer not to get as much paper mail from us. It's a question of volume, and many also have an environmental concern. By offering e-delivery, our customers can now choose to receive regulatory documents from us electronically."

Hartford, Conn. - Aetna has enhanced its suite of consumer tools and information designed to enable members to more easily track and manage their health care expenses. Aetna members now can download their claims information to their personal computer via Aetna Navigator, Aetna's password-protected member Web site, enabling them to manage the information in a data file or spreadsheet. The option to keep claims information in a personal file is particularly relevant at tax time, when consumers often need to create a record of their medical expenses for tax deduction purposes."While Aetna members have long had the opportunity to view their claims activity on our Web site, this enhancement allows them to electronically 'grab' the information, save it in a file or spreadsheet, and sort it to best suit their individual needs," says Christine B. Skelly, head of health-related financial solutions for Aetna.

Geneva, Ill. - Professional liability insurer Insight Insurance Services Inc. has launched an upgraded and redesigned Web site with improved functionality designed to enable independent insurance agents to interact easily and quickly with company and better serve their clients.The new site, at www.insightinsurance.com, includes more tools and features to deliver downloadable forms and applications and facilitate paperless policies. The Web site is structured for easy navigation to Insight's three specific areas of professional liability expertise: architects and engineers, accounting professionals and insurance agents.

Columbia, S.C. - BlueCross BlueShield of South Carolina won a bronze World Wide Web Health Award for its online precertification, a feature on the company's Web sites that allows hospitals and physicians a quicker, simpler way to obtain authorizations.The World Wide Web Health Awards recognize the best health-related Web sites for consumers and professionals. The Health Information Resource Center (HIRC), a national clearinghouse for consumer health information programs and materials, organizes the program.

Wakefield, Mass. - Darwin Partners Inc., a provider of a range of IT services to Fortune 1000 companies, and Suzsoft Co. Ltd., a China-based provider of outsourced application development, quality assurance, and localization services, have announced plans to merge.Founded in 2001, Suzsoft is privately held and has grown rapidly to become a leading IT outsourcing platform in China specializing in several industry verticals, including financial services, health care, technology, insurance and telecommunications.

Washington - The National Association of Professional Insurance Agents (PIA), a Washington, D.C.-based national association that represents member insurance agents and their employees who sell and service all kinds of insurance, but specialize in coverage of automobiles, homes and businesses, has reaffirmed its opposition to any proposals that call for a so-called "optional" federal charter for insurers.

Glastonbury, Conn. - Open Solutions Inc., a provider of integrated, enterprisewide data processing technologies for banks and credit unions, today announced that it has completed its acquisition of the Information Services group of New Jersey-based The BISYS Group Inc., a provider of outsourced solutions to investment firms, insurance companies and banks.Open Solutions believes that this transaction will enable it to expand its product offerings, further increase its presence in the financial services marketplace and extend its client base to include the healthcare, insurance and corporate finance industries. Under terms of the completed agreement, Open Solutions purchased the Information Services group for a total cash consideration of approximately $470 million, subject to adjustment.

Brookfield, Wis. - Fiserv Inc. has acquired certain assets of CT Insurance Services and CCH Wall Street, two product lines of Wolters Kluwer Financial Services. The acquisitions, which include Xchange, Securities Registration and Producer Licensing software from CT Insurance Services and the Financial Training product line from CCH Wall Street, will add online application capabilities for insurance licensing and securities registration, along with NASD exam preparation courses to Fiserv's suite of products. Terms of the asset purchase were not disclosed.CT Insurance Services is a provider of enterprisewide systems for insurance licensing and securities registration. The Web-based systems from CT Insurance Services capture data at the origination point, enabling the filer to prepare and submit licensing and registration filings electronically. The Financial Training solutions from CCH Wall Street provide NASD Exam Preparation, including an interactive virtual learning environment, and innovative in-person and self-study solutions.

Denver - InsureMe, an insurance marketing company delivering leads to agents, has unveiled the InsureMe Agent Blog, which is designed to provide industry information to insurance professionals.A Web log, or "blog," is a self-published journal, made accessible to the public via the Internet. Unlike corporate Web sites, blogs are generally less formal and more interactive; the author posts an article and readers can respond with comments and questions.

Today, various high-tech systems, such as GPS and online map services, help people navigate the physical world, taking the guesswork out of the task of getting from point A to point B.People can now go online, type in some address criteria and a map is generated instantly, detailing critical intersections, which way to go and when to turn. What the claims world needs is an analogous system-one that helps the claims adjuster navigate the complex terrain of business and regulatory requirements.

Everyone loves a story about the "little guy" who succeeds. From the children's classic The Little Engine that Could to numerous business books that describe how a couple of college buddies put a couple of bolts together in their garage and invented something that turned them into millionaires, tales of human perseverance and redemption touch a deep chord in the soul.This is one of those stories. It's about a group of four IT people at CUNA Mutual Group who faced what seemed an almost impossible feat. They were charged with custom-building a customer relationship management system in six months with a budget of $1 million.

The customer comes first. We've all heard that phrase, but many insurers would be hard-pressed to prove it's a strategic and tactical reality.Why? A number of carriers implementing customer relationship management (CRM) systems are hopeful that CRM's ability to provide profiling, micro-segmentation, and predictive analysis to reveal the preferences and proclivity of customers will help maintain their existing customer base and drive new business.

The insurance industry, long saddled with paperwork-intensive processes, has become prime turf for enterprise content management (ECM) solutions. ECM is the catchall phrase for what was originally a plethora of solutions, ranging from imaging systems to records management.To carriers seeking to expand their business lines and speed up processing at as little additional cost as possible, content management may be more than some glitzy new technology; it may fundamentally change the nature of the insurance business.

Ten years have passed since the Web made its debut, threatening to eliminate intermediaries in the insurance sales process. But, after all these years, only a small percentage of insurance consumers actually purchase their policies online.The Internet has evolved, however, and it serves an important role in insurance.

Segundo, Calif. - Two U.S. surveys of property/casualty insurance customers show a large, untapped opportunity for cost control through electronic billing.Conducted for Computer Sciences Corp. by MarketSearch Corp., a survey of car and homeowner insurance billing methods found 88% of auto insurance customers and 93% of homeowner insurance customers still receive bills by mail. Yet 73% of respondents surveyed indicated they would be willing to pay their insurance bills over the Internet. A second survey that asked approximately 350 P&C professionals at CSC's Connect 2005 conference about their own personal insurance experience confirmed these findings.

Schaumburg, Ill. - Expanding on its seminal 2002 study report, "A Comparative Analysis of Claims-based Methods of Health Risk Assessment for Commercial Populations," the Society of Actuaries (SOA) has appointed Milliman USA to produce an updated version of the study.The 2002 report, which evaluated the state of the art in predictive modeling software for health care claims at that time, provided an unbiased forum for comparing the technology and methodologies then available in the market. With the passage of three years and the continuous refinement of these methodologies and software, the SOA strongly felt a fresh look at the tools would provide immediate practical benefits to the health care community.

Dallas - Affiliated Computer Services Inc., a provider of business process outsourcing and information technology solutions, has been awarded an information technology outsourcing (ITO) contract with UnumProvident, a disability income insurer. The five-year agreement is valued at $84 million.Under the terms of the contract, ACS will provide a full range of operational support services for UnumProvident's mainframe and help desk operations, and will assist in the management of the mid-range and end-user environments.

Cleveland - Axentis, a provider of governance, risk and compliance (GRC) management solutions that is included in a Gartner research report titled, "Adoption of Software-as-a-Service Is Happening Outside of CRM," has made the report available on its Web site at www.axentis.com.The resport analyzes the emergence of the software-as-a-service (SaaS) model and its widespread adoption in new industries including compliance management, which Gartner states is currently the second largest market for SaaS solutions.

Los Angeles - Farmers Insurance Exchange has begun serving civil summons and complaints upon Redding, Calif. auto glass company Onsight Auto Glass and its owner, accusing them of taking part in a scheme designed to defraud Farmers and its policyholders. The civil complaint, which is similar to prior successful lawsuits against auto glass businesses and body shops who submitted false insurance claims, seeks not only damages for the fraud allegedly committed, but seeks injunctive relief, where the courts are asked to order a halt to these deceptive practices.Outlining a highly unusual and aggressive billing scam, the lawsuit details how the alleged perpetrator deliberately over-billed Farmers for services on 455 occasions. As alleged in the civil complaint, the defendant created a sham office in a remote area, so it could manipulate its billing. In fact, the only things located where the shop is claimed to exist were abandoned mines and a shack. There was no electricity, no running water and certainly no auto glass business. Under national guidelines, automobile glass claims are paid at a premium if the shop is located in less densely populated areas. As explained in the complaint, defendant created documentation that the shop was located in a remote area, so it could charge Farmers significantly more.

Chicago - Danish insurance company ALKA is fighting customer fraud and enhancing customer services with PredictiveClaims, an application developed by SPSS Inc. ALKA recently purchased and implemented the software in an effort to improve claims handling efficiency while reducing the cost of fraudulent claims.ALKA is one of the five leading insurance companies in Denmark. To differentiate itself in a highly competitive market, the company aimed to optimize its expensive claims handling processes and offer better service to customers. ALKA sought to enable "fast-track claim handling" while still sifting out the fraudulent cases from its high claim volumes. Industry experts estimate that on average 10% of all claims are fraudulent, whereas usually only 0.5% to 1% of fraud is actually being detected.