Data and information management

Examples of insurance data breaches point to just how common they are, and what usually causes them—internal abuse and mistakes.

IT spending growth is expected to settle in at $2 trillion for 2012, according to IDC’s forecast of IT spending in 54 countries and more than two-dozen market segments, such as hardware, software, IT services and mobile.

SMA study finds customers, products, finance and investments next areas ripe for transformation.

Esurance has expanded its usage-based insurance program and now offers both UBI and traditional auto insurance in Arkansas. Esurance is backed by Allstate, the largest publicly held personal lines insurer in the United States.

Solution offers mobile applications enabled by cloud in an attempt to help business users achieve results.

InsureRight 2.0 partially designed to improve workers’ compensation loss ratios through risk-based pricing.

More than half of insurers surveyed now use anti-fraud technology solutions, according to “The State of Insurance Fraud Technology: A study of insurer use, strategies and plans for anti-fraud technology,” from the Coalition Against Insurance Fraud and SAS. However the study found that while the majority of respondents (79 percent) said that special investigations units are the sponsors of anti-fraud projects, other departments typically control the project budgets, which could slow the implementation of the technologies, the study said.

As the technology has matured, so have the marketing messages supporting it.

New report indicates that the portion of the typical IT budget—in a number of industries, insurance included—allocated to outsourcing is up nearly 23 percent.

The life and health insurer expects increased productivity and greater flexibility to enable increased scalability and forecasting capabilities.

hCentive Inc., a post-Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act health care exchange technology company, has upgraded its platform for integrating private health plans with PPACA-mandated state health insurance exchanges: WebInsure Exchange Manager. The enhancements will assure health insurers of the performance, reliability and market needs of their plans within state exchanges, the company says.

Former California Blues CIO will oversee all of IT, including maintenance and development of software applications that support Esurance’s growing policyholder base, expanding state coverage and product offerings.

As Costa Rica sends rescue teams to an area hit yesterday by a magnitude 7.6 earthquake, risk modelers have more natural catastrophe data to contend with: flood loss. Flood losses are on a rapid upswing, according to a report issued today by Swiss Re. Affecting an estimated 500 million people worldwide annually, the increase in flood-related claims has been significant, notes Swiss Re’s new report, “Flood - an Underestimated Risk: Inspect, Inform, Insure.”

Data and cloud continue to pave the way to profitable initiatives such as telematics and customer management.

SS&C Technologies Holdings Inc., a software and services provider, has launched CAMRA I-Risk for insurance companies to address emerging solvency standards by combining CAMRA’s financial reporting capabilities with a position-based stochastic simulation model.

Long-term care insurance decisions are not being made only by the elderly, according to a new report. A study conducted by the American Association for Long-Term Care Insurance notes that the youngest claimant was 24 years old when he began receiving benefit payments from his long-term care insurance policy. Now in his seventh year of receiving payments, the coverage was purchased when the claimant was 21 years old.

IT managers and data architects can take steps to make sure data applications get same level of testing as software.

Results of a Towers Watson survey of risk calibrations being used for specific market and non-market risks, revealed that the largest challenges still include interest rates, credit spreads and mortality and lapse assumptions, with up to two-thirds of firms still looking to make considerable progress in these areas.

Munich Re, Swiss Re and Allianz among A.M. Best’s review and ranking of the top 50 reinsurers based on gross premiums written.

As businesses in the Gulf Coast are finding out again, having a disaster recovery plan is critical to a business’ survival. According to the “Gulf Coast Back to Business Act (2007),” 43 percent of businesses that close after a natural disaster never reopen, and an additional 29 percent permanently close within two years. However, in the wake of the ongoing financial crisis, many disaster recovery plans are now out of date, says Victor Janulaitis, CEO of Janco Associates.