Data and information management

Fitch affirms all AXA entities; S&P lowers credit rating on Manulife Financial, rates Berkshire Hathaway’s senior notes; A.M. Best comments on Aetna; Moody’s affirms WellPoint, Munich Re.

Towers Watson survey says insurers are increasingly employing predictive modeling as rates continue to be weighed down by excess capacity.

Virtualization and solid state disks are the next most important in terms of overall impact going forward, study says.

Surprisingly little data combined with new technology can uncover connections between individuals that may hurt insurers and insureds.

Insurers, banks, credit unions and more affected by partnership.

CSC has launched a four-stage, pragmatic program for financial services firms to use cloud services to gain flexibility and agility in their computing environments. CSC says it is leading financial services firms to the cloud, without jeopardizing high-performance, security and compliance requirements. The staged approach is described by CSC as progressing from early use of low-risk, horizontal shared services to deployment of ancillary applications, and then a cloud-enablement of mission-critical applications, all in parallel with the introduction of unique, cloud-only functions.

A culture of complacency hampers information security efforts, and as a result, sensitive corporate data is vulnerable to tampering and theft.

Carrier will implement Detica NetReveal in their general insurance business to combat claims fraud.

John Kim also will become New York Life’s chief investment officer

Gartner research points to increased investment, though many still won’t see ROI.

Top companies in our survey grind down costs by consolidating IT and rationalizing processes. They’re growing faster as well.

Insurers that outsource the IT and administration of policies underwritten years ago can improve customer satisfaction, lower costs, and even reduce capital requirements.

Version 10.0 to further position enterprise content management solution as a foundation for case management.

The highest-priority initiatives continue to be policy admin and BI, with claims, agent portals and commissions also of importance.

New Celent report studies how carriers can maximize ROI of business process management technology.

With insurers storing vast amounts of potentially sensitive or embarrassing information, a risk mitigation culture must pervade the enterprise.

Product to offer better management of its portfolio of insurance-linked securities.

For those not on thin-client hookups, the message is clear: Know what applications are on your systems and how they work.

Improved searchability and knowledge sharing are just two of the benefits of the “less-paper” office.

Just 15% of health care CIOs surveyed were confident they could meet the April 1, 2011 deadline to qualify for meaningful use incentives.