Data and information management

(Dec. 18, 2003) - The Principal Financial Group, the nation's 401(k) leader and premier provider of employee benefits, today announced a strategic agreement to acquire the Molloy Companies, headquartered in Indianapolis, Ind.

HARTFORD, Conn.--The Hartford Steam Boiler Inspection and Insurance Company (HSB) today introduced a plug-in property underwriting program for insurers and alternative risk transfer (ART) organizations. The program combines property reinsurance capacity with a complete turnkey set of underwriting and risk management services.

MORRISTOWN, N.J.--Under the New Jersey Insurance Fraud Prevention Act, Allstate New Jersey Insurance Company (Allstate New Jersey) and Encompass Insurance today filed a multi-million dollar civil complaint in the Superior Court of Morris County against Scott Greenberg,

WASHINGTON--Alice Ross, an engaging 71-year-old grandmother, died when her Buick was rammed by a car packed with gang members allegedly staging a crash in Brooklyn to make fake injury claims against insurance companies.

DALLAS--Docucorp International, a leading provider of enterprise information solutions, announced today the availability of its content management solution for the insurance and financial services industries.

WESTWOOD, MA.--North American life insurance application activity declined 4.6% in November year-over-year according to the MIB Life IndexSM, marking 2003's ninth month of decline. Application activity in the U.S. and Canada decreased 3.6% and 11% respectively when compared to November 2002 levels. Year-to-date (YTD) results reflect continued downward pressure on life insurance applications with U.S. activity declining 4.9% YTD and Canadian activity declining 1.8% YTD versus the same period, prior year.

Bolivar, MO--Duck Creek Technologies, Inc., a provider of product management software and services to the insurance industry, today announced that California-based, Mercury Insurance Group has selected Duck Creek Technologies' Example Author(TM) and Example Server(TM) as the rating solution for Mercury's Next Generation systems. In addition to offering the scalability required to support Mercury's growing business, the Duck Creek solution provides integration with the new Web-based systems.

COPENHAGEN--Accenture has been selected to implement its Web-based Claim Components software application at Topdanmark, a leading property and casualty insurance company based in Denmark. Topdanmark is the tenth insurer, and the first in the Nordic region, to license Accenture Claim Components software solution.

Penn-America Group, Inc., which includes the nationally recognized insurance operations of Penn-America Insurance Company and Penn-Star Insurance Company, has selected the TyMetrix' electronic invoicing solution across its claims services group.

New Haven, CT--Metaserver, Inc., a leading provider of business process integration (BPI) solutions for the insurance industry, today announced the release of Metaserver 4.6. The new release builds on Metaserver's rapid, business-focused approach to integration projects and includes several features designed to make it easier for insurance companies to transform data from agencies and service providers into the format required by underwriting, policy administration, and other insurance systems. Metaserver 4.6 also offers a number of enhancements that give organizations increased flexibility for incorporating business rules into the automated processes that orchestrate the interaction of multiple systems.

LA QUINTA, Calif.---Gallaudet Technologies announced the release of Version 2 of their "Do Not Call" software introduced in October. This upgrade adds several new features making compliance with the new Federal Trade Commission laws easy for anyone who may have to call potential customers. The program, that has a free, 7-day trial period, is available for download from the www.DNCLookup.com website. After the 7-day free trial, the one-time registration fee is just $29.95.

CHATTANOOGA, Tenn - UnumProvident Corporation announced today that its insurance subsidiary in the United Kingdom, Unum Limited, has reached a new arrangement with the Swiss

HARTFORD, Conn.--Three years of rising property- casualty rates have finally had a favorable impact on loss reserves, substantially reducing estimated deficiency, according to the latest annual study on the subject by Conning Research & Consulting.

HARTFORD, Conn. -Travelers Property Casualty Corp. and Applied Systems, Inc. announced one of the industry's most significant implementations of industry-standard, ACORD-based agency/carrier interface (SEMCI) processing to support the transition of business relative to recent agreements between Travelers and other carriers.

HARTFORD, Conn.--Insurity Inc., a ChoicePoint company, today announced that Insurance Company of the West (ICW), a business unit of The ICW Group, has selected Insurity's Commercial Intellisys property/casualty policy processing services to support its nationwide commercial P&C business. ICW's primary decision drivers were Insurity's large existing client base, and a track record of similar applications already in production servicing the wider industry.

PARSIPPANY, NJ--MFXchange Holdings, Inc. (MFX) announced the launch of its end-to-end application service provider (ASP) commercial lines solution. The comprehensive processing system is Web-based and features the many benefits of ASP-based products. MFX's Ray Roy, Chairman, explains, "MFX's founding mission is to build technology solutions specifically to meet insurance carriers' needs for increased productivity, shorter processing timeframes and lower costs. We provide this, in part, through ASP processing that does not require large capital outlays for hardware and software and is highly cost effective."

(St. Louis, MO-December 11, 2003) Genelco Software Solutions, a division of Liberty Insurance Services Corporation and a developer of software applications for the life and health insurance industry, has joined IBM's ISV Advantage Initiative, a program designed to provide independent software vendors (ISVs) with technical and marketing support to help meet the specific needs of small and medium business (SMB) customers.

POOLESVILLE, Md., Dec. 12-- The insurance Fraud DetectionSystem (FDS), developed using Visual Analytics, Inc.'s award winning product, VisuaLinks, was successfully launched this past week by the Korean Financial Supervisory Services, FSS. The FSS announced that they have implemented and will be using this system to detect fraud through the integrated analysis of insurance-related data including accidents, contracts and claims.

HARTFORD, Conn., Dec. 11-- Aetna InteliHealth, Aetna's online consumer health information resource, and Aetna Navigator, the company's self-service website for members, have received 2003 eHealthcare Leadership Awards for Health/Healthcare Content and Interactive Site, respectively.

Most consumers admit that purchasing life insurance is not something they relish-mainly because of the issue of their mortality. For life insurers, selling their various products has been difficult as well, but this shortcoming has little to do with consumer resistance.