Digital distribution

Insurer also picks up agent self-service and electronic billing software.

Research using the websites of State Farm, Allstate, Progressive and GEICO indicates good drivers who live in moderate-income areas are being quoted higher prices for auto insurance, and rates vary widely across providers.

Recent statistics indicate a boon for variable annuities, and insurers, now including Nationwide, are listening.

Insurers and consumers seem to disagree about what a website should focus on, and nowadays, the consumer is always right.

With the advent of self-service and social media, customers now own company brands.

Software provider touts new offering as an SaaS, SOA-based core system available through the cloud.

Aite Group Senior Analyst Stephen Applebaum outlines the many social media initiatives insurers are embarking upon from this year's IASA conference in San Diego.

Illustration Integrator is designed to provide Southern Farm Bureau’s agents illustrations with iGO e-App to deliver a unified selling experience, according to iPipeline. Agents will leverage their existing e-signature solution, in a combined signing process, for the illustration and e-application along with e-submission.

Continued slow economic growth places a new priority on servicing distribution channels and improving service to agents, according to a new report.

Allstate, Esurance, GEICO and Travelers perform well in J.D. Power insurance website shopper satisfaction study.

Aragon Research forecasts extinction for most paper documents.

Multichannel delivery and enterprisewide implementations main selling points for providers.

Modern billing systems present the opportunity to simplify systems integration, standardize billing and provide a platform forupdating customer service capabilities.

As insurers move rapidly to adopt more consumer-centric business models, their efforts are tempered by equally imperative compliance concerns surrounding these new forms of communications and business transactions.

For employers, HRI says the net impact of the 2012 increase could be as low as 5.5 percent after accounting for changes in benefit design by purchasers. For health insurers, the decrease in spending and costs may be an opportunity to recoup expenses from the decreasing margins of previous years.

Insurance branch aims for quicker product launch and broader distribution channels with software purchase.

Suite designed to help organizations use customer satisfaction feedback to increase financial performance.

Java-based application contains tools to define custom business rules and design payment, collection and delinquency plans.

Financial advisors are so uncomfortable speaking about life insurance that more than half, 56 percent, simply don’t do it, according to a recent survey by consultancy Saybrus Partners Inc. Further, almost one-fifth (18 percent) said they were “uncomfortable” or “very uncomfortable” recommending life insurance policies to their clients. Just a third (34 percent) of the financial advisors surveyed said they were “very comfortable” recommending life insurance to their clients.

Deloitte’s “The Voice of the Life Insurance Consumer” study found that 62 percent of non-buyers had not received an unsolicited offer to buy life insurance in the past year compared to 44 percent of buyers. Another 30 percent said their employer does not offer life insurance as a benefit while 46 percent of buyers compared to 66 percent of those currently uninsured said they had not looked for life insurance on their own initiative.