Claims

New York City - The National Association of Insurance Commissioners (NAIC) has launched a comprehensive public education program to assist consumers with information about insurance issues.Under the banner of "Insure U," the campaign has two objectives: to help consumers get smart about insurance as their needs change at different life stages, and to educate them about how to avoid being scammed by fake insurance companies. The program includes an online education site and public service announcements in English and Spanish.

Okemos, Mich. - Sircon Corp. and Efficient Forms LLC, Littleton, Colo., have formed an exclusive partnership designed to build on each other's products and customer bases to create an online platform for agent hiring, contracting and licensing for insurance agents, carriers and regulators. The partnership is a step toward creating a single online community where insurance carriers and their distribution partners can collaborate through an integrated, coordinated network, according to the two companies."This combination provides online capabilities that can transform processes between insurance carriers and their distributors," says Gary Gummig, vice president of business development at Sircon. "By integrating online services that will automate transactions and workflow, and virtually eliminate paperwork, this creates opportunity for unprecedented process breakthroughs."

Bettendorf, Iowa and Edison, N.J. - Fraud Resource Group, a business, insurance and identity fraud investigative and consulting firm, is using StrikeForce Technologies' products to launch a Web-based identity validation and authentication service, called the Trusted Customer program, which is designed to help prevent fraudsters from setting up fraudulent accounts and stealing high-value vehicles, goods and rental equipment.Construction equipment theft is a $1 billion annual problem, according to the National Insurance Crime Bureau, and only 10% to 15% of stolen equipment is ever recovered, according to the National Equipment Register. Fraudsters, posing as customers and contractors, use false credentials and stolen credit card data to "rent" vehicles, tools, and construction equipment. The rental stores lose equipment and potential income until a replacement arrives, and the legitimate credit card holder is left to dispute the charge.

Newark, Calif. - Increases to hurricane landfall frequencies in the U.S. hurricane model from Risk Management Solutions (RMS) will increase modeled annualized insurance losses by 40% on average across the Gulf Coast, Florida and the Southeast, according to RMS. And modeled annualized insurance losses in the Mid-Atlantic and Northeast coastal regions will increase by 25% to 30%, relative to those derived using long-term 1900-2005 historical average hurricane frequencies.This new view of risk is driven by an increase of more than 30% in the modeled frequency of major (Saffir-Simpson Category 3-5) hurricanes making landfall in the U.S. to account for current elevated levels of hurricane activity in the Atlantic basin, which are expected to persist for at least the next five years. When compared with a pre-2004 historical baseline, as has been previously employed for quantifying insurance risk, the increases in modeled annualized losses are closer to 50% in the Gulf, Florida, and the Southeast.

Jersey City, N.J. and Oakland, Calif. - ISO and InsureWorx have formed an alliance to integrate ISO's Workers Compensation Information Services (WCIS) solution modules with the policy and claims administration software applications from InsureWorx.Under the agreement, customers of ISO's workers' compensation products and the InsureWorx PowerComp offering will be able to access and exchange policy and claims data seamlessly between the two companies' applications. This combination of InsureWorx's workflow processing software with ISO's data management and analytic tools is designed to provide workers' compensation carriers with a more comprehensive end-to-end solution.

Warren, N.J. - Property/casualty insurance and risk management increasingly play a role in financial planning, according to a survey by the Chubb Group of Insurance Companies.Fifty-seven percent of the 102 financial planners surveyed indicated that they evaluate their clients' asset protection through property/casualty insurance. An even higher number, 72%, said they determine if their clients have an appropriate level of liability insurance.

Chicago - Aon Re Inc. has studied the results of companies that have implemented more sophisticated customer segmentation strategies over the past few years. The results of the study show that while the overall returns for the personal lines property industry still lag the cost of capital, "we are starting to see differentiating results between insurers," says Randall Brubaker, Aon Re Services senior vice president. "This differentiation has been somewhat masked by the increased frequency of hurricanes during the past two years but the underlying progress is evident."According to Brubaker, "It is clear that the core disciplines and customer segmentation tactics that are commonly utilized with personal lines automobile have improved the financial results of the non-catastrophe personal lines property business. The next phase of improvements in personal lines property will include substantial improvements to the disciplines and tactics associated with customer level segmentation on catastrophe risk. The current more active hurricane period has only accelerated the need to implement more sophisticated catastrophe-based customer level segmentation strategies."

Boston - Results from a study conducted by HighRoads, a provider of benefits lifecycle management (BLM) solutions, show that employers can use competitive auctions to provide health benefits more affordably. Its first annual price elasticity survey shows that using a transparent bidding environment reduces contract costs by more than 15%, on average.The survey is based on the outcomes of nearly 50 request-for-proposal (RFP) processes by companies with 5,000 employees or more. On average, vendors revised bids two to three times to win a company's business, reducing fees by 7% to 21% for fully insured and self-insured medical, dental, life, disability and other benefits plans.

New York - At more than $40 billion in insured losses, Hurricane Katrina is the costliest hurricane on record. Insurers have tallied most of the property damage and business interruption losses, but Katrina's financial effects will continue to be felt for a very long time.Floodwaters in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina bathed New Orleans and surrounding areas in a "toxic soup" of infectious organisms and hazardous chemicals. Ruptured oil tanks and pipelines covered portions of the area and nearby waters with an estimated 8 million gallons of oil. A resulting large number of environmental-related lawsuits have been filed, potentially exposing the insurance industry to billions of dollars in addition losses.

Bejing, China - IBM and Taikang Life Insurance Co. Ltd., China's fifth largest life insurance company, are launching a collaborative research project to help solve some of the information management challenges facing the worldwide insurance industry today.Taikang Life will use the worldwide resources from IBM's China, Almaden and Tokyo labs to improve the performance and usability of business intelligence applications embedded in the insurer's federated database systems.

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."

Nashville, Tenn. - Obesity as a major cause of death in the U.S. may still be in dispute, but one thing is certain: It costs American employers millions of dollars each year in higher employee health costs.In the wake of recent studies disputing the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's earlier finding that obesity causes 400,000 deaths a year, a new study published in the March Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine finds obesity is responsible for 2.1% of all diagnosed medical claims dollars for men and 2.8% for women. Of ten lifestyle health risks considered, obesity was by far the most costly--accounting for approximately 14% of lifestyle-related health costs for men and 25% for women.

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.

Armonk, N.Y. - IBM has signed an agreement to acquire Language Analysis Systems Inc. (LAS), a privately held company based in Herndon, Va., that develops multicultural name recognition technology. Financial terms were not disclosed.This acquisition furthers IBM's companywide initiative aimed at helping clients address emerging business challenges and better compete in the global economy through access to accurate, reliable and trustworthy information.

Arlington, Va. - The Casualty Actuarial Society (CAS), ERM Institute International Ltd (ERM-II), and the CAS/SOA Risk Management Section are jointly launching a major research project titled, "ERM Analysis of Property-Casualty Insurance Companies.""We are going to establish a new theoretical foundation for enterprise risk management, with practical guidance for ERM implementation," says Dr. Shaun Wang, executive director of ERM Institute International, and lead researcher for the project.

Chicago - Most of the insurance industry's discussion post-Hurricane Katrina has focused on the significant rating agency model changes and the compounding effect of catastrophe model changes. But a new study by Aon Re Global tells the investor side of the story."Investors clearly understand the differences between insurers and reinsurers and have set differing tolerances for each," says Stephen Mildenhall, Aon Re Services executive vice president and author of the study. "Our study confirms that investors expect higher earnings and capital volatility from reinsurers than they expect from insurers."

Boston - The National Association of Insurance Commissioners (NAIC) voted unanimously at its quarterly meeting in Orlando, Fla. to establish a task force to examine the impact of climate change on the U.S. insurance industry and on insurance consumers.The task force will look at how a warming climate may affect the availability and affordability of insurance for consumers and the financial health of insurance companies. The task force will also consider actions necessary to enable state regulators and insurers to mitigate and otherwise respond to these problems.

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.

Armonk, N.Y. - The IBM Chief Finance Officers Study of 900 senior finance executives worldwide reveals only 14% of insurance respondents rate themselves highly effective in supporting the CEOs efforts to grow the company.The study, developed in co-operation with The Economist Intelligence Unit, finds that at a huge cost to the future competitiveness of companies, almost 50% of executives report finance staff are tied up in transactional activities such as processing accounts and tax transactions, with only a quarter of staff focused on decision support--performance and growth focused activities. Furthermore, respondents state 64% of Insurance finance organizations do not have robust processes and activities in place to support growth.

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.