Claims

HARTFORD, Conn.--The paper application for Builders Risk coverage has gone the way of the thatched roof, replaced by electronic application submission, rating, quoting and binding from The

COLUMBUS, Ohio--Grange Insurance is introducing a new extranet Web site for its independent insurance agents featuring technology to streamline business processes. The site also offers comprehensive functionality that helps agents manage the sales process and their Grange policies. The new Web site, http://www.grangeagent.com , is being rolled out to Grange's 1,200 independent agencies.

PALO ALTO, CALIF--Corporate America's information architecture is replete with obsolete, redundant and unused software applications--so many, in fact, that maintaining them drains tens of billions of dollars per year from the most information-intensive companies alone. However, nearly three quarters of these companies have no process in place for retiring outmoded software and less than half conduct regular software audits to see how much software is on the network.

BOCA RATON--The LexisNexis RiskWise Rate Evasion Evaluation service helps insurance providers prevent application and premium fraud using sophisticated models powered by public records data.

ALPHARETTA, Ga.--ChoicePoint today announced its acquisition of Priority Data Systems, based in Omaha, Neb., a provider of comparative rating software solutions to the independent insurance agency market. Terms of the acquisition were not disclosed.

Cedar Rapids--Fiserv Insurance Solutions, a unit of Fiserv, Inc. and an innovative solutions provider for the insurance industry, announced availability of the 1.2 version of Fiserv Advanced Billing, a Web-based system utilizing the J2EE (Java 2 Enterprise Edition) platform.

NEW YORK-- A poll of attendees at The Conference Group's 16th Annual Executive Conference for the Property-Casualty Industry has found that executives expect changes in the brokerage and regulatory models to have fundamental and long-lasting effects on the industry, including downward pressure on industry compensation, with pricing likely to increase.

EL SEGUNDO, Calif.--Computer Sciences Corporation

BOSTON--Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts (BCBSMA) has purchased the Interwoven Enterprise Web Change Management solution, powered by Interwoven OpenDeploy, to enable faster, accurate and cost-effective synchronization of a disaster recovery site for its member and provider Websites. BCBSMA also purchased the Interwoven Self-Service solution to maintain fresh, personalized content on its Provider Portal.

PORTSMOUTH, NH--Bottomline Technologies today announced the expansion of the company's financial Business Process Management (fBPM) solutions. These fBPM solutions are designed to streamline paper-driven order-to-cash and purchase-to pay processes -- enabling organizations to more effectively manage their financial assets and trading partner relationships.

Newark, Calif.--Risk Management Solutions (RMS), the world's leading provider of products and services for the management of catastrophe risk, today announced that it provided the risk analysis for a securitization of U.S. hurricane and earthquake risk by The Hartford Financial Services Group, Inc.

Seattle--Safeco announced it is once again expanding the product breadth available on its single-platform online sales center Safeco Now. In a breakthrough move for small-business insurance sales, the company has introduced functionality allowing independent distributors to quote and issue commercial multi-peril (CMP) policies in as little as five minutes.

One problem facing insurers who write commercial automobile coverage is that in states with mandatory auto liability reporting, also known as ALIR, carriers must report policy changes and cancellations electronically to state Dept. of Motor Vehicles (DMV).

Exstream Software Inc., Lexington, Ky., announced today an agreement with Kanematsu Electronics Ltd. (KEL) in Tokyo to market the company's products in Japan. Under the terms of the agreement, KEL will offer Dialogue, WebVerse, AFP Studio and future Exstream products as part of its solution set for managing document information infrastructures. Exstream chose Kanematsu for its strong customer relationships in the Japanese market, specifically in the mail order, insurance, security, credit card and utility industries, the company stated.

DARIEN, Ill.--Quotesmith.com Inc., a provider of insurance quotes from over 200 leading companies, has received a subpoena requesting documents and seeking information from the State of Illinois Department of Financial and Professional Regulation, Division of Insurance. Quotesmith.com intends to cooperate fully with the Illinois Division of Insurance.

WASHINGTON--Addressing the rising cost of healthcare should be one of the top items on the domestic agenda for the new Congress, according to a national poll from the Blue Cross and Blue Shield Association (BCBSA). The poll results were released at a forum today co-sponsored by BCBSA and Forbes magazine on the future of healthcare at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C.

New York, NY--MetLife announced that it's online employee benefits management portal, MetLink, received the 2004 E-Fusion award for Customer Service and Benefits Management. This prominent industry award, presented at the AM Best Insurance and Technology Conference, is awarded to insurance companies and their affiliates for outstanding, resourceful uses of technology in the insurance industry.

FALLS CHURCH, Va.--The Accredited Standards Committee (ASC) X12 and the Data Interchange Standards Association (DISA) have launched the ASC X12 Implementation Guide Request for Interpretation Web site.

The incentive of insurers to explore online learning, beside the low travel costs and reduction of lost agent and employee productivity, is the fact that carriers can turn around training relatively quickly. This is essential with so many new products, regulatory compliance requirements and other liability issues nipping at their heels.

BOSTON--According to an analysis conducted by AIR Worldwide (AIR), a leading risk modeling company, the 2004 hurricane season should not be considered rare. The analysis, based on the AIR hurricane model, revealed that insurers should expect to see four hurricanes make landfall in the U.S. approximately once every 12 years. The expected frequency of four loss producing hurricanes in Florida is about once every 150 years--still within the range to which most insurance companies manage their catastrophe risk.