Claims

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.

PORTLAND, Ore.-- Standard Insurance Company, a subsidiary of StanCorp Financial Group, Inc., today announced the release of The Standard Select(SM) suite of insurance products, which feature enhancements to the company's Group Life, Long Term Disability (LTD) and Short Term Disability (STD) insurance options for small businesses.

Nothing tests the resolve of an insurance company's claims processing division more dramatically than a natural catastrophe.Typically, one natural disaster is enough to test the capabilities of the most competent claims units, but when four hurricanes struck the Southeast during a six-week period between August 13 and late September, it proved to be an unprecedented succession of disasters, insurers concur.

Although lending institutions have been using credit scores since the 1990s, most consumers still don't know what their credit score measures, what good and bad scores are, or how their scores can be improved.What's more, most consumers (81%) know that mortgage lenders use credit scores, but fewer (47%) know that insurers use them when underwriting homeowners policies.

When you're running an insurance company with a business model based on Internet distribution, you need to develop a top-notch Web site. That was management's goal when online insurer Esurance Inc. was launched in 2001 at the height of the dot-com bubble, and that's still the company's intention today.Esurance has implemented two new Web technologies over the past year to keep its Web site running smoothly and enable customers to effortlessly contact a service representative when they encounter a problem.

NEW YORK, NY--The Tillinghast business of Towers Perrin today announced that the EPIC Consulting staff has joined its property/casualty insurance practice. Consulting actuaries Michael Miller, Klayton Southwood, Richard Smith and Kenneth Leonard are among the new hires.

FRAMINGHAM, Mass.--Workscape, Inc., a proven provider of outsourced benefits and workforce management solutions, today announced the introduction of its new nationwide partner program. Known as the Workscape Broker Alliance Program, it is available to insurance brokers and consultants that service employers with greater than 2,500 benefits-eligible employees and wish to supplement their offering with Workscape's benefits administration solution, OneForce/Benefits.

HARTFORD, Conn.-- MassMutual Financial Group today introduced Web-based enrollment for its Strategic Edge group universal and group variable universal life insurance products, making participant enrollment fast, easy and accurate.

WARREN, N.J.--The Chubb Corporation today reported that net income in the third quarter of 2004 was $364.0 million or $1.88 per share, compared to $259.8 million ($1.37 per share) in the third quarter of 2003.

LOUISVILLE, Ky.-- In response to the growing need for affordable health benefit plans for small and mid-size employers, Humana Inc. today launched SmartExpress, a family of health insurance plans designed for businesses with 2 to 299 employees that want to better control and predict health care costs while giving their employees expanded benefits and a better health plan experience.

Newark, Calif.-- Risk Management Solutions (RMS), the world's leading provider of products and services for the management of catastrophe risk, is now offering software developer tools for its RiskLink and RiskBrowser systems. The RiskTools software development kit allows companies to efficiently integrate key components of RMS products into their internal underwriting and portfolio management systems, allowing users to access RMS decision support tools via internal system interfaces.