Policy adminstration

When John Golden took control of IT at CNA Financial Corp. in late 2001, he faced the same challenges many CIOs are still grappling with: How do you transform diverse legacy systems into a modern platform that enables faster product development, better customer service, higher productivity and greater operational efficiency?After consolidating 20 IT groups into one, and focusing on the business value and total cost of ownership of IT systems and applications, Golden, in only a few years, has reduced the Chicago-based carrier's nondiscretionary IT expenses from $400 million per year to $200 million.

If it weren't for a bad case of writer's block, Michael Bernaski might be a famous novelist right now. Instead, he's the CIO and senior vice president of property-casualty e-business and technology at The Hartford Financial Services Inc.Last year, he accepted the senior technology position at the Hartford, Conn.-based financial services firm when he "hit the wall" trying to write a murder mystery during a year-long sabbatical from the consulting world. Bernaski had left Accenture, where he had worked for 15 years, to enjoy his newborn daughter and pen his way toward the best-seller's list.

In the aftermath of the terrorist attacks in 2001, many property/casualty insurers are now reassessing risk assessment strategies in metropolitan areas. As they do, the process involves looking deeper beneath the surface-literally.For example, how does an underground parking garage in Midtown Manhattan impact an insurer's risk position? Years ago, insurers that write commercial automobile insurance might have considered an underground parking facility to be a safe haven because autos were assumed to be better protected beneath street level.

U.S. property/casualty insurers are expected to pay homeowners and businesses an estimated $2.1 billion for insured property-loss claims from eight catastrophes in the first quarter, according to preliminary estimates by ISO's Property Claim Services (PCS) unit.

RLI Corp. a Peroia, Ill.-based provider of property/casualty insurance and surety bonds that targets underserved markets, has established a strategic information services department to manage and develop RLI's strategic and management information services. The company has also named Iqbal "Q" Shariff to serve as vice president of the new department.

Newark, Calif.--As Florida's annual hurricane deductible law goes into effect on May 1 for the state's residential policyholders, Risk Management Solutions (RMS), the world's leading provider of products and services for the management of catastrophe risk, released the results of an analysis exploring the insurance industry impact of using the new deductible instead of a single event hurricane deductible.

MISSOULA, Mont.--RemoteScan Corporation, the makers of network connectivity software for document scanners and digital cameras, today announced the release of RemoteScan for Insurance Agents.

SIMSBURY, Conn. - The Hartford Financial Services Group, Inc. and Protective Life Corporation, through wholly owned subsidiaries, have formed Life Alliance, LLC, a new online joint venture to help broker-dealers, banks and other distributors meet their customers' term life insurance needs.

MUMBAI, India - Teradata, a division of NCR Corp., announced today that it is providing data warehousing solutions to Life Insurance Corporation (LIC) of India. Called the Corporate Active Data Warehouse (CADW), the 60-terabyte solution, implemented in 2004, is the largest data warehouse project of its kind in India. The CADW will cater to business volumes larger than 160 million insurance policies of 130 million policyholders with large volumes of cash transactions per day.With more than 24.5 million policies sold every year, LIC is one of the largest life insurance companies in the world. The Teradata Warehouse will enable LIC to understand various usage profiles of the customers and policies in order to customize offerings and bundles and effectively manage them.

STAMFORD, Conn.--The Tillinghast business of Towers Perrin recently unveiled two new software applications to help insurers prepare for impending capital standards for variable annuity products.

SIMSBURY, Conn. - The Hartford Financial Services Group Inc., for the third consecutive year, is the No. 1 seller of variable life insurance, posting a year-over-year sales increase of more than 28 percent in 2004.

London--New research by independent market analysts Datamonitor, and leading outsourcing advisory firm Everest Group has found that the average deal size in the $600bn global IT and BPO services sector is shrinking. Based on figures from Datamonitor's "IT Services Contracts Tracker," the average size of contracts announced by IT and BPO services vendors in the first quarter of 2005 fell 18% to $68.9m compared to the year ago period. This means that average deal size has now declined for three consecutive quarters.

WINDSOR, Conn.--The head of LIMRA International, a financial services research and consulting association, is urging the life insurance industry to help American households bridge the wide gap between the amount of life insurance they own and the amount they believe they need for adequate family financial protection.

Firstlogic Inc, a La Crosse, Wis.-based provider of data quality and commercial mail automation software, has introduced IQ Assurance, a set programs, methodologies, and strategic consulting services that assist a company's initial foray into data quality and offer practices that can be can used as a part of an enterprisewide program.

Fiserv Inc., a Brookfield, Wis.-based provider of software and outsourcing solutions to more than 2,000 insurance customers, has formed a strategic alliance with Lombardi Software, an Austin, Texas-based provider of the business process management (BPM) software called TeamWorks. The goal of the alliance is provide a BPM solution specifically designed for the insurance industry.

Novato, Calif.--Fireman's Fund Insurance Co. will provide identity theft restoration services nationally, offering customers access to a personal counselor who can help identify-theft victims with the legal and logistical burden of putting their lives back together.These services represent one of the first major programs by an insurer to deliver these services as part of an insurance policy. The enhancement comes at no additional cost, and with no deductible, to Fireman's Fund policyholders who have Prestige Home Premier with Added Measure coverage. This service became available effective March 30.

After flirting with test pilots, phased rollouts and other levels of adoption, the jury is still out on whether mobile computing will become as ubiquitous to insurers as pen and paper.With claims management activities providing the most compelling impetus for adoption, a select group of insurers have sworn by the capabilities of mobile computing technologies to improve workflow and customer service. But other insurers continue to wait for greater application functionality, dependability and scalability before they commit to adopting the technology.

Data security is much broader than a technology concern for CIOs; it's a topic that's on the minds of many senior executives at U.S. corporations. From headlines about stolen data to federal regulations such as HIPAA to proposed Congressional legislation on data sharing and disclosure when a breach occurs, data security has become a front-burner issue for boardrooms and back-office data centers.Although many of the well-publicized incidents of large-scale data pilfering have involved hackers using computers to breach IT security, two recent incidents of stolen data occurred due to weak policies and procedures. In February, Bank of America confirmed that several data tapes were lost in transit to a backup data center. The tapes contained account and other personal information belonging to 1.2 million credit card holders that are employed by the U.S. General Services Administration.

The recent disclosure that criminals illegally obtained personal information from ChoicePoint Inc. is prompting the company to take action to improve the security of its insurance databases.Although no insurance-related information was stolen, ChoicePoint executives say, the Alpharetta, Ga.-based company intends to establish new auditing procedures and implement other measures to ensure that a similar policy breach will not occur for databases that house insurance information.

Insurers' growth strategies largely are based on their ability to sell more policies; competitive pricing, quicker time to market, effective marketing and new product development are common tactics to achieve that goal.For carriers like Fireman's Fund Insurance Co. that rely on a network of independent agencies, there's the added dimension of improving agent loyalty: Agents are known to steer their business to insurers that are easiest to work with. That's why the Novato, Calif.-based carrier in 2004 implemented a multi-year plan, dubbed Enterprise Partner Integration Program, which is the centerpiece of Fireman's desire to align its IT infrastructure to support more than 3,000 agents working at 59 offices in 26 states.