Policy adminstration

BOSTON, Oct. 14--OneBeacon Insurance, a wholly owned subsidiary of White Mountains Insurance Group, Ltd., today announced that Matt Mueller has joined the company to lead its high-tech commercial insurance business.

DALLAS--Docucorp International, a leading provider of enterprise information solutions, announced today the introduction of QuickConnect, a process designed to upgrade the company's longtime Documerge customers to its rules-driven, real-time publishing solution.

SEATTLE--Safeco announced today that its aggregate pretax catastrophe losses for the third quarter are estimated at $195 million. The estimated effect on third-quarter net income is $127 million after tax, or $0.96 per diluted share. Safeco expects its total catastrophe losses to increase the company's third-quarter combined ratio by 13.9 percentage points and that, as a result, its third-quarter combined ratio will be 101.6 percent.

PEARL RIVER, NY--ACORD released a new Strategic Briefing, Impact of Technology and Data in Rating A Company's Financial Strength, that provides insight into the process used by one of the industry's leading ratings agencies when evaluating the technological capabilities of an insurer, reinsurer, or intermediary.

New Haven, CT--Metaserver, Inc., a leading provider of business process integration (BPI) solutions for the insurance industry, today announced the release of iConnect 2.0 for P&C, the latest version of its agency interface solution for Property and Casualty carriers.

NEW YORK--MetLink, MetLife's state-of-the-art employer benefits administration portal, has received a Web Marketing Association 2004 Standard of Excellence Web Award. This annual award competition judges corporate Web sites against an overall standard of excellence related to design, innovation, content, technology, interactivity, navigation and ease of use.

AUSTIN, TX--Webify Solutions, a provider of On Demand Applications for the insurance industry, today announced that Fireman's Fund Insurance Company (FFIC), a leading provider of property and casualty insurance products, has selected and begun to implement Webify's service oriented business applications.

ALPHARETTA, Ga.-- ChoicePoint, a provider of identification and credential verification services, today announced its acquisition of InsurQuote, a leading provider of insurance rating solutions to the property and casualty carrier markets.

University Park, IL--Vista Equity Partners and James P. Kellner have acquired Applied Systems, Inc., the insurance software company born 20 years ago in suburban Chicago as a one-product, home-based business that grew to become the leading provider of automation solutions in the property and casualty insurance industry.

The saying goes: "If you want something done right, do it yourself." And, when it comes to sales and marketing analysis, risk management and financial reporting, insurance analysts, managers and executives are taking matters into their own hands-thanks to software that gives them immediate access to corporate data.Instead of waiting in line for an IT department to generate static (often paper) management reports, more and more insurance companies are employing business intelligence tools to interact directly with the data they need for planning and decision-making.

It's a logical concept: Where, when and how people drive their cars affects whether or not they're likely to have an accident. But the insurance industry is just beginning to determine how driving behavior correlates with risk.

With almost every software vendor scrambling to reposition products to address the Web services technology paradigm, Web services have arguably become the hottest phenomenon in today's IT market.But in the stampede to get on the Web services bandwagon, the definition of Web services has become so corrupted and abused that the true meaning has been lost and the value often misunderstood.

WASHINGTON-- How much life insurance do I need? What does long-term care cost in my area? Should I buy disability insurance?

NEW YORK --Even before the full impact of the recent hurricane activity is known, the majority of the 150 senior insurance executives surveyed are less optimistic about premium growth and the industry's ability to increase margins, according to KPMG LLP.

REDWOOD CITY, Calif. -- Informatica Corporation, a leading provider of data integration software, today announced that CNA, a leading property and casualty insurer, has won DM Review's 2004 World Class Solutions Award for its successful implementation of Informatica's market-leading data integration software.

Newark, Calif.--Responding to increases in the frequency and severity of global terrorist activity in each of the past three years, Risk Management Solutions (RMS), the world's leading provider of products and services for the management of catastrophe risk, today announced the launch of a new suite of tools designed to help insurers and reinsurers manage terrorism risk outside the U.S. The tools include the industry's first Global Terrorism Risk Model, as well as a multi-country expansion of the RMS(R) Terrorism Scenario Model and accumulation management functionality in the company's RiskLink(R) catastrophe management software.

LOS ANGELES--RPost, The Registered e-Mail Company (www.rpost.com), announced today its revolutionary (R)egistered e-Mail(R) product has been endorsed by The Council of Insurance Agents & Brokers. The Council represents the top one-percent of all commercial property/casualty and employee benefits brokers in the United States, a group that places 80 percent of commercial insurance premiums.

PeopleSoft and IBM will jointly market and deliver integrated, cross-functional industry solutions targeted at solving some of the most difficult business process challenges facing companies today.

ANDOVER, Mass.-- CGI Group Inc. (CGI) announced the release of INSideOUT Version 9. INSideOUT's Version 9 offers significant value to customers by improving productivity and lowering maintenance costs.

PORTLAND, Ore-- Standard Insurance Company, a subsidiary of StanCorp Financial Group, Inc., has launched The Standard Advisor Partner, a new service model created to develop business partnerships between The Standard and third party administrators and pension consultants.