Policy adminstration

New York — New York Life Insurance Co. announced today that Senior VP Eileen Slevin has been elected CIO. She reports to Executive VP and Chief Administrative Officer Frank Boccio.

Glenmont , N.Y. — Data collected by a group of professional insurance agents that ranks insurance carrier performance is now available online.The Professional Insurance Agents (PIA) of Connecticut, New Hampshire, New Jersey and New York, a Glenmont, N.Y.-based voluntary, membership-based trade association representing professional, independent property/casualty insurance agents, published its company performance survey database, the result of a five-year collaborative project in which PIA members ranked the performance of more than 80 insurance companies.

Brookfield, Wis. — Fiserv Inc. is selling substantially all of its health businesses to Minneapolis-based UnitedHealthcare, a business of United Health Group, one of America’s largest health care companies, for $775 million in cash, the company reports.The Brookfield, Wis., provider of information technology services to the financial and insurance industries worldwide, said that the transaction is anticipated to close by the end of 2007 or in the first quarter of 2008, subject to required regulatory approvals and customary closing conditions.

Few people would argue that Internet functionality has improved over the past few years. But some may argue whether consumers are shopping more on the Web. The fact is, organizations from many industries are using the Web in a variety of ways to drive potential customers to their Web sites. Recent estimates place the online advertising market at more than $28 billion. Boston-based Celent LLC cites the recent acquisitions of online advertising marketplaces by major online players such as Yahoo!, Google and Microsoft as a clear indication that a battle is on to get to the customer through online advertising. Insurance companies need to factor in the costs of marketing online and decide on a targeted strategy.The rate of online marketing growth varies among lines of business. But the constant throughout: Online marketing is growing. The insurance industry may look to other industries as the reason for the growth, says Lisa Phillips, senior analyst at New York-based eMarketer Inc. "In general, most businesses are moving at least part of their marketing budgets online. They're following consumers who are online shopping and comparing prices, etc. People have come to depend on the Internet for any kind of research," she says.

It's incredible how quickly technology, and the accessibility of the Internet and Web-enabled devices have evolved-even in the past few years. With these rapid advancements, both society and insurers are forced to adapt. So now that anyone can check claims status on their iPod, laptop or PDA from anywhere in the world, there's no excuse for carriers not to ramp up their online customer service offerings in an effort to better serve their Web-savvy client base.To many people, upgrading online customer service may seem the next logical step in the development of the Internet as a whole. However, many insurers may not be keeping pace with competition that is offering services and tools that not only attract new customers, but also address client's needs.

Much like soccer, the concept of bank insurance or "bancassurance" enjoys a much higher profile outside the United States than within.While the idea of banks offering insurance products is not new, in much of the world, the practice is, and has only taken off in the past two decades. In parts of Europe, such as France, Italy and Spain, the adoption of bank insurance has grown steadily as consumers have become accustomed to their bank as a distribution channel for insurance products.

In the course of our normal business, our editors pride themselves on touching base daily with you, our readers-insurers, reinsurers, members of your distribution networks (managing general agents, brokers and agents) and the technology solution providers who support you. They ask about your challenges, and listen to your concerns as well as those expressed by our editorial advisory board experts. We also regularly garner feedback from informal Web polls and online surveys.We hear a lot of the same issues: In a softening market marked by increased merger and acquisition activity, your challenge is to remain competitive, be first to market, lower your costs, and give your distribution networks and the customers they serve the necessary tools to succeed. In the words of one reader, "it's like trying to stay in the driver's seat and navigate an ever-changing, congested, winding road."

JACKSON LAUNCHES BENEFITS CENTERThe Living Benefits Selection Center (LBSC) from Jackson National Life Insurance Co., Lansing, Mich., is designed to enable registered representatives to get instant, client-approved output based on a client's profile information after answering a handful of qualifying questions. The tool also features multimedia presentations, fact sheets and side-by-side comparisons of Jackson's optional living benefits.

As men and women retire from careers in insurance technology, insurers are scrambling to find technology professionals who will be able to deal adeptly with all manner of platforms, from legacy to service-oriented architecture.Complicating this problem is the fact that, although the U.S. Dept. of Labor expects IT careers to be among the fastest growing occupations through 2014, females represent only 14% of the up-and-coming computer science and engineering professionals from which to choose, according to Computing Research Assoc., Washington, D.C.

Is the demise of customer relationship management (CRM) software greatly exaggerated? Insurance Networking News asked Leo Schneider, senior vice president for insurance SAP AG, Walldorf, Germany, to explain his philosophy of why CRM, on the surface, appears to be an enterprisewide moving target.INN: What is the current perception of CRM?

Data management has developed a bad reputation. Too many insurance executives see it as little more than edits and testing. They consider it a set of steps added at the end of a project, when it could cause delays. And therein lies the problem. Carriers need to change their way of thinking and start building data management into the project from the beginning rather than incorporating it later.

Enterprises are using more secure practices when it comes to data communications, according to a security survey conducted by Boca Raton, Fla.-based Amplitude Research Inc., commissioned by Albuquerque, N.M.-based VanDyke Software Inc. Close to two-thirds (148) of 235 respondents are somewhat or very satisfied with the reliability and usability of their secure file transfer solution. However, 163 of 245 respondents said they are likely to purchase a new or replacement secure file transfer solution within the next 12 months.This is the fourth year in a row that VanDyke Software has commissioned an Amplitude Research survey of network and system administrators from a variety of industries, including the insurance industry, on the subject of network security. The questions have remained mostly the same, although minor adjustments have been made to include questions about current industry developments.

Midwest Insurance Co. is an INNovators Award Winner runner-up, chosen for its strategy to replace an aging legacy policy administration system with one that now delivers real-time data to all end users.Just seven years old in 2005, Midwest Insurance Co. had already outgrown its policy administration system. "It was old client-server technology," recalls Rick Vogl, the company's vice president-IT. "The legacy system couldn't handle the volume of quotes we have coming through our system, and the amount of premiums we push through it.

Whether it's underwriting, billing or customer systems, legacy mainframe applications persist among even the most technologically advanced insurance companies. Enterprises are being forced to introduce new products and services faster than ever, and the implementation of cost-cutting strategies means that they have to do more with fewer resources.Service-oriented architecture (SOA) is an effective and pragmatic approach that enables greater system agility, including the legacy mainframe solutions that house enormous amounts of policy data. New legacy-SOA integration strategies must tap into mainframe performance, security and programming resources, as well as valuable data. When they do, good things can happen. Insurers taking this more comprehensive approach and making the mainframe an active participant in SOA initiatives are experiencing success.

London - Risk Management Solutions Inc. (RMS), a Newark , Calif. , provider of products and services for catastrophe risk management, launched a new initiative among six of Lloyd's largest managing agents this week designed to change the way exposure data is used in the London Market. The RMS London Market Data Community gives members access to data that has been standardized for use among the members. Data is prepared once by the RMS Data Cleansing Team, and then made available to the community, saving subscribers the time and money involved in preparing the information individually.

Boston - Electronic application submissions have grown dramatically since 2004 but still account for less than half of all new life/health business, according to a new report from Celent, a Boston-based financial research and consulting firm.

Chicago – Citing increased competition and falling rates, insurance brokerage Aon Corp., said yesterday that it will cut 2,700 jobs, or approximately 6% of its workforce, as part of a restructuring plan.The broker made the announcement as part of its release of its 3rd quarter financial results.

David Sampson, the newly appointed president and chief executive officer of the Property Casualty Insurers Association of America (PCI), a Des Plaines, Ill., group comprising more than 1,000 insurance company members, outlined his vision for the association at the organization’s annual meeting this week. More than 1,600 CEOs and senior executives from PCI member companies and global reinsurers participated in the 2007 meeting in Boston, setting records for attendance at the event.

Southern California — Two major insurers are going the extra mile to help their policyholders affected by wildfires by deploying mobile response vehicles to the disaster area. Los Angeles–based Farmers Insurance Group of Cos. is helping thousands of its customers as they file claims and begin returning to their normal lives. Farmers is trying to make it as easy as possible to file a claim by continuing to offer mobile command centers and its Mobile Catastrophe Claims Bus to serve the most customers before they are allowed to return home.

New Orleans — Carriers using advanced analytics in their underwriting, claims and marketing efforts will have a better chance of surviving the current and future state of a softening insurance market, Frank Coyne, chairman, president and CEO of ISO told the 800 attendees in attendance this week at the company’s ISOTech 2007 Connect Conference in New Orleans, La.