Policy adminstration

New York – It’s understood that the actuarial department has vast computing needs and a heavy reliance on actuarial modeling, valuation and supporting technology. But stochastic modeling requirements for financial reporting, pricing and risk management are causing a growing desire to benefit from the move toward high performance computing. This, coupled with the need to pull actuarial executives out of the data preparation and calculation mire so they can focus on financial analysis and business decision support, is creating a significant push toward greater actuarial/IT alignment. These were but some of the insights that came from a recent Actuarial Transformation Roundtable, released by the Insurance and Actuarial Advisory Services (IAAS) practice of Ernst & Young LLP yesterday. The group, which brought together senior actuaries and IT professionals, focused on ways to better align the two departments in order to meet the heightened business/management demands created by competition as well as increasingly complex products, extensive Sarbanes-Oxley (SOX) compliance requirements, the shift from rules-based to principles-based valuation and the growing volume of data in general that must be integrated and managed.

Indianapolis - WellPoint, Inc. is the latest benefits provider to unveil a plan to help address the growing ranks of the uninsured. The WellPoint plan is a blend of public and private initiatives aimed at ensuring universal coverage for children and providing new and more attractive options for the working uninsured. The plan is a part of a mission to improve the lives of the people it serves and the health of its communities, says the company. Insurance Networking News reported in October 2006 that eHealth Inc., the parent company of Mountain View, Calif.-based eHealthInsurance Services Inc., planned to serve the growing market of uninsured and underinsured consumers with online tools and ultimate health insurance products. The company, which planned to raise $47.1 million in an initial public offering, said in its prospectus that, except for large companies buying insurance in bulk, finding medical coverage is time-consuming, paper-wasting, complicated and expensive. Through its Web site, eHealth has sold health insurance electronically to 325,000 consumers, and points to this statistic: More than 40% of those customers were uninsured before finding the site. At WellPoint, an independent licensee of the Blue Cross and Blue Shield Association, the mission is similar: "A core focus of our company's strategy is to reduce the rate of the uninsured and under-served," said Larry Glasscock, WellPoint's chairman, president and CEO. "The plan we've developed will broaden the reach of our health care system to include those who need it most." According to WellPoint, more than 46 million Americans under the age of 65 did not have health insurance in 2005. Approximately 45% of these individuals are either eligible for public programs and are not enrolled or voluntarily choose not to purchase coverage, while the remaining 55% simply cannot afford private insurance. Although WellPoint was received national recognition in 2006 for its health care Web sites, the company's plan may not have a robust technology focus (similar to eHealth's). Rather, its focus is to support the expansion of state health care programs to cover more of the 9 million American children who went without coverage last year. Specifically, WellPoint urges states to expand their programs to cover children in families that earn up to 300% of the federal poverty level (FPL), which means that for a family of four, they can earn up to $60,000. The plan also includes a call for improved outreach to enroll the majority of uninsured children -- up to 70%-- who are already eligible for public programs. WellPoint also calls for the expansion of state health care programs to include parents in families that earn up to 200% of FPL (a family of four could earn up to $40,000) and for childless adults who earn up to 100% of FPL ($9,800 for a single adult). If adopted by all states, the proposed expansion of public programs, coupled with a successful outreach campaign, could provide coverage to 25 million people who are currently uninsured, claims WellPoint. To help pay for the changes to these programs, WellPoint will support an increase in tobacco taxes. WellPoint's plan also includes a financial commitment from the company's charitable foundation of at least $30 million over the next three years to support community and state-based programs related to the company's uninsured initiatives across the country that are helping to provide access to care.Sources: PRNewswire, Insurance Networking News' Archives, WellPoint

Atlanta - Although the life insurance industry is predicted to experience flat to modest growth in 2007, insurance carriers may do well to consider technological tools that will help them prepare for the imminent retirement of many Baby Boomers, according to Atlanta-based LOMA, an international insurance association.The prediction comes from LOMA’s Resource magazine, which published its annual forecast by the LOMA board of directors. The LOMA board of directors is composed of chairmen, presidents, CEOs and other top executives of leading insurance and financial services companies in the United States, Canada and internationally.

Dublin, Ireland – Many of the services required by businesses including human resources, billing and transactional processing, may be entirely peripheral to its core competencies, according to research from Dublin, Ireland-based Research and Markets. Using a business process outsourcing (BPO) provider can help reduce costs while at the same time allowing the enterprise to focus on its core business.

Philadelphia - CIGNA Corp. redesigned its flagship public Web site to be easier for users to navigate and offer users extensive health information and online resources in a newly added Health & Money section.

Des Plaines, Ill. - Regulatory modernization, a long-term terrorism insurance solution and the Florida property market are top-of-mind issues the insurance industry will address in 2007, according to the Property Casualty Insurers Association of America (PCI).

Around the world, CEOs at insurance companies are slowly coming to the conclusion that they need smoothly running IT departments if their companies are to remain competitive. As a result, IT projects and budgets are getting some respect and are becoming less likely to fall victim to arbitrary cuts, according to analysts in North America, Europe and the Asia-Pacific region.The newfound respect is coming at a time when IT departments face intense regulatory pressure in Europe-and tamer but still formidable rules in the United States, China and Japan, according to reports from Boston-based Celent LLC. Pressure also arises from the need to service customers and distributors in real-time transactions and with rapid information flow, Celent says. Those functions can strain internal legacy systems, prompting insurers in mature markets, such as the United States, Europe and Japan, to update communications systems and core data environments.

Buttressed by the efforts of annuities associations, technology firms and broker/dealers, Pacific Life Insurance Co. is among the insurance firms leading a long-term, yet determined drive to make the annuities business paperless. Though its work is in an early stage, Pacific Life likes the results it has seen.Since Pacific Life began using an automated system for annuities called Automated Customer Account Transfer Service/ Insurance Processing Service (ACATS/IPS), the carrier is boosting its speed in obtaining notification of customer requests to change broker/dealers, while significantly improving customer service. For instance, now Pacific Life gets almost immediate notification of customer requests to change broker/dealers, whereas before it took at least six weeks.

The road seems less bumpy these days for insurance carriers that use state-of-the-art automated compensation to calculate and track agents' commissions. A single streamlined third-party system can replace a hodgepodge of legacy software and manual processes, users say, helping to reduce clerical work, increase accuracy and improve reporting. Moreover, carriers report that the software opens up a whole new world of analysis that pinpoints the true sources of profit and helps identify and retain the best agents.The accuracy rate for commissions at Blue Cross Blue Shield of Florida, for example, has improved from 80% before introducing up-to-date automated compensation to 95% after the implementation, says Linda Lamb, BCBSF vice president of sales business management. The remaining errors arise from data entry miscues or software problems outside the system, she says.

Imagine reaching deep into a seemingly bottomless bucket filled with marbles. One cat's eye is hidden in the massive assortment, and it's your job to pull it out-in one try.Retrieving that prize won't be easy. In a similar vein, many a reader has expressed frustration at the pressures associated with finding a way to implement the right technology for the right application at the right price-in the shortest time possible. They've also talked about outright fear at the prospect of failure to achieve those goals.

INSURER ENHANCES ONLINE DATAThe Empire Life Insurance Company (Empire Life) enhanced Trilogy, its universal life product that continues to evolve to meet the changing financial and wealth management needs of Canadians. The enhancements represent the largest number of revisions to the product since Trilogy Universal Life was introduced in September 2000. Better delivery of information is achieved through a completely revised client statement and with new online investment information.

RECORDING SOFTWAREWitness Systems Inc., a Roswell, Ga.-based global provider of workforce optimization software and services, enhanced its Impact 360 IP Recording solution, featuring tripled channel capacity, unified recording management and a centralized administration tool. Designed for interactions in enterprise and contact center environments, Impact 360 now features TDM and IP recording under a single management tool. The software operates across IP, TDM and mixed telephony networks, designed to help customers ensure all their calls are recorded, whether for compliance and liability, sales verification or quality assurance purposes. Impact 360 IP Recording allows the recording of SIP-based calls. Also new to Impact 360 IP Recording is tripled channel capacity, which results in fewer servers. The solution introduces centralized administration capabilities, which provide access to all the vital Impact 360 IP Recording configuration settings, enabling customers to centrally manage all of their Impact 360 recorders regardless of location.

It's the same old adage: a penny saved is a penny earned. For many insurers, that means a boost in 2007 outsourced services. But for an up-and-coming group of carriers, that penny translates to a one-pence, kroner, deutsche mark or Euro.Across the globe, interest in business process outsourcing (BPO) services continues to increase, chiefly because insurers must continue to seek ways to achieve operational efficiencies and take advantage of growth opportunities.

Does it pay to peek over the neighbor's fence? It does if you discover a better way to mow the lawn. In the spirit of sharing best practices for the benefit of everyone involved, Insurance Networking News announces the first annual INNovators of the Year award.The idea for the award emerged during informal talks at INN. After witnessing an almost daily flow of innovation in the insurance business, the editors began searching for a way to objectively uncover and recognize the top innovators and share a deeper understanding of their innovations.

How will changes in federal rules on e-discovery affect insurers? To find out, Insurance Networking News talked with Jon Neiditz, an attorney with Lord, Bissell & Brook. Neiditz has helped more than thirty insurers and reinsurers adjust to the amended rules.INN: How will the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure (FRCP) alter the way companies manage information?

Fantasy: convinced by your technology vendor that its bleeding-edge policy administration system will seamlessly integrate with your existing network and infrastructure, slide like butter down your users' palates and establish record turnaround time for processing efficiencies, you sign on the dotted line. You even astutely craft your acceptance speech for your company's upcoming "Highest ROI" award. Everyone loves you—even your agents.Reality: Two years later, implementation continues to slog at a snail's pace, the systems won't talk, your team is overworked, the vendor has been bought by a behemoth that has lost you in the shuffle, and your boss, users and other stakeholders are screaming. You are stuck.

GRAIN DEALERS UPGRADE POLICY ADMIN CAPABILITIESGrain Dealers Mutual Insurance Co. upgraded its policy administration capabilities with Policy Decisions from Insurity, a Hartford, Conn.-based ChoicePoint company. Policy Decisions is designed to incorporate complete policy-lifecycle administration services-from application intake to rating and underwriting, from policy issuance to renewal and reinsurance-on a single Web services platform. Grain Dealers looked at competing systems that promised improved access, says David Patterson, assistant vice president and director of Information Services for the Indianapolis-based property-casualty insurer, but Insurity had several advantages that clinched the deal. At first, agents will access it to do their own quoting for commercial policies. The longer-term plan is to provide self-service access to agents for policy maintenance.

Like surfers shooting the curl, insurance companies have learned to ride the industry's wild ebb and flow. No matter what causes the next mini-tsunami-increased competition, government intervention on pricing, new technologies and distribution channels, or evolving customer needs—insurance companies need to improve business practices to stay ahead of the wave.Until now, insurers have relied upon simplified, customer-facing business transactions, such as policy and claims administration and point-of-sale (POS), for direct competitive advantage. The recent concentration on systems upgrades has led to considerable neglect of key business processes, including billing and accounts receivable. Although critical, those functions lack the appeal of hot topics such as Web services, service-oriented architecture (SOA) and regulatory compliance.

Washington - A third conference in the movement to start a standards-based nationwide health information network (NHIN) is expected to include demonstrations of health information exchange prototypes and discussion of business models.

NASHVILLE, Tenn. – The nation may remember 2006 as the year the Democrats won the mid-term elections, Gerald Ford and James Brown died, and data breaches made an indelible mark on American business in general and the insurance industry in particular.