Brookfield, Wis. - Fiserv, Inc. has acquired Xcipio, Inc., a Web-based insurance rating and automation solution provider. The acquisition will allow the Brookfield, Wis., company to provide Web-based comparative insurance rates directly from insurance carriers to producers in real time. Details of the transaction, which closed November 1, were not disclosed.

McClean, Va. -- Insurance companies that have not already implemented business process automation technology, including straight-through processing, integrated client information systems and service-oriented architecture (SOA) for customer service and administration functions, can improve efficiency by doing so. That's according to a report, titled "How To Create A Platform for the 21st Century Insurance Firm," released by BearingPoint Inc. a global management and technology consulting firm.In fact, the resulting increase in efficiency and productivity can mean greater capacity and as much as 30% costs savings contributing to overall better profitability, according to BearingPoint.

The market for insurance in China is huge. With a population of 1.3 billion-that's 20% of the people in the entire world - China's insurance premiums are projected to grow from $60 billion this year to $100 billion by 2009 (see "Chinese Insurance Premiums," page 13).That's because between 1949-when the People's Republic of China was established-and the 1980s-when Deng Xiaoping opened the market to private insurers, there was no insurance industry in China. The government took care of the people, from the "cradle to the grave."

For many years, building computer software applications was the modus operandi in the insurance industry. "No one knows our business," was the common refrain.Since then, software vendors customized their products for the industry, and buying prepackaged software applications has become the preference.

All this talk about merging business goals with IT seems to have reared its ugly head. With the best possible intentions and following the ultimate in best practice methodology, insurance CIOs are trying to make the marriage work. Is their time and effort well placed? Are they being successful?Not according to a recent report issued by Aberdeen Group, a Boston-based research firm, which cites the two most powerful "disruptors" to the CIO's mandate for 2005: the need to provide better solutions in a business environment of growing risk and uncertainty, and changes in the technology landscape.

With new research from the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, Arlington, Va., finding that drivers using cell phones are four times more likely to get in a crash serious enough to injure themselves, auto insurers are beginning to educate drivers about the risks of driving while talking on cell phones.Dan Cohen, a spokesperson for 21st Century Insurance Group, says the study underscores the need for insurance companies to encourage their clients not to drive and call at the same time.

Contrary to public opinion, the IT department typically can't foretell the future. IT teams usually can analyze the effectiveness of an existing systems implementation, but for some, rather than using a crystal ball, it's more a matter of acknowledging what works and what doesn't.Thanks to growing requirements and a fundamental technology shift, an insurance consortium faced such a challenge when the implementation of a policy administration system dragged on for years.

Offloading non-core functions to an outsourcer, and thereby relieving your company of the responsibility of maintaining expensive equipment and escalating personnel costs, is increasingly seen as not only a viable option but in many cases the best or most logical way to go.The Robert Plan Corp. (RPC), an auto insurance carrier and underwriter specializing in urban automotive markets, was facing such a choice several years ago.

Seattle - PEMCO Insurance, provider of auto, home, boat, life, and umbrella insurance to Washington state residents, has launched a teen drivers Web site designed to educate parents, teachers, and teens about the dangers young drivers face. The Web site can be found at http://www.pemco.com/teen_driver/index.asp."Teens have the highest car-crash death rate of any age group," says PEMCO spokesperson Jon Osterberg. "The main reason is, they're inexperienced drivers, and only experience can sharpen their skills. PEMCO wants to help teens grow into experienced, safe drivers."

Santa Ana, Calif. - The principal subsidiary of The First American Corp.--First American Title Insurance Co.--has formed a strategic alliance with Microsoft Corp., Redmond, Wash., for early testing of Microsoft SQL Server 2005 using First American's FAST Transaction System (FAST) database.FAST is an integrated title and escrow system that unifies disparate systems into a centralized database and is currently one of the largest SQL Server 2005 implementations with more than 4 terabytes of data. Microsoft encouraged First American's FAST development team to test SQL Server 2005 against one of the largest and most complex databases available. Using a version of FAST with all personal information removed, Microsoft was able to validate SQL Server 2005 and improve system capabilities, ensuring that the new release of SQL Server will be "FAST Certified" at the product launch on Nov. 7, 2005.

Palos Hills, Ill. - A special online database consisting of motor vehicles and boats affected by Hurricanes Katrina and Rita is being made available to the public, the National Insurance Crime Bureau (NICB), Palos Hills, Ill., reported today.

Chicago - Safeway Insurance Group, Westmont, Ill., is improving its networking infrastructure with an Internet Protocol Virtual Private Network (IP VPN) from AT&T that integrates Safeway's headquarters in Westmont, Ill., with nine offices across the southern and western United States. Based on Multi-Protocol Label Switching (MPLS) technology, the networking solution provides a standardized networking platform with increased bandwidth and secure, high-speed access to Safeway's proprietary applications, e-mail and other operational functions.

Pearl River, N.Y. - ACORD, eEG7 and CSIO today made public the release of a harmonized data dictionary for the insurance industry. This marks the completion of efforts by this international standards bodies coalition, which includes ACORD, the European forum for the development of e-business standards for electronic communication (eEG7) and the Canadian-based Centre for Study of Insurance Operations (CSIO), to harmonize their existing data dictionaries as part of a United Nations initiative.

Chicago - Although insured losses from Hurricane Katrina are estimated at a record high $34.4 billion, the property/casualty insurance industry will weather the storm of more than 1.6 million claims spread out over six states without the market disruption that occurred following 1992's Hurricane Andrew, the previous record-setting storm, according to the Property Casualty Insurers Association of America (PCI), Chicago.

Boston and Plano, Texas - Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts and Electronic Data Systems Corp. (EDS) have amended their eight-year contract by $125 million in additional information technology (IT) services from EDS. The contract began in January 2004 and the relationship between the two companies originated in 1969."Over the course of our long relationship, EDS has developed a deep understanding of our business, and the EDS team has demonstrated their commitment to our constant goal to improve health care service," says Carl Ascenzo, BCBSMA's chief information officer. "The solutions provided by EDS will provide greater flexibility for our members, account and health care providers while controlling our overall IT costs."

Basking Ridge, N.J., - Allstate Insurance Co., Northbrook, Ill., has deployed Internet protocol (IP) telephony solutions from Avaya Inc. (NYSE:AV) in new locations in the United States and Canada.Allstate is using Avaya's IP-based contact center applications, powered by the Avaya Customer Interaction Suite, to manage customer calls and route them intelligently based on customer-entered criteria. Allstate links its contact centers and manages them as a single, virtual organization--routing customers to the employee best able to handle a claim or inquiry based on language or area of expertise, regardless of where the call originates. As part of the implementation, Allstate has deployed more than 10,000 IP endpoints across its organization.

Long before the power of bits and bytes helped facilitate the insurance industry's growth, forward-moving companies adhered to disciplines and principles that focused on consistent, repeatable processes that enabled cross-functional groups to work more efficiently. In the 1950s, educators were already teaching these principles, and not much has changed in terms of applying good common sense to core business processes.The advent of technology, however, changed the playing field. With automation came simplicity: Paperless audit trails, straight-through processing, real-time communications, wireless, the list goes on. But few would argue that the simplicity offered by technology has brought with it a paradoxical level of mounting complexity. And, for the insurance industry, that complexity isn't just affected by increased competition; it's saddled with regulatory and reporting requirements that make IT management arduous at best. Simply put: the insurance industry's IT organizations are coming out of the cold room to embrace and share knowledge and expertise-via best practices.

A fast-growing market of more than 40 million people, representing $600 billion per year of income, cannot be ignored for too long. The financial services insurance industry is finally learning how to embrace people of Spanish heritage within the United States, and use technology to better respond to this underserved segment.Reaching out to this market involves more than simple translation of documents and Web sites. The Hispanic or Latino market is a highly diverse one. While members of this market are not likely to respond to standard industry pitches, it is a receptive audience to insurance products.

Early in his career, Gary Kaplan spent a decade in loss control engineering, Then he moved into the underwriting arena and found that all the effort he and his colleagues had put into their engineering was arbitrarily applied to underwriting decisions."When I went into underwriting in 1988, I was appalled at how loose it was-the lack of structure and the lack of guidelines," says Kaplan, who is now senior vice president and chief underwriting officer at Zurich. "There was no consistency. The way business was priced was very disappointing to me after 10 years in engineering. I said, 'This is how all my work got translated into a price?'"

U.S. financial service providers (FSPs) are expected to spend $65.7 million on IT services in 2005. However less than 30% will outsource any strategic projects by the end of 2006, according to Gartner Inc., Stamford, Conn."Most FSPs currently use outsourcing tactically to augment staff for faster project turnaround or to reduce operational costs, rather than for strategic value," says Kimberly Harris-Ferrante, research vice president at Gartner. "FSPs should now begin outsourcing strategic projects in order to gain larger-scale, enterprisewide value."