ING has made enhancements to its online services for employer groups. The enhanced services include online reports, online documents, online evidence of insurability and online billing for self-accounting customers.

DAYTON, Ohio-- The Maryland Automobile Insurance Fund (MAIF), created by the Maryland State Legislature to provide insurance coverage for the state's most at-risk drivers, has chosen RiskWise solutions from LexisNexis, an information solution provider, to help screen information provided by applicants and claimants in an effort to proactively identify rate evasion and claims fraud.

To help doctors understand the role of return-to-work in recovery, CIGNA Group Insurance introduced a new Physicians' Disability Toolkit, an informational Web site for health care providers and their office staff is designed to aid patients' treatment and recovery plans.

GREENVILLE, S.C-- RBC Insurance is providing consumers the ability to acquire life insurance in as little as 15 minutes at its Web site located at www.rbcexpressterm.com.

A lot has been made about insurers' attempt to comply with federal regulations, such as The USA Patriot Act and Sarbanes-Oxley, but lost often in the shuffle are the ongoing state-level regulations with which insurers must contend.

To provide customers with an "ideal buying experience" can sometimes mean practicing what you preach.That axiom is being practiced by business and information technology executives at Amica Life Insurance Co., a Lincoln, R.I.-based provider of term and universal life, annuities and structured settlement insurance products. The "Ideal Buying Experience" is Amica Life's recently launched new business selling program which focused on automating the front-end capability of the carrier's business-from electronic applications and new business submission, to paperless underwriting and automatic issue within its core administration system.

In recent years, insurance companies have spent more money on legacy system maintenance than on packaged software applications, according to industry experts.There are several factors influencing this trend, but one undoubtedly stands out: Many insurers concur that there's a lack of robust software application options to fulfill their needs.

Many insurers have indicated that reining in claims handling costs is a priority this year and beyond. After examining the root cause of inefficient claims management, insurers have concurred that the onus is on the absence of historical databases.In a customer poll conducted by Jersey City, N.J.-based Insurance Services Office Inc. (ISO), 46% of U.S. insurance organizations identified the lack of historical databases as a major cause of poor claims management.

Conventional management thinking says: Labor is expensive, and automation reduces that expense. Although in many cases this statement is true, competitive advantage in the area of customer service isn't a simple matter of replacing people with technology.

With apologies to Nobel Prize winning economist Milton Friedman, there is a free lunch after all. Blue Cross of California has expanded a unique technology initiative to give 1,200 physicians either a complete desktop computer system or a personal digital assistant (PDAs)-free of charge.This is the second wave of the 21st century technology give-away program in the state, and targets physicians taking part in two safety-net health care plans-called the Medi-Cal and Healthy Family Insurance programs-for poor, uninsured or low-income patients.

The days of endless rows of file cabinets chock-full with customer files are numbered as more companies provide their customers with online access to policies, billing statements and claims reporting.As insurers grapple with regulatory changes, mergers and acquisitions and fast-changing technologies, enhancing operational efficiency and providing top-notch customer service has never been more important.

PEARL RIVER, NY--41 states are now accepting the ACORD Life Form Life Application Part 1, ACORD announced. This is a major step in a multi-year initiative and is supported by numerous life insurance companies and associations, including NAILBA and NAVA.

Grange Insurance, Columbus, Ohio, has licensed EDR InSight, a set of solutions designed for claims professionals to facilitate the use of automotive Event Data Recorder (EDR) or "black box" data in the claims evaluation process.Grange will use EDR InSight, provided by Injury Sciences LLC, San Antonio, to identify vehicles with harvestable black box data. Grange claim representatives will use EDR InSight to schedule harvesting services from a network of mobile service providers and for analysis and interpretation of the EDR data.

BOSTON--John Hancock Life Insurance Company has quadrupled the long-term care insurance (LTCI) operations professionals who support the sale of its LTCI products from 6 staff members to 24. The expanded support enhances service for its existing LTCI channels including career agents, its national account team, managing general agents (MGAs) and banks, and allows the company to serve two new channels, brokerage general agents (BGAs) and broker-dealers.

Anthem Blue Cross and Blue Shield and Accenture are testing digital pen technology designed to help healthcare professionals capture and send medical claim information digitally. The solution, which is designed to complement physicians' hand-written claims process, was introduced in a two-phase pilot with Anthem plans in Indiana and Kentucky.In the first phase, health care professionals are using the pen to file claims electronically in conjunction with a desktop computer. Claims are written on specially designed digital paper forms that enable electronic data capture. The data is then uploaded electronically via a desktop computer to Anthem.

WHITE PLAINS, N.Y.--Cybersettle, the world's number one online settlement company, has been selected by CNA, the fourth largest U.S. commercial insurer, as its online settlement partner to assist with the quick resolution of commercial insurance claims.

SAN FRANCISCO--California State Compensation Insurance Fund's anti-fraud program has enabled statewide district attorneys to win more than $5 million in restitution orders. The restitution judgments are a direct result of 155 premium fraud convictions during the last six years.

NEEDHAM, MA--Until recently, regulatory compliance has been a relatively straightforward issue for U.S. insurance companies. Long deemed a service for the "public good," the insurance industry has been regulated by various entities for over 100 years - making compliance as commonplace as breathing for most insurers.

SAN FRANCISCO--Esurance, a direct-to-consumer personal auto insurance company, has selected ProcessClaims to provide a customized software management platform to support Esurance's expanding claims organization. Esurance believes that ProcessClaims' ClaimsPort material damage management system will increase claims handling efficiency, decrease cycle time costs, and scale with Esurance's rapid growth.

Forty-six percent of U.S. insurance organizations identified the lack of historical databases as a major cause of poor claims management, according to a recent customer poll conducted by Insurance Services Office Inc. (ISO), Jersey City, N.J. This follows an earlier ISO poll in which 78% of insurance organizations said reducing the rising cost of claims handling is their single most important goal for 2004.The poll asked insurance organizations to identify the most likely reason for paying injury claims incorrectly. Of the five options, just under half (46%) identified lack of historical databases as a major cause, and 20% cited lack of medical knowledge as the second most probable reason. Sixteen percent said inadequate negotiation skills, while 13% cited claims adjusters' inexperience.