Insurers are turning introspective. They lived a charmed life when healthy investment returns covered for a lack of efficiency within their operations. Now, they have shifted their focus from asset management back to insurance basics.A new survey performed by the global insurance services practice of New York City-based Deloitte notes that insurers have shifted their focus after a protracted period of low interest rates and volatility in the equity markets.

Information technology in the healthcare industry should not be rocket science. That's the opinion of a former aerospace engineer, Charles C. Emery, Jr., who is senior vice president and chief information officer for Horizon Blue Cross Blue Shield (BCBS) of New Jersey.

Back in early 2002, the office environment at World Insurance Co. resembled a noisy beehive with workers faxing, printing, copying, retrieving documents from warehouse storage and chatting while carrying out those tasks.

Despite insurers' best intentions to align business strategy with IT strategy, recent studies show that more than 80% of insurance companies can improve on that alignment.That's according to Deborah Smallwood, insurance practice leader at TowerGroup Inc., a Needham, Mass.-based research and advisory firm. At press time, Smallwood was completing a study of six property/casualty carriers, and, although she couldn't release her findings, she said she gets frustrated because the alignment still isn't there-and there's so much need for improvement.

There are a number of storage area network (SAN) management tools now on the market to help automate and monitor storage management processes.At Mid-Continent Casualty Insurance Co., Tulsa, Okla., for example, the expansion of the company's SAN introduced an array of new Intel-based servers to the data center.

Experts predict that the next generation of storage area network (SAN) technology will be built on storage virtualization. IBM Corp., Armonk, N.Y., already has released storage management products that provide a software virtualization layer that manages physical storage devices.Virtualization of storage hardware resources is just one of two forms SAN virtualization is likely to take, according to John McArthur, analyst with IDC, a Framingham, Mass.-based technology research firm.

A major strategy within the property/casualty insurance industry is entering new distribution channels using the Web and other technologies. To facilitate this strategy, the underlying business functionality that supported the expansion into new distribution channels was primarily based on systems that are on average more than 25 years old-augmented with newer technologies, such as expert underwriting engines.These back-end systems are inherently front-end technology "neutral" and have successfully been front-ended by J2EE and .NET frameworks. While most of these efforts have been successful in meeting the initial goal for entering new markets, these efforts also have uncovered-and in some cases intensified-the inherent legacy problem.

Zix Corporation, a global provider of protection, management, and delivery solutions for electronic communications, announces that Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Oklahoma, the oldest and largest private health insurer in the state serving almost 770,000 Oklahomans, has signed a three-year contract for ZixCorp secure e-messaging services to help meet the privacy and security guidelines of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA).

NEW YORK -- The AIG Mergers & Acquisitions Division, a division of the property and casualty insurance subsidiaries of American International Group, Inc. (AIG), announced the launch of its newly designed global Web site, www.AIGMergerRisks.com.

ATLANTA --Ebix, a leading international supplier of software and e-commerce solutions to the insurance industry, announced today that it has changed its name to Ebix, Inc. from ebix.com, Inc. effective immediately.

OVERLAND PARK, Kan. --Sprint today announced it has expanded its relationship with the Blue Cross and Blue Shield Association (BCBSA) through a new, multi-million dollar agreement for Cisco Systems customer premise equipment (CPE) and maintenance.

EL SEGUNDO, Calif. -- Computer Sciences Corporation today announced that American United Life Insurance Company (AUL) has licensed Automated Work Distributor (AWD) software to improve the efficiency of its back-office operations by streamlining its business processes.

(Dec. 18, 2003) - The Principal Financial Group, the nation's 401(k) leader and premier provider of employee benefits, today announced a strategic agreement to acquire the Molloy Companies, headquartered in Indianapolis, Ind.

HARTFORD, Conn.--The Hartford Steam Boiler Inspection and Insurance Company (HSB) today introduced a plug-in property underwriting program for insurers and alternative risk transfer (ART) organizations. The program combines property reinsurance capacity with a complete turnkey set of underwriting and risk management services.

WASHINGTON--Alice Ross, an engaging 71-year-old grandmother, died when her Buick was rammed by a car packed with gang members allegedly staging a crash in Brooklyn to make fake injury claims against insurance companies.

DALLAS--Docucorp International, a leading provider of enterprise information solutions, announced today the availability of its content management solution for the insurance and financial services industries.

COPENHAGEN--Accenture has been selected to implement its Web-based Claim Components software application at Topdanmark, a leading property and casualty insurance company based in Denmark. Topdanmark is the tenth insurer, and the first in the Nordic region, to license Accenture Claim Components software solution.

Penn-America Group, Inc., which includes the nationally recognized insurance operations of Penn-America Insurance Company and Penn-Star Insurance Company, has selected the TyMetrix' electronic invoicing solution across its claims services group.

New Haven, CT--Metaserver, Inc., a leading provider of business process integration (BPI) solutions for the insurance industry, today announced the release of Metaserver 4.6. The new release builds on Metaserver's rapid, business-focused approach to integration projects and includes several features designed to make it easier for insurance companies to transform data from agencies and service providers into the format required by underwriting, policy administration, and other insurance systems. Metaserver 4.6 also offers a number of enhancements that give organizations increased flexibility for incorporating business rules into the automated processes that orchestrate the interaction of multiple systems.

LA QUINTA, Calif.---Gallaudet Technologies announced the release of Version 2 of their "Do Not Call" software introduced in October. This upgrade adds several new features making compliance with the new Federal Trade Commission laws easy for anyone who may have to call potential customers. The program, that has a free, 7-day trial period, is available for download from the www.DNCLookup.com website. After the 7-day free trial, the one-time registration fee is just $29.95.