Insurance & Technology's annual Elite 8 November issue is about to hit the streets. We're pleased today to take the opportunity through our I&T News and blog channels to bring our readers a preview of this perennially popular issue.

I&T’s editors identify the Elite 8 through a combination of our own insights into the industry’s talent and the nominations of outstanding senior technology executives by their colleagues and business partners. Selecting the Elite 8 is a time-consuming, difficult process, and a bittersweet one — because as gratifying as it is to celebrate the accomplishments of eight standout technology officers, it is disappointing to exclude many others. On the bright side, it is that abundance of talent that keeps the Elite 8 issue so vital year after year.

This year, as last year, and as always, we feature a cross section of honorees from the P&C, life and health insurance sectors. While representing a similar pool of companies as their predecessors, this year's honorees will surprise the reader with their unique qualities and backgrounds.

In a very short time, our readers will be able to read our full coverage in the paper and online versions of our magazine. In the meantime, we proudly present our annual Elite 8 podcasts, consisting of conversations between I&T’s editors and the eight honorees.

We invite you to enjoy these podcasts and Nathan Conz’s piece on Elite 8 honorees' grappling with the buy versus build question. We also invite you to take a look at what we have planned for our 9th annual Insurance & Technology Executive Summit, held this year at The Phoenician in Scottsdale, Ariz. This unparalleled industry event is not only the best opportunity of the year to network with fellow senior technology executives, but it is also a
chance to meet the Elite 8 themselves, as we honor them at the Elite 8 2007 Ceremony and Awards Dinner on the evening of Nov. 5. To register for the Summit, just follow this link.

For many, the build vs. buy debate is really a question about control. That's certainly the case for Jackson National Life's (Lansing, Mich.) George Napoles and GMRC's Dennis Mehmen. While both recognize that purchasing a solution from a vendor is often the best approach, they are reluctant to do so if it means limiting their ability to make modifications later on. Mehmen, VP of business information services and CIO at Grinnell Mutual Reinsurance Company, says his IT environment is about 60 percent build, 40 percent buy. GMRC's online applications and agent Web site are all custom coded and its policy system for personal lines is homegrown.

Mehmen, VP of business information services and CIO at Grinnell Mutual Reinsurance Company (Grinnell, Iowa), says his IT environment is about 60 percent build, 40 percent buy. GMRC's online applications and agent Web site are all custom-coded and its policy system for personal lines is homegrown.

The key, Mehmen explains, is access. GMRC's billing and claims systems, for instance, were both purchased from an outside vendor, but GMRC was given access to each systems' source code.

Source code is so important that the company is in the midst of ending a 20-year vendor relationship involving its commercial lines policy system. A long dispute over the system's source code has caused GMRC to begin to develop its own commercial processing system, Mehmen says.

"Our main philosophy here is that we want to own the code for our main processing systems -- policy, billing and claims systems. We want to be able to change it as much as we want and we want to use those systems as leverage in our marketplace," Mehmen says.

At Jackson, where George Napoles is EVP, chief administrative officer and CIO, a "buy and modify" philosophy is in place. "Where we can — and not all vendors will let us — we attempt to get source code for every system," Napoles says.

While buying is generally preferable, Napoles says that Jackson often can't find a solution in the marketplace with the capabilities it's looking for. As a result, many of the carrier's applications are built internally. "If we can find a product that satisfies our needs without a lot of modifications, it really is cheaper for us to buy," Napoles relates. "What drives us to build is the degree of modifications often required for a [vendor solution] to meet our specifications."

In a way, the key to a making the right call when it comes to build vs. buy decision is having an efficient IT team in place, with strong leadership. Even when the marketplace fails to meet your specific needs, building can still be the wrong choice if your internal builders aren't up to the task.

According to a recent Celent report, conveniently titled "The Build Vs. Buy Debate," many of the reasons not to build involve the risks inherent in an underfunded or poorly governed internal IT development shop.

So perhaps that puts CIOs like Napoles and Mehmen in a better decision-making position. It can be easier for a CIO to look at the vendor marketplace more critically, when he or she has confidence that, if the market can't deliver what's needed, the internal development team can.

After an "exhaustive" search, for example, Napoles says that his team has decided to build rules engines internally. That project, Napoles says, is being completed on time and on budget. Anticipated benefits of the project are being realized and for less than cost of an outside vendor, Napoles asserts.

"It goes back to very good and very creative people. We frequently find that we can develop internally for cheaper and for a better solution than we could purchase outside," Napoles says.

The insurance industry continues to struggle to attract talent, in great measure because the workings of the industry demand a high level of talent, despite what the more cynically minded among us might say. Here at I&T we're in the midst not so much of attracting talent as identifying it, as we move toward the deadline for nominations for Insurance & Technology's Elite 8. This annual issue profiles eight innovative and successful senior technology executives in the insurance industry (check out the I&T's 2006 Elite 8 issue).

Unsolicited nominations have already begun to trickle in, along with the beginning of those that we solicit from analyst and consultant sources.

We hope to see several more and, as in years past, we're a little surprised that we haven't already received many more—especially on the part of vendors nominating their customers, since it's a great way for the former to receive some desperately desired publicity.

That said, if we didn't receive another nominee after today, we'd still be somewhat saddened that we had to pass over some very deserving technology executives. However many multiples of eight we end up receiving, we'll have the same old problem of picking only eight honorees out of a stellar field of nominees.

The cynics referred to above might scoff at the idea, but there are far more high-quality candidates than we could ever acknowledge. At the very least, we'd like the worthiest technology execs to have a fighting chance, so consider this note a call to get those nominations in. It will only make our job harder and more bittersweet, but then again, the definition of "elite" is that select few, and the more worthy people we consider, the higher the quality of the winners, and the greater the distinction of the Elite 8 Award.

That at least will make writing our annual Elite 8 issue all the more fun, along with celebrating the Elite 8 Award winners themselves, which we will do at the Elite 8 Award Dinner at I&T's ninth annual Insurance & Technology Executive Summit, held this year at the Phoenician in Scottsdale, Arizona from November 4th to the 7th (Visit I&T's registration page to register for the event). We hope to see you there.

Please submit nominations directly to aodonnell@cmp.com, including the name, title and company (include lines of business). Explain why your nominee should be considered for the Elite 8 Award in 500 words or less, and indicate major achievements in bullet points. Feel free to include any addenda that you believe help make the case for your candidate. Deadline for nomination submissions is July 6.

The appearance of I&T’s annual Tech-Savvy issue means that the Elite 8 issue is just around the corner. In order to bring that issue to life, we appeal to our friends in the industry, be they technology professionals, business unit leaders, vendors, consultants or analysts, to nominate the senior insurance carrier technology executives they believe stand head and shoulders above the rest. The 2007 Elite 8 honorees will be recognized at the 2007 Insurance & Technology Executive Summit, Nov. 4-7, The Phoenician Resort, Scottsdale, Ariz.

To submit a nomination (deadline: June 15), please contact Anthony O’Donnell: aodonnell@cmp.com, 503-465-0359. Nominations should include name, title, company and a list of accomplishments and qualities that make your nominee a suitable candidate for the Elite 8. We recommend that nominations be from 400 to 600 words.

Anthony O’Donnell, Senior Editor of Insurance & Technology, speaks with Joan Zerkovich, one of I&T’s Elite 8 2006, about how her decisive leadership and a background in distributed computing and Web-based technology drove the technology transformation of catastrophe insurance start-up ICAT.

Anthony O'Donnell, Senior Editor of Insurance & Technology, speaks with Jeff Stoll, one of I&T's Elite 8 2006, about how Stoll has taken MetLife's Individual Business Division through M&A challenges and legacy consolidation and modernization projects of a magnitude equal to any the insurance industry has seen in recent years.

Anthony O’Donnell, Senior Editor of Insurance & Technology, speaks with Jim Court, one of I&T’s Elite 8 2006, about how Court’s from-the-ground-up technology renovation helped First American P&C to go from revenues of $12 million in net written premium to $125 million within six years.

Maria Woehr, associate editor of Insurance & Technology, speaks with Al Bowen, senior vice president, information systems of Ohio National Financial Services and one of I&T's Elite 8 2006, about his accomplishments in the industry and what is next for Ohio National.

Anthony O’Donnell, Senior Editor of Insurance & Technology, speaks with John Kellington, one of I&T’s Elite 8 2006, about how an enterprise technology orientation, development methodologies, project management discipline and astute staff development have driven an unsurpassed record of success at Ohio Casualty.

Kathy Burger, editorial director of Insurance & Technology, talks with Bruce Goodman, senior vice president and chief service and information officer, and one of I&T's Elite 8 2006, about how by tracking emerging technology developments, Goodman is able to identify real-world applications that make the health insurer an easy-to-work-with partner.

Maria Woehr, associate editor of Insurance & Technology, speaks with Stuart McGuigan, executive vice president and enterprise CIO of Liberty Mutual Group, and one of I&T's Elite 8 2006, about his accomplishments and how the business is using IT to enhance customer service.

Maria Woehr, associate editor of Insurance & Technology, speaks with Rick Roy, senior vice president of Customer Operations of CUNA Mutual Group, and one of I&T's Elite 8 2006, about the responsibilities and challenges of his new position.

Vendor Podcast

"Insurance 2020 - Innovating beyond old models" discusses the strategic challenges insurance companies will face in the insurance marketplace of the future and shares ideas for moving from today's realities to tomorrow's potential.

In this interview, Mike Adler, Industry Leader for IBM's Global Business Services Insurance Practice and Jamie Bisker, Global Insurance Industry Leader for IBM's thought leadership group, the Institute for Business Value discuss the year long study conducted with dozens of global and U.S. insurance industry executives. Mike and Jamie discuss survey respondents and data analysis that revealed four mega-trends that underscore the need for innovation and will pave the way to consistent value creation for stakeholders by the year 2020.