By Anthony O'Donnell
Senior Editor

Computer Sciences Corp. unveiled Product Accelerator software, which is designed to simplify the creation of life insurance and annuity products. The software gives business experts – rather than software programmers – control of product introduction.

It also includes a library of insurance product types that can enable carriers to reduce time to market, according to CSC. Product Accelerator's modeling tools allow users to combine and customize reusable components to quickly configure unique products. The software's configuration console enables collaboration among an insurer's marketing actualrial and IT departments.

By Anthony O'Donnell
Senior Editor

Exstream Software introduced to the insurance industry its Dialogue Live, new software designed to manage the editing of all types of interactive documents across the enterprise, while controlling content and costs at the corporate level.

Exstream says Dialogue Live is the first solution on the market that merges interactive document completion in the field with corporate document production and fulfillment. Integrated with Exstream’s enterprise document automation Dialogue software for high-volume and on-demand production of personalized customer communications, Dialogue Live enables insurers to provide customer-facing employees with the flexibility and autonomy they need to complete interactive, point-of-need, personalized documents for clients, while ensuring accuracy and costs are controlled through centralized production and fulfillment.

By Anthony O'Donnell
Senior Editor

Camilion Solutions introduced Authority Suite, which it describes as a next-generation policy administration system for the property and casualty market.

Leveraging a service-oriented architecture and built on a tools-based technology platform, Authority Suite gives insurers the agility they need to overcome the challenges created by hard-coded legacy systems, according to Camilion, including the ability to quickly revise and develop new products, automate underwriting and provide online sales –all while reducing their systems maintenance costs.

By Anthony O'Donnell
Senior Editor

Skywire Software announced the general availability of version 11.2 of the Documaker Suite, including Documaker Studio.

Featuring more than 140 customer and market-driven enhancements, the new version began shipping this month. Features include simplified navigation, enhanced reporting capabilities, expanded conversion capabilities for AFP, Metacode and Quark, and expanded library searching and navigation.

By Anthony O'Donnell
Senior Editor

Chicago-based Prima Solutions announced the availability of Prima IBCS 5, the latest version of the vendor’s Reference Insurance Model.

The new release is packaged with a template-based generation toolset based on MIA-Generation engine from MIA-Software that supports a model driven architecture (MDA) approach. Hundreds of ACORD elements (life and P&C code lists) are incorporated into the vendor’s life and P&C model.

By Anthony O'Donnell
Senior Editor

SEEC, Inc. has launched its searchable online catalogue of 280 pre-built, reusable SOA components.

The vendor announced the expansion of the library to include over 80 new components, bringing enhanced functionality for single customer and household view, new product configuration, claims, producer management, life quote and sales illustration, and rate/quote processes in auto, home, marine and umbrella.

By Anthony O'Donnell
Senior Editor

Whitehill Technologies has released significant new functionality in its IStream document automation suite, which includes IStream Publisehr and IStream Document Manager, according to the vendor.

The new functionality includes add-ins for Microsoft Word and Adobe Reader, letting users create complex documents in a familiar, easy-to-use, interactive environment, the vendor says.

By Anthony O'Donnell
Senior Editor

Edison-N.J.-based MajescoMastek has released software the vendor says can cut by up to 50 percent the time it takes life insurance carriers and their producers to issue policies.

The vendor’s Elixir New Business/Underwriting 4.0 leverages straight-through processing to simplify and accelerate a carrier’s new business underwriting process, according to MajescoMastek. The new release features a configurable underwriting rules engine and the ability to handle applications for all product lines and from all production channels, from agents and brokers to advisers and broker/dealers.

By Anthony O'Donnell
Senior Editor

LOMA has launched its Corporate Learning Solutions Practice, which will provide member companies and their employees with new solutions to meet their professional and development needs.

The solutions currently include interactive online courses, customizable learning paths and certificate programs and customized courses.

By Nathan Conz
Associate Editor

Legacy systems migration was one of several key topics discussed at a Tuesday morning CIO panel during the 2007 ACORD LOMA Insurance Systems Forum in Orlando.

All four CIOs on the panel - Saad Ayub, CIO for Sales and Service Applications, The Hartford; Jeff Carlson, senior vice president, CIO for Domestic Life Companies, AIG; Ursuline Foley, Senior Vice President and CIO, XL Reinsurance and XL Financial Lines; and Paul Fox, CIO, Guy Carpenter & Company - said they were working to migrate off legacy systems to some degree. That reinforced some vendors' sentiments and research found in a recent report from Forrester that anticipated the IT industry will see increased investment this year, driven partially by legacy replacement.

“We're committed to a conversion from legacy,” declared Guy Carpenter's Fox, who said his organization is in the midst of a long term effort to migrate seven back office legacy systems into one.

Ayub added that there are some wholesale legacy replacement efforts at The Hartford, but that the IT team is also decoupling some related services so that some legacy data can be kept, allowing for more gradual migration efforts.

XL's Foley said her company is in year three of a five-year initiative to standardize business processes by driving out legacy systems and building components for across the enterprise. “The long term value really is increased efficiency,” she said.

One driving factor behind replacement is that legacy systems are being realized as risks to business, as workers who maintain these systems retire in growing numbers. “At some point, you have to tackle the problem,” Foley explained. “You're going to run out of the skill set.”

Another key to legacy replacement is demonstrating inherent risks and hindrances to the business. For instance, off-shoring has helped make efficiency problems more apparent. “The best opportunity is to help the business understand the underlined complexity [caused by legacy systems] in everything we try to do,” AIG's Carlson said.

Foley agreed, adding that a push towards “business outsourcing is beginning to expose the levels of complexity in our processes.”

Several other topics were discussed by the four CIOs, who were joined by Ann M. Purr, second vice president, information management for LOMA and moderator Gregory A. Maciag, president and CEO of ACORD. The panel agreed that data security will continue to be a critical issue going forward and that there is growing preference to buy solutions, rather than build. “If your core business is insurance,” Foley explained, “you want to focus on analytics, which is where the value to the organization is.”

By Anthony O'Donnell
Senior Editor

Everyone I’ve spoken to agrees: this year’s ACORD/LOMA Insurance Systems Forum is the most vibrant in years. One friend who began working within the insurance systems world right after the dot-com bust expressed just how much the show has improved: “The first one I went to wasn’t a show, it was a wake,” she quipped. But this year’s event, she agreed, was the best since then, and had the feel of what these things can really be.

Why is this the case? Since the dark days my friend referred to, insurance spending has gradually been rising. This year, according to a recent Forrester report, insurance budgets are expected to rise 7 percent, compared with about 5 percent in the previous year. And if insurers are spending, the vendors are likely to be more numerous and positive, the attendees are likely to be more interested them, and the tone of the whole event is likely to be more lively and pleasant. And so it is.

My friend might have thought that the way this event turned out would have been too much to expect, but a news item released at the conference included something really hard to believe. The “Man Bites Dog” element appeared in a press release from IBM that reported on a survey revealing consumers’ loyalty to their insurance agents. Interesting, though hardly staggering, was the news that only 15 percent of respondents said they would consider dropping their agent to save $150 annually by buying insurance online. However, what was stunning was the finding that, “44 percent of consumers said their insurance provider is innovative as compared to other industries.”

Somebody pinch me.

By Anthony O'Donnell
Senior Editor

Acting on feedback from distributors and insight from research, AXA Distributors LLC has launched significant enhancements to its AXAdistributors.com Web site to provide users with greater control and security.

Users of AXAdistributors.com now use a more secure authentication protocol and have access to a Message Center, which provides notices to each registered representative about his or her book of business, including an e-mail record of all client-related transactions; a Staff Access Level mechanism allows partner firms to determine the types of information that individual representatives may view, including client account information, policy details and underwriting details; and an E-Mail Subscriptions mechanism offers reps the ability to opt in to receive notices about product updates, money manager changes and other distributor-relevant information from AXA.

Concerns on the part of AXA and its partner firms about the security of brokers’ ID and password led to the development of a re-authentication protocol designed to maximize security with the least impact on ease-of-use, according to Jeff Coomes, VP of Web content strategy, AXA Distributors (New York, a member company of Paris-based AXA Financial, $795 billion in assets under management).

“There’s a mandatory requirement internally on any application that users reset their passwords every 90 days, and the thinking here was that we should do the same thing with our external users,” Coomes says. “However, external users weren’t too keen on the idea.”

Coomes explains that a broker might work with about 10 other firms’ Web sites, none of which are likely to require them to periodically reset their passwords. In order to minimize brokers’ inconvenience, AXA implemented a protocol that prompts brokers to select a secret question, the answer to which is recorded and combined with other known information about the broker. “Now, every 90 days when [the broker] logs on and successfully enters ID and password, we ask for Social Security number and date of birth and then ask her to answer her secret question,” Coomes explains. “If she does these three things successfully, she is re-authenticated and we are happy.”

In response to specific requests from distribution partners, AXA developed another authentication protocol that lets brokers authorize staff members to see certain kinds of information. “In the past the only way [a broker] could give her number-one assistant access to the Web site was for her to share her ID and password,” Coomes says. The protocol provides two tiers of access, which distributor users can use on an opt-in basis to give them greater control over what they share with their staff.

User feedback and research drove AXA Distributors implementation of E-Mail Subscriptions, which responds to brokers’ preference to have relevant information pushed to them rather than their having to speculatively log on to the Web site in case something important might be posted. Since the site enhancements were rolled out in early spring, adoption rates confirm the e-mail functionality’s utility to brokers, Coomes believes. “We pushed our first e-mail out two weeks after we launched the new functionality, and 80 percent of the e-mails sent were opened,” he reports. “Of those that were opened, about 90 percent led the user to go to the Web site and get the information referred to in the e-mail.”

The AXA Distributor site’s Message Center tracks users’ business by posting summaries of all financial transactions and a majority of non-financial transactions that occur in the broker’s book of business. If, for example, a fund transfer is made on a given account, an alert about that transfer will appear at the Message Center location on the site. “The broker can click on a link that takes her to a summary of the transfer,” Coomes says. “The broker can also opt in for alerts on client-initiated transactions.”

By Kathy Burger
Editorial Director

Acknowledging that "implementation is an important part of standard setting," ACORD president and CEO Greg Maciag kicked off the 2007 ACORD LOMA Insurance Systems Forum at the annual ACORD Awards Luncheon, which recognizes excellence in ACORD standards implementation. Forty-four organizations received awards at this year's event. The program featured a panel discussion among past award winners, who provided updates on ACORD standards implementations at their organizations, including "lessons learned" and advice for other companies embarking on that path.

Joan Falcetta, AVP, MetLife, reported on the progress of the company's Service Request Director, an integration hub that was launched in 2000 as part of "a directive to transform how we deliver systems" at MetLife. The integration hub "provides shared services internally and externally," Falcetta reported. "It allows us to standardize on many levels, including business rules."

ACORD standards have been critical to the hub's success, Falcetta added. "ACORD helps us in speaking a common language in integration work it reduces complexity; and it has helped us create common interfaces and common logic."

One of the most important lessons that has been learned at Aon Re as it has pursued standards initiatives is "Don't underestimate the testing process," reported Tom Neff, director, industry standards, Aon Re. He also emphasized the importance of heeding the fact that standards implementation is "not an IT project, but an IT and business project. Standards don't happen on their own. It's a volunteer army."

Concurring, Thomas Krapf, VP, Reinsurance Information Management, Swiss Re, noted, "Industry standards can significantly contribute to productive information exchange with our business partners. The biggest challenge is making sure standards are implemented in critical mass."

Krapf elaborated that "it's essential to start on a smaller scale, but always have critical mass in mind – who you want to target, and what you want to achieve." Standards initiatives are not "just about data," he emphasized. It's important to have a "long-term strategy perspective – how does it fit into a company's strategy and overall operational excellence?"

According to Gary Plotkin, VP and CTO, e-business and technology, The Hartford, when it comes to ACORD standards, "it's not if, but how." The Hartford is using ACORD standards "across the board," in applications that support four main constituents: agents, third parties/aggregators; vendors; and, "most important, ACORD standards allow The Hartford to interact with itself [across lines of business] – it makes it easier to share data."

Among the key benefits have been improvements in compliance-related actions, Plotkin reported. "The use of common standards allows our auditors to do a better job of seeing if we're managing to the [regulatory] standards to which we are held," both internally and externally, Plotkin said.

Clem Booth, member of the management board of Alliance, and current chair of the ACORD Board of Directors declared a personal "passion for standards," emphasizing that "standards will be the difference between operating in an industry that has a future and one that doesn’t. We're in this together to make this industry what it's capable of being."
And, noting that ACORD now has an international membership, including companies that are based in South Africa, Australia and China, Booth declared, "Standards are the enabler for a global insurance industry.