Anthony O'Donnell, Senior Editor of Insurance & Technology, speaks with Edward J. Zore, one of I&T's 2008 Tech-Savvy CEOs, about the need to balance opportunism and prudence in technology investment in pursuit of business success.

Anthony O'Donnell, Senior Editor of Insurance & Technology, speaks with Ron Boyd, one of I&T's 2008 Tech-Savvy CEOs, about his role in driving paperlessness and remote work while expanding Midwest Family Mutual's geographic business footprint.

Nathan Conz, Associate Editor of Insurance & Technology, speaks with Thomas C. Godlasky, one of I&T's 2008 Tech-Savvy CEOs, about Aviva North America's technology turnaround, the carrier's foray into Second Life and the importance of looking outside the industry.

Kathy Burger, editorial director of Insurance & Technology, speaks with Stephen Sills, one of I&T's 2008 Tech-Savvy CEOs, about how five-year-old Darwin Professional Underwriters is shaking up the specialty liability insurance segment by bring straight-through processing and self-service to a traditionally unautomated, paper-bound business.

Nathan Conz, Associate Editor of Insurance & Technology, speaks with John Leonard, one of I&T's 2008 Tech-Savvy CEOs, about his role in defining technology philosophy at MEMIC, the importance of a strong CIO and his work on board of industry standards group ACORD.

Holly Morris, Senior Vice Presidence and Chief Information Officer of Thrivent Financial for Lutherans and one of Insurance & Technology's Elite 8 2007, speaks about the influence of her liberal arts education in driving an outstanding technology career, and the transformation of Thrivent's technology to drive growth through a better member experience and relationship with the fraternal benefit society.

Duration: 15 minutes

Meg McCarthy, Senior Vice President and Chief Information Officer, Aetna, Inc., and one of Insurance & Technology's Elite 8 2007, discusses her deep healthcare and technology experience and her focus on world-class standards of technology delivery and performance.

Duration: 14 minutes

Mark Boxer, President and CEO Operations, Technology and Government Services at WellPoint, Inc., and one of Insurance & Technology's Elite 8 2007, talks about his career path through the development of consumer-directed health movement, the value of IT for healthcare consumers, and the state of members' online experience at health insurer WellPoint.

Duration: 15 minutes

Jim Hanson, EVP, Information Services, Mutual of Omaha, and one of Insurance & Technology's Elite 8 2007, reports on the evolution of Mutual's IT organization over the past 11 years, his organization's focus on efficiency and simplicity, and the launching of the carrier's revenue-producing IT services subsidiary Continuum Worldwide.

Duration: 15 minutes

Catherine Brune, Allstate Insurance Company's SVP and CIO, and one of Insurance & Technology's Elite 8 2007, goes beyond the platitudes to put people first, partner with the business units, and focus on organizational transformation. Brune discusses how Allstate's Next Gen claims reengineering initiative exemplifies her focus on architecture, governance and collaboration.

Duration: 12 minutes

Insurance & Technology Elite 8 2007 honoree Chris Steward, vice president of information systems and CIO of Arbella Insurance Group, talks about balancing the drive for new systems capabilities with the need to control operational expenses and delivering increased agent-facing functionality to the company Web site.

Duration: 12 minutes

Insurance & Technology Elite 8 2007 honoree George Napoles, executive vice president, chief administrative officer and CIO of Jackson National Life, comments on the challenges of developing an IT department from the ground up and the importance of customer service.

Duration: 15 minutes

Insurance & Technology Elite 8 2007 honoree Dennis Mehmen, vice president of business information services and CIO of Grinnell Mutual Reinsurance Company, speaks about how he turned things around at GMRC, his views on SOA and the role of IT as a strategic business partner.

Duration: 10 minutes

1. The Future of Insurance Technology [download]
I&T’s Editorial Director Kathy Burger interviews technology analyst Kimberly Harris-Ferrante of Gartner about what insurers need to know about tomorrow’s hottest technologies.

2. Claims and Technology [download]
I&T’s Associate Editor Nathan Conz interviews Celent’s Senior Analyst Donald Light about the challenges and opportunities facing insurers in the area of claims operations.

3. Transforming Policy Administration [download]
I&T’s Senior Editor Anthony O’Donnell talks to The Hartford’s Gary Plotkin and Celent’s Chad Hirsch about the industry trends towards replacing legacy systems and SOA integration.

4. Mastering Multi-Channel Distribution [download]
I&T's Editorial Director Kathy Burger talks to Chubb's Linda Dodson and ACORD Director and WRG CIO Keith Savino about changing distribution models and the factors that drive the changes.

Get I&T Podcasts in iTunes

Anthony O'Donnell, senior editor of Insurance & Technology, chats with Joseph Beneducci, one of I&T's 2007 Tech-Savvy CEOs, about how technology innovation at property/casualty carrier is enabling creation of products and services that answer the unique demands of customers and enable competitive differentiation.

Kathy Burger, editorial director of Insurance & Technology, speaks with Thomas R. Watjen, one of I&T's 2007 Tech-Savvy CEOs, about the ways technology plays a direct role in helping employee benefits provider Unum Group deal with change and gain competitive advantage and do things differently to serve employer customers.

Anthony O'Donnell, senior editor of Insurance & Technology, hears from Life of the South Corp.'s Ned Hamil, one of I&T's 2007 Tech-Savvy CEOs, about the challenges of creating a technology-driven life insurance company, including an organizational transformation that involved systems conversions, consolidating operations, and creation of a thriving TPA business.

Nathan Conz, associate editor of Insurance & Technology, talks with Kent W. Klapp, one of I&T's 2007 Tech-Savvy CEOs, about how Medical Mutual of Ohio has cultivated technology initiatives that have expanded the business and enabled efficient IT spending and operations, including streamlining claims and creating a for-profit BPO company.

Anthony O'Donnell, senior editor of Insurance & Technology, speaks with Praetorian Financial Group's Rod Fox, one of I&T's 2007 Tech-Savvy CEOs, about Fox's commitment to transform the carrier's paper-based legacy environment and invest in leading-edge technology to provide maximum accessibility to internal users and ease of use to distributors.

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.

Listen to this episode (6:25)

Maria Woehr, Associate Editor of I&T speaks with Jeffrey Glazer, president of ChoicePoint's Insurance Division about the vendor's strategy to dominate the P&C industry software space and how Steel Card's acquisition will open up the vendor's product offerings to personal lines.

Listen to this episode (7:51)

Kent Cannon, CEO of Beneficial Financial Group prompted business growth by consolidating systems and providing ease of use throughout the carrier’s distribution channels.

Listen to this episode (11:03)

Ohio Casualty CEO Dan Carmichael talks to I&T about the beginnings of his interest in technology standards, his experience as CEO of IVANS and how Ohio Casualty is shoulder-to-shoulder with national companies because of IT/business collaboration, a shift from mainframe maintenance to new application development, and a focus on project management.

Listen to this episode (7:56)

Elizabeth Haar, CEO of Accident Fund Insurance has been instrumental in her companies growth by supporting an e-business plan that has expanded the carrier's growth into 43 states.

Listen to this episode (14:35)

Mark Schwarzmann, president of Insurance, Annuities and Product Distribution, Ameriprise Financial, relates the genesis of American Express spin-off Ameriprise, talks about how he works with the company’s technology organization.

Listen to this episode (9:30)

For Ronald A. Williams, CEO and president of Hartford-based Aetna, Inc., technology has been central to the company's dramatic transformation into a profitable leader in the emerging consumer-directed healthcare market. Williams discusses his vision for how technology can transform the health insurance business, and how it has helped Aetna become a more effective "high-performance" competitor.

Vendor Podcast
Listen to this episode

Connie Dorough commercial lines automation manager at Unitrin Business Insurance. In that role, she is responsible for the alignment of Unitrin's business operations with the company's technology infrastructure. Listen as she tells us how her company's work with CSC has enabled her to focus on current – and future – business mandates while CSC functions as Unitrin's trusted partner, responsible for Unitrin's technology backbone. That partnership enabled Unitrin to successfully implement a “come from behind” technology upgrade within 12 months, Durough says. The upgrade highlights the insurance industry expertise of CSC's staff and has resulted in a vastly improved competitive position for Unitrin.

Vendor Podcast
Listen to this episode

When Debra Brenner became vice president at AmCOMP, she was confronted with the simultaneous challenges of aligning the company's many constituencies – from internal customers through agents and customers – with a totally new audience: the company's shareholders as it went public. Working with CSC's team, Brenner has been able to create a highly reliable technology backbone based on IBM iSeries. The solution aligns those disparate technology audiences and creates a business-focused approach Brenner asserts has not only improved AmCOMP's existing business processes, but has resulted in an improved competitive position. AmCOMP's challenges were met and overcome with the assistance of CSC's Innovation Community, groups of CSC customers who regularly share lessons learned to benefit CSC's entire customer community.

Vendor Podcast
Listen to this episode

Helmut Tissler, director of e-commerce at Companion Property & Casualty, describes his job as "the collection point" for the company's entire value chain, ranging from underwriters to Companion's marketing operations. Moreover, Tissler says Companion was trying to “expand the company's footprint” within the agency community, an effort aimed at taking on Companion's larger, better-heeled competitors. Listen as he tells how working with CSC's team enabled Companion to leverage an ultra-reliable IBM iSeries-based architecture as it transitioned to a Web-based set of agency offerings that have positioned Companion to provide superior services today and well into the future.

Vendor Podcast
Listen to this episode

Kevin Rall is the assistant vice president for information systems at Ohio Mutual Insurance, and as he described it, his principal responsibility is "the business alignment of our technology resources and architecture to better compete in the independent agency office." No small set of challenges when taken alone, but Rall's task – typical of the insurance marketplace as a whole – also needed to wrestle with the need to upgrade core technologies while not losing a beat; the need to “get the fundamentals right while focusing on what makes Ohio Mutual Insurance competitive.” Rall tells us he was able to fill that bill through his partnership with CSC. Ohio Mutual implemented CSC's POINT IN underwriting upgrade suite that made the company more competitive, more efficient and has positioned the company well for future expansion.

Vendor Podcast
Listen to this episode

As a business analyst at Co-operative Insurance, it isn't surprising that Nancy Harvey views the company's many operational needs through the lens of their impact on the business. Everything from internal user needs to the demands of the agency community carry business impact and it is Harvey's responsibility to see that the business impact of all of the company's initiatives is optimally favorable. Her pain point was that competitive pressures had forced Co-operative to move, “from a green screen world to the Web,” Harvey says, and to do so quickly. She turned to CSC's business process sourcing team for support and guidance. Listen as she describes how the combination of CSC's insurance-specific expertise, the capabilities of CSC's POINT IN suite, and the unwavering support of CSC's staff enabled Co-operative to meet all of its business imperatives, resulting in a renewed and refreshed market position for Co-operative.

Vendor Podcast
Listen to this episode

CSC's Chief Technology Officer Phil Ehlen is the person ultimately responsible for all of CSC's property and casualty products. Beyond that, he's in the unique position of also being a CSC customer. Ehlen oversees more than $2 billion in transactions associated with more than 780,000 policies within CSC's own business process sourcing operations. Given those complementary responsibilities, it's no surprise that Ehlen is forced to maintain an unrelenting focus of keeping CSC abreast of – and ahead of – its customers' needs for outsourcing services. Listen as he about how CSC is:

• Continually preparing for the future
  
• Working closely with IBM on backbone technologies
  
• Fostering the growth of CSC's Innovation Community
  
• Maintaining a partnership with customers that process more than $5 billion in written premiums each year
  
• Ensuring downtime is a planned occurrence and not a random event
  

Listen to Philippe Bibi now

Philippe Bibi, senior managing director and CTO at Boston-based Putnam Investments, plans to focus on adding business value in 2006 (instead of spending a lot of time focused solely on regulatory compliance) by developing technology that can automate derivatives transactions and replacing parts of Putnam's legacy systems with off-the-shelf solutions. In fact, Bibi plans to add the similar levels of automation to derivatives transactions as Putnam has for securities trades. At the same time, Putnam is pushing forward aggressively with its move to a company-wide 64-bit architecture.

Background Music "Classic Sidewalk Stroll" Courtesy Digital Riffs Music, www.digitalriffs.ca, under Creative Commons License