Content posted in October 2011
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'Halloween Irene' Just Latest Entry in Freakish Catastrophe Year
It may not be the most expensive event of 2011, but the pre-Halloween snowstorm that walloped the East Coast is another reminder that such incidences don't follow the models.
Guardian Study Shows Online Enrollment Pays Off
The insurer's investments in the online channel over the past few years have coincided with an increase among all age groups in preference.
John Hancock Launches Unified iPad App
Borne out of an employee competition, the app has different capabilities depending on whether the user is a customer, financial advisor or benefits manager.
Allianz Life Gets on the Social Media Train With Videos
We've reported on how social media is becoming popular among life and annuities carriers in an attempt to broaden their policyholder bases. The ways companies look to start a conversation, however, aren't all the same.
Former Insurance Head Rometty Becomes IBM CEO
Virginia Rometty, who has been with IBM since 1981, served as GM of IBM's Global Insurance and Financial Services Sector on her way to succeeding Sam Palmisano.
Chubb Opens Online Forum on Risk
Risk Conversation includes loss prevention information, blogs and risk assessment tools that help users identify, understand and mitigate a variety of risks.
Gartner Forecasts 3.9 Percent Growth in Enterprise IT Spending for 2012 – How Will Insurance IT Budgets Compare?
Gartner forecasts 3.9 percent growth in enterprise IT spending for 2012; cloud, social, information, mobile identified as forces shaping IT spending. Insurance & Technology survey investigates budget plans and IT priorities for the coming year.
Rethinking the Single-Platform Policy Admin Strategy
Consolidating down to a single policy administration system would be a dream-come-true for many insurance CIOs, but given the capabilities of modern systems architecture, it's not necessarily the right objective.
Have You Taken I&T's Budget Survey?
Budget decisions are being made in an increasingly uncertain economic environment. Are your plans changing on the fly?
GEICO Puts Customer Portal on Facebook
The functionality is similar to that which is available on a mobile application or standard Web portal.
Idaho Farm Bureau Picks Thunderhead for Communications Modernization
The Thunderhead platform will help the insurer reduce the amount of paper in its enterprise, the companies say.
FICO Adds Infoglide Capabilities to Insurance Fraud Manager
The added capabilities include identity resolution and link analysis.
BCBSNC Selects Nexidia for Call Center Improvements
The health insurer will use Nexidia's speech intelligence technology and analytics services to improve its customer experience.
MajescoMastek Investment in SEG Begins to Pay Dividends
Both the vendor and carriers shopping for modern life and annuity policy administration platforms will benefit from Elixir NA's debut implementation at Wawanesa Life.
The 80/20 IT Spending Trap
We talk about legacy a lot in the insurance industry. Is it holding you back from devoting your budget to innovations you'd like to make?
How Tablets Could Reshape the Insurance Enterprise
The real differentiator in the long term for the tablet platform will be its business applicability for the enterprise. Insurers already spot an opportunity.
Can Social Media Save Life Insurance?
Let's be honest: Selling life insurance is about getting people to buy something related to their death, and who wants to think about that? More insurers are looking to begin that talk with prospects by turning to the most conversational technology available to them.
Allianz Life Names Jeff Palm CIO
Palm was most recently managing director-technology at from RBC Wealth Management (Minneapolis). Palm formerly held senior leadership roles in technology at Fingerhut/Federated, American Express, and Booz, Allen & Hamilton.
Wawanesa Life Picks MajescoMastek Elixir as Target Policy Admin Platform
The carrier identified Elixir from among available systems as the best fit end-to-end platform available to meet its objectives of straight-through processing, reduced product development time and enhanced customer service.
13 Keys to Mobile Claims Success
Pioneers in the mobile claims space, including trailblazers Farmers, 1st Guard insurance and USAA, share the best practices every insurance carrier must consider when building next-generation claims platforms.
Virtual Roundtable: Esurance, Aite Group and Allstate Execs on the Mobile Opportunity
What are the opportunities for insurance companies to incorporate mobile payments into their transaction processing?
Insurers Looking to Cut Costs: Is Tech on the Block?
The insurance market isn't getting any better and premium growth is hard to come by. If cost reductions are put on the table again, will IT budgets feel the pain?
Accenture and Guidewire Settle Patent Lawsuits
Guidewire will pay an undisclosed sum to Accenture, and the two companies will cross license patents.
Which Insurer Do Customers Trust Most?
The Temkin Group just released the results of its 2011 Trust Ratings, based on a poll of 6,000 U.S. consumers about 143 companies across 12 industries, and readers may be shocked to see an insurer in the number-one spot.
Meet Insurance & Technology's 2011 Elite 8 Honorees
Insurance & Technology's 2011 Elite 8 honorees exemplify the qualities and skills required of today's senior insurance technology executives to lead their organizations' efforts to create business value and distinction.
CIOs' Favorite Tech Gadgets
You don't get to the elite level in the information technology industry without being a techie at heart. The 2011 Elite 8 reveal their favorite personal gadgets.
Elite 8 2010 Honorees: Where Are They Now?
Insurance & Technology caught up with many of the 2010 Elite 8 honorees to see how current challenges have reshaped their focus and responsibilities in the year since their recognition.
From IT Cost Manager To Business-Savvy CIO
The opportunities for CIOs to increase their contributions by leveraging IT to create sustainable business value have never been greater, says Harvey R. Koeppel, Executive Director of the Center for CIO Leadership.
The Risks and Rewards of Being an Insurance CIO
The role of CIO is a complex, demanding and often thankless job that can be simultaneously high profile and unappreciated.
Consumer Insurance CIO Karl Uphoff Improves Efficiency, Supports Growth at Chartis
CIO of Consumer Insurance Karl Uphoff supported explosive growth and vastly improved efficiency at Chartis' high-net-worth consumer business.
CIO Joseph Smith Provides Arkansas Blue Cross and Blue Shield with IT Blueprint
Arkansas Blue Cross and Blue Shield CIO Joseph Smith has made a career out of anticipating the pain points in the health insurance industry and identifying the right technologies to solve them.
TIAA-CREF CIO Annabelle Bexiga An Immediate Change Agent
TIAA-CREF CIO Annabelle Bexiga hasn't been shy about implementing meaningful change at the company in only a year on the job.
SVP Bob Buchanan Builds IT-Business Success at Auto-Owners Insurance Co.
SVP Bob Buchanan's career at Auto-Owners Insurance Co. has been marked by his relationships with both IT staff and the business.
CIO Stuart Tainsky Enables Rapid Growth at PURE
PURE SVP and CIO Stuart Tainsky is rallying his small IT team to develop cost-effective ways to drive the carrier's rapid growth and reputation for quality service.
Narragansett Bay Insurance CIO Mike Anselmo on Leading Edge of IT
Mike Anselmo, CIO of Narragansett Bay Insurance Co., leverages leading-edge IT ideas, such as SaaS delivery of core systems, to support rapid growth within a targeted business niche.
Manulife EVP and CIO Joe Cooper Takes Federated Approach to IT
Manulife EVP and CIO Joe Cooper balances local and global concerns within a collaborative, federated technology organizational approach.
Nationwide CIO Dan Greteman Masters Large-Scale IT Delivery
SVP and CIO Dan Greteman's mastery of large-scale IT delivery and change management helped drive the success of Nationwide's commercial business consolidation program.
4 Top Issues for CIOs in 2012
What will set apart elite insurance IT organizations from the rest? I&T takes a look at the four areas in which insurance CIOs must differentiate their technology departments and capabilities in the next year.
XL Group to Use Cover-All Technologies to Support Enterprise BI Initiative
XL chose selected features of Cover-All's NexGen BI offering based on the vendor's insurance expertise and flexible technology.
Will You Spend Too Much on Your Transformation Initiative?
While insurers are typically prudent about solution selection, they often short-cut the contract phase for solutions whose pricing can be "all over the map." Spend consultant Jeff Muscaralla of NPI offers the three "Rs" of transformation cost control.
How Are Insurance Companies Navigating the 2012 IT Budget Process? Respond to I&T's Survey to Share Your Budget Experiences
Whether they increase or shrink compared to 2011 levels, insurers' 2012 IT budgets will have to cover everything from compliance to analytics to core systems to customer experience. Tell us how your 2012 IT budget is shaping up by participating in an Insurance & Technology survey.
Groupe Promutuel Standardizes on Guidewire's ClaimCenter
The Quebec-based P&C insurer will standardize on ClaimCenter across its 27 independent member companies in order to enable consistent, high quality customer service and enhance its vendor management capabilities in support of an improved customer experience.
Insurance Fraud Fighters Accused of "Snooping" on Facebook Accounts
Insurers need to navigate privacy and public relations problems when examining newly available data sources for fraud, and on a practical level they need to discard manual approaches for Big Data-style automated analysis.
What Do New Supercomputers Mean for Insurance Strategy?
Leaps in processing power herald the era of Big Data and foreshadow new competitive battlefields for the information-driven business of insurance.
AXA Looks to Gamification, iPad to Excite Consumers About Life Insurance
Connie O'Brien, SVP of Internet strategy and development, tells Insurance & Technology that with life insurance ownership at an all-time low, insurers must engage a new audience.
Aetna Helps Distribute Health Screening Stations
The stations are seen as a next step from worksite clinics.
Don’t Short List Your Search of Core System Choices
Exploring too few vendors introduces unnecessary risk into the selection process and may prevent you from finding the system that is best suited to your company's business strategy.
P&C Policy Admin System Replacement: Be Careful Whom You Trust
Thinking that "industry experts" ought to manage one's policy administration system selection may be more about looking for an easy way out than a concern about whether technology should be a core competency for an insurance company.
LB Group Selects Sapiens to Manage Reinsurance
The Sapiens Insight system also will aid LB Group with Solvency II.
Direct to Fraud: Applying Analytics to the Fraud Challenges of the Direct Insurance Channel
As insurers continue to expand into the direct Internet business, having analytical anti-fraud capabilities is no longer a luxury but a necessity.
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