Beigian To Ramp-Up Worksite Firm

Former AFLAC CIO Koorosh Beigian has returned to the insurance industry, after a stint as CEO of Science Reagents, a San Diego-based biotech company, ready to do battle with his old firm in the worksite/supplemental insurance marketplace. Beigian has been hired as CIO of Chicago-based Combined Insurance Co. of America ($3.8 billion in assets), an entity in the process of being spun-off from Aon Corp. (Chicago).

Looking at supplemental insurance as a high-growth area, Combined has brought Beigian on board to apply his experience with the niche's top player. "The main thing I'll bring to the table is implementing a governance process for technology to align IT with corporate objectives, as I did at AFLAC," Beigian says. "I bring a lot of experience in that area to provide enabling technology for worksite marketing."

Combined is focused on the rural individual supplementary insurance market, so overlap with AFLAC's more urban, small-market niche will be limited. "The good news is that the supplemental insurance market is so under-penetrated that everyone can grow very, very rapidly without cutting into anybody else's growth," Beigian says. "Of course, I hope every time we come head-to-head with AFLAC we'll be able to win."

The 38-year-old Beigian's career in the insurance industry has included positions in both technology and finance, and began in 1986 at American General (Houston). He did stints at start-up HMO HealthCare USA (St. Louis) and American Heritage Life (Jacksonville, FL) before joining AFLAC in 1998.

Anthony O'Donnell has covered technology in the insurance industry since 2000, when he joined the editorial staff of Insurance & Technology. As an editor and reporter for I&T and the InformationWeek Financial Services of TechWeb he has written on all areas of information ... View Full Bio