Culture of Compliance

Mark Johnson has been appointed Conseco's chief compliance officer, in which capacity he will oversee compliance-related activities across the company's Conseco Insurance Group, Bankers Life and Casualty Co. and Colonial Penn Life Ins. Co. units.

Earlier in his career, Mark Johnson oversaw his division's IT organization; what he learned from that, he says, will be invaluable in executing his responsibilities as Conseco's (Carmel, Ind.) new chief compliance officer. Johnson will oversee compliance-related activities across the company's Conseco Insurance Group, Bankers Life and Casualty, and Colonial Penn Life Insurance units.

"By centralizing the compliance oversight function into one office, we will have the capability to identify synergies between the companies," Johnson comments. "One example might be leveraging the expertise of one area or a targeted group of people across company lines."

Addressing compliance training , Johnson's long-term objective is to drive what he calls a culture of compliance across the organization. "Using technology is a good way to magnify those efforts, such as online training via webinars," he says.

More immediately, Johnson says, he will ensure that the right tools and processes are in place for day-to-day compliance measures. "That's where I see leveraging the technology and intellectual capital of the company, to establish the best processes possible, and to use technology to magnify the potential we have with people and written policies," he remarks. --A.O.

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