DELIVERY STRATEGIES BRIEFS

Unitrin Direct embarked on a new campaign to sell its products in Florida; Blue Cross & Blue Shield United of Wisconsin launched The TempPlan; COSS Development Corp. released the 2001 version of Tapestry; The Hartford Financial Services Group and Applied Systems entered into an integration agreement.

Direct auto insurance seller Unitrin Direct (Vista, CA) has embarked on a direct mail and television campaign to sell its products in Florida. The move comes in the wake of successful testing of sales of auto insurance in Pennsylvania.

Milwaukee-based Blue Cross & Blue Shield United of Wisconsin launched The TempPlan, which offers short-term medical coverage online through the carrier's bluecrosswisconsin.com Web site. The site's customized application for individual online sales was designed by ChannelPoint (Westminster, CO).

Mequon, WI-based COSS Development Corp. has released the 2001 version of its Tapestry advanced marketing system. The updated point-of-sale Web or desktop system includes an improved premium-financing module; compliance updates for NASD and NAIC; improved click-driven navigation; split-dollar module enhancements, such as REB calculators for riders and the addition of crawl-out scenarios; a business model for funding buy/sell agreements and RSD calculator.

The Hartford Financial Services Group (Hartford) and University Park, IL-based Applied Systems entered into an agreement to integrate Hartford Fidelity & Bonding's (HF&B) Web-based 1StepSurety System into Applied's The Agency Manager management system to facilitate independent agents' issuing security bonds from a variety of carriers while automatically capturing the information in their agency management systems.

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