Technology

McKinsey Quarterly: The new IT landscape for health insurers

A volatile new health care environment is emerging in the United States. These are times of trouble—and opportunity—for the payers’ CIOs.

A Prescription for ... Change

The health reform bill and changing demographics are helping drive carriers' offerings and strategies.

The Use of Electronic Health Information in Actuarial Practice

Presentation from the SOA '10 Health Meeting, held on June 28–30, in Orlando, FL.

Study Documents No Recovery in IT Spending

A new study of IT spending trends seems to indicate that the departure of these bad times is not yet imminent.

According to the “IT Spending and Staffing Benchmarks 2010/2011” study just released by Computer Economics, there has been no recovery yet in terms of IT operational spending. The study is based on a survey of more than 200 IT executives conducted in the first quarter of 2010, and includes individual chapters for 16 commercial and government sectors, including insurance.

On Siloed Thinking

While a new study questions the value of brainstorming, the history of successes born of collaboration tells another tale.

Social Media Policy Template Released Today For Insurance & Financial Services Marketplace

The Insurance Marketplace Standards Association (IMSA) today announced that it has expanded its efforts to provide compliant social media guidance and resources within the annuity, life insurance and long term care insurance arenas with today’s release of the IMSA Social Media Policy Template.

Social Media: Are We Talking About it Because There’s Nothing Else to Talk About?

Object-oriented programming, CRM, SEMCI, straight-through processing, SOA, cloud computing … the list of hot topics in the insurance computer technology world seems endless. Then again, if we didn’t have some titillating tech topic to talk about, what would we do for education sessions at our conferences?

Forward Focus: Building Social Media into the Game Plan

This issue of Deloitte's Forward Focus, “Building social media into the game plan,” discusses how insurers might leverage new social media technologies and networking tools while avoiding the inherent risks of implementation.

Where Will We Find the Next Generation of Insurance IT Professionals?

Given the growing exodus of boomers from insurers’ ranks in favor of retirement, many insurers continue to ponder how they will answer this question. Every year, analysts and the media who study the industry invariably issue a new report that laments the aging insurance and insurance IT professional workforce. It’s a very real and serious business problem.

We’ve now reached a point where technology delivery has clearly outpaced insurers’ technology acceptance.

Why Aren’t Insurers Better at Adopting BI?

Business intelligence (BI) is all the rage these days, with vendors touting solutions to gather and analyze information about our companies and our customers to help us make better decisions. In this continually flaccid economy, it seems obvious that this should be a priority for insurers, but a recent survey indicates carriers just aren’t getting the job done when it comes to BI.

Life Insurance Producers Not Seeing Social Media Benefits

Survey results show some producers are using social media, but say it’s not generating new business.

Automated Underwriting: A Survey Of Life Insurer Experience

Life insurers looking to reach the elusive middle market must limit costs and deliver products efficiently. Generations X and Y will demand access to insurance on their own schedule, and won't tolerate the slow, invasive underwriting process of yesterday. Or so the advocates of automated underwriting would tell you. In fact, for these and other reasons, many life insurance companies continuously seek to streamline the underwriting process while preserving its protective value. Automated underwriting systems are often touted as the solution. Although these systems have been around for some time, not much is known about the industry's experience with them. (Article from the SOA's Marketing and Distribution Section January 2010 newsletter.

Uptick Seen in Use of Automated Underwriting

Technologies supporting automated underwriting processes are gathering momentum in the United States. New data-driven methodologies have emerged, and insurers have begun to sell insurance to the middle class, a group that has been underserved by insurers focused on selling to high-net-worth individuals.

Do You Accidentally Have a New Social Media Presence? Do You Want One?

The world of social networks and social media move swiftly, and these last two weeks have been no exception with Twitter’s conference announcing promoted tweets, and Facebook’s F8 conference announcing all manner of changes to their Web site. Here are a few things to watch out for that may already be affecting you.

Social Media Policy Template Released For Insurance & Financial Services

The Insurance Marketplace Standards Association (IMSA) recently announced that it has expanded its efforts to provide compliant social media guidance and resources within the annuity, life insurance and long term care insurance arenas with today’s release of the IMSA Social Media Policy Template.

Social Networking A Life Underwriting Tool? Report Stirs Debate

Insurers will increasingly use public shared data to inform pricing decisions and aid in fraud detection, predict researchers from Celent. What's more, says Mike Fitzgerald, a senior analyst in the Chicago office of Celent, insurers could use information gleaned from social networking websites, including Facebook, when deciding whether and how to underwrite applicants for life insurance.

Healthcare Reform Will Require Massive Insurance IT Spending

Caught off guard by the passage of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010, insurers must modernize IT while increasing operational efficiency.

Insurance Companies Tweet the Most, Study Finds

A new study on social networking has just been released that shows the insurance industry leads in the use of Twitter.

Can Social Networking Aid Underwriting?

How could social networking be used in underwriting, and where might we see it emerge first?

Underwriting Technologies: Focusing on Strategic Business Benefits

New life underwriting technologies have gained ground during the last decade. Recent surveys sponsored by the Society of Actuaries and other industry groups show strong inroads and increased confidence in these new tools. More significantly, the focus of underwriting technology is moving beyond speed, ease of case submission and sales support to strategic business benefits, including product design, pricing and capital considerations. As we enter a new decade, the goal will be to take advantage of what’s available to improve efficiencies without losing sight of the big picture – risk management – and the analysis and understanding that is required to manage risk.

Life Insurance Industry on Tech Growth Path

The long-term outlook for the life insurance industry is for a faster pace of change, particularly in the use of technology. That was the conclusion of a survey of top industry executives by LOMA, an Atlanta-based insurance industry group.

Health, Life Insurers Trail in Customer Experience

Property/casualty insurers outshine their health and life counterparts when it comes to customer satisfaction, a new study finds.

Underwriting, Paramedical Focus of Life Product Face to Face Meeting

On March 18-19, 2010, ACORD's Life Product Working Group will be meeting in person to address the underwriting and paramedical needs for Product Profile for Life (PPfL) processing. The working group reviewed a preliminary list of requirements during the February 19th meeting and the carriers are in the process of reviewing the revised list. They'll then provide their feedback which will be reviewed during the upcoming meeting.

Insurance Clients Prefer E-delivery: Study

The insurance industry is trailing behind other industries in keeping customers informed electronically, a recent research study concludes.

Commissioned by U.S.-based NewRiver, a company that provides technology solutions to financial services firms, the study found variable annuity (VA) and variable universal life (VUL) policyholders had a strong inclination towards receiving prospectus and related compliance documents electronically.

Electronic Document Delivery: A Study of VA and VUL Owners

On behalf of NewRiver, Mathew Greenwald & Associates conducted an online survey of 500 consumers who own a variable annuity or variable universal life policy. The focus of the study was on investors in these two products because they have been noticeably slow in adopting e-delivery for prospectuses and compliance documents. The research was undertaken to help develop strategies to encourage policyholders to consent to e-delivery and to learn more about the reasons why individuals choose not to accept electronic documents.

Creating Customer Value From Life Insurance’s Billion-Dollar Health Records Business

Who runs one of the world’s largest personal health records businesses? Today the life insurance industry spends over $1 billion annually on the routine chore of creating and compiling the exams, lab tests, and attending physician statements (APSs) required to underwrite the 10 million plus life insurance applications submitted in the United States. Unlike most health records, these documents and files tend to be imaged or otherwise organized into digital formats to drive down the cost of the underwriting process.
What if this routine expense could be transformed into a value added service that customers appreciate and look forward to receiving? And what if the value of this service shifted the customer’s perspective to the point that they didn’t really mind the wait for their policy to be underwritten?

Much Work to be Done Before the Boomers Bolt

Though more marathon than sprint, insurers are indeed in a race to glean as much as they can from a graying IT workforce possessing increasingly rare skill sets and a vast amount of institutional and system-specific knowledge.

Considering the stakes, carriers need to make tactical considerations, including shifting internal staff and outsourcing certain functions, in order to maximize the effectiveness of these workers.

North American Policy Administration Systems 2010: Life, Health, and Annuities ABCD Vendor View

Celent provides a detailed look at 18 policy administration systems for life, health, and annuities.

In a new report, North American Policy Administration Systems 2010: Life, Health, and Annuities ABCD Vendor View, Celent looks at policy administration systems available to insurers in North America. The report is part of a series on policy administration systems (PAS) in the United States, Canada, Europe, and Asia.

Life Web Searches Rise

Internet users searched for life insurance information on the Web about 16.6 million times in 2009, according to a Web traffic measurement firm.

Automated Life Underwriting

The Marketing and Distribution and Product Development Sections along with the Committee on Life Insurance Research, are pleased to make the following report available. Authored by a Mike Batty and Alice Kroll of Deloitte Consulting, the report summarizes the results of a company survey on the utilization of life insurance automated underwriting systems.

Tests May Reveal Hidden Predictors of Heart Disease

A new approach to analyzing electrocardiograms--a ubiquitous test of the heart's electrical function--could predict who is most likely to die after a heart attack. Researchers at MIT found that measuring how much the shape of the electrical waveform varies from beat to beat identifies high-risk patients better than existing risk factors. If the findings hold up in further clinical trials, the technology could be used to figure out which heart attack patients need the most aggressive treatment.

“The New Normal” is Insanity

More and more, it seems, “Welcome to the new normal” is becoming the mantra of the day when it comes to the pace of our business enterprises. We hear it everywhere from the hip technology gurus (ahem) and the purveyors of new technology. But what exactly are we talking about here?

LIDMA: ESignature Is Here

Most large life insurers that sell through direct marketing programs have electronic signature tools in place or plan to introduce them within the next 12 months. The Life Insurance Direct Marketing Association, Atlanta, has published that finding in a summary of results from a survey of 14 large insurers.

Technology Review: Simpler Colon Cancer Screening

A new blood test could improve cancer-screening compliance.

Analyzing Cancer Cells to Choose Treatments

Microfluidics chips allow scientists to study circulating cancer cells and determine their vulnerabilities.

Gen Re Risk Insights: August 2009

The latest issue looks at:

  • Underwriting the Elderly - Findings From a U.S. Survey
  • Beyond Containment but Well Into the Guessing Game - The Novel A/H1N1 Influenza Pandemic
  • Evidence-based Underwriting - Rheumatoid Arthritis

Less Art, More Science

Improving its private-label market for term life insurance gave Transamerica Reinsurance an entirely new perspective on automated underwriting.

Risk Selection: Considering New Mortality Markers

While life insurers continue to reflect mortality improvements in their pricing, it is uncertain how much of the improvements can be attributed to better underwriting information and processes and how much to general mortality improvements in the insured population. Dave Dorans, Vice President of Mortality Solutions, discusses life insurance underwriting with Tia Goss Sawhney, owner of TSStrategic Consulting, LLC.

The Point: How Culture and Technology are Speeding the Need for Life Insurance Transformation

The challenge of a changing customer base means life insurers must prepare for a seismic shift, according to Accenture.

Pardon me, Rush, but what's your expertise in the medical records technology arena again?

Despite what Rush Limbaugh would have us believe, the movement toward electronic medical records is not about some Orwellian plot. Hospitals' Electronic Wasteland looks at stimulus funds aiming to change a system largely devoid of in-depth electronic record keeping.

ReFocus: Automated Underwriting and Straight-Through Processing: The Present and Future of Underwriting Technology

Presentation at ReFocus 2009.

Virtual Roundtable: Online Risk

Managing the risks, liabilities and solutions associated with electronic processes and interactions related to conducting business over the Internet is a challenge for every insurance company today. The exposure to online risks is pervasive, potentially affecting most aspects of an insurance organization, including assets, operations, finances, legal, regulatory compliance and even reputation. Exactly how serious is the threat of cyber attacks on insurance operations, and what currently are the most dangerous cyber threats to carriers' systems?

Insurers Shift To Customer-focused Predictive Analytics Technologies

As insurers transform into more customer-focused organizations, their predictive analytics initiatives are, in turn, starting to focus more on the overall customer experience.

Predictive Analysis Allows Insurers to Stay Ahead of Constantly Evolving Fraudsters

When used with data mining tools and street investigations, predictive analytics can be among the biggest electronic enemies of the fraud rings that cost insurers tens of billions of dollars annually.

Emerging Technologies Fight Claims Fraud

Industry insiders discuss emerging technologies, including predictive modeling and other tools, that allow special investigations units to be more proactive in addressing fraud.

Technology’s Effective Role in Underwriting

Building a bona fide mortality management solution is not easy, but the value-creating potential is too big to ignore. In the short run, a mortality management solution improves operational efficiencies and mortality results. In the long run, it captures data that provide essential insights for building competitive products and meeting evolving regulatory demands, according to Joanne Collins, Lead Consultant, Product Consulting & Development.

Best Practices for an Underwriting System

A state-of-the-art underwriting system, including a rules engine, is a must in today’s life insurance environment. What’s more, underwriting systems aren’t just for assessing risks. The newest and best underwriting systems can actually aid in the management process.

Syndicate content

Please Register
Registration requirementsREGISTER