IBM is delivering two new offerings for the insurance industry,and marketing organizations within all business verticals. Thefirst is designed to help identify fraudulent claims in theinsurance industry, which accounts for approximately $30 billion inlosses a year. The second manages inbound customer and prospectinteraction via call center, Web, point-of-sale or e-mail.

The new software, IBM SPSS Decision Management, combinespredictive models, business rules and optimization to increase anorganization's confidence to deliver accurate, high-volume,high-value decisions at the appropriate point of customerinteraction.

(For more information about predictive analytics, click on theTech Decisions article. And for more on how predictiveanalytics can help in fraud prevention click on this Tech Decisions article.)

With three simple clicks, business users can build a predictivemodel within a configurable Web browser interface, and runsimulations and "what-if" scenarios that compare and test the bestbusiness outcomes before the model is ever deployed into anoperational system. Business users have control over the analyticprocess, enabling them to make accurate decisions in real-time,based on changes in strategy, customer buying patterns andbehaviors, or fluctuating market conditions.

"IBM Business Analytics software delivers complete, consistentand accurate information that decision-makers trust to improvebusiness performance," says Rob Ashe, general manager, businessanalytics at IBM. "By making predictive analytics pervasive, andgiving business users control of the technology, organizations canoptimize the point of interaction, better anticipate change inreal-time, and carry out strategies that improve outcomes. We haveempowered every single business user with the power of predictiveanalytics, so the best course of action can now be easily deployedinto any operational system, minimizing the cost of baddecisions."

According to the Insurance Information Institute, fraud accountsfor 10 percent of the property/casualty insurance industry'sincurred losses and loss adjustment expenses, or about $30 billiona year. With the new IBM SPSS Decision Management software forclaims, insurers can reduce settlement time and increase customersatisfaction through automated, real-time risk assessment. As aresult, claims adjustors and others with in-depth businessknowledge can quickly and easily define how risk should be assessedand automate the decisions made by the call center agent - who isdirectly speaking with a customer - to easily determine whether aclaim is fraudulent.

IBM SPSS Decision Management 6 is now available worldwide. Alsoavailable are two pre-packaged solutions - IBM SPSS DecisionManagement for Claims and IBM SPSS Decision Management for CustomerInteractions.

To learn more about IBM business analytics, visit www.ibm.com/gbs/bao

To learn more about SPSS, an IBM Company, visit http://www.spss.com