Tech Decisions May 2008
Cover Story
One for All and All for One
The relationship among insurers, vendors, and standards organization ACORD may not remind people of Dumas' The Three Musketeers, but they each play an invaluable role in communicating the language of
Features
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Empty Nest
Once filled with people doing important work, offices have changed as mobile computing power has enabled workers to upload and download valuable data from remote locations. Branch offices have lost so
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Meet in the Middle
Governing IT can be its own political challenge, as well. Proponents of centralized IT argue it gives insurers the greatest control. Others maintain this benefit comes at the price of being slow and u
Columns Inside Track
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BPM: Radical or Real?
Insurers today face revenue pressures, increased competition, and a business environment fraught with potential financial risks. In such a dynamic environment, complex legacy-system transformations ar
Columns Trends & Tech
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Are We Outsmarting Ourselves?
Service-oriented architecture (SOA), Web-oriented architecture (WOA), Web services, Web application programming interfaces (APIs)--why are we so concerned with these things? Why do we keep defining new
Columns Stats Watch
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World View
Insurance customers in the United States know the value of insurance--both to protect their property against risk and as an investment tool--probably more than people in any other country. However, the
Departments Industry Intelligence
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MassMutual Seeks Agents Through New System
Building on its efforts to recruit and retain top financial services professionals, Massachusetts Mutual Life Insurance Co. (MassMutual) unveiled a new Web site that introduces career changers, indust
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Zurich Offers Agents ZPass Option
Zurich has announced its small commercial business agents in the U.S. now will be able to access real-time quoting via Zurich's new interface platform, ZPass, which allows agents to conduct their comm
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MetLife Tools Demystify Insurance Sales
MetLife has continued its tradition of providing education to consumers with the release of an animated short film, entitled "Everybody into the Pool," and the launch of Simplified by MetLife, an onli
Departments Business Solutions
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By the Book
When the leadership of The Hanover Insurance Group issued a challenge to its business units to make the transfer of book-of-business data as seamless a process as possible, it set forth a chain of eve
Departments Agent Relations
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King-size Dilemma
Having heard the arguments over the years, we decided to ask two key questions of an agent and then a carrier's CIO. First, who actually owns the customer data? Second, with whom should that data res
Departments Top Tech
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Seeking Solutions
Eric Bulis considers himself a problem solver. He's also enamored with technology and the role it can play in helping business. So, being CIO and head of operations at a midsize life insurance company
