ONLINE SALES
Safeco Enhances Agents E-S-P
Safeco Business Insurance has expanded its online sales platform,known as E-S-P, to make it faster and easier for agents to sellcommercial auto insurance to small businesses. The platform allowsagents to quote, bind, and issue commercial auto policies online.The 5,400 agents representing Safeco Business Insurance sell orrenew nearly 100,000 commercial auto policies every year.

With E-S-P, we can cut the time it takes to quote commercialauto policies, says Jeanne Lind, director of automation for SafecoBusiness Insurance, and with real-time underwriting, we can issue apolicy instantly. In most cases, agents literally can issue theirauto policies while theyre on the phone with a client. Its part ofSafecos strategy to reduce the time, cost, and complexity ofselling and servicing small and medium-sized business accounts.

E-S-P technology automatically pre-fills common customerinformation fields based on vehicle identification numbers, and thesystem adjusts its questions according to the data entered. Agentscan choose to enter a quick estimate to get a ballpark pricewithout having to enter detailed driver and vehicleinformation.

The E-S-P platform is accessible at www.safecoplaza.com/esp forboth business owner policies (BOP) and commercial auto risks.Initially, agents will be able to use the system to sell Safecosmost popular commercial auto policiesnonfleet policies for vehiclesgaraged in a single state. Safeco accepts both monoline commercialauto policies and policies written along with a Safeco BOP orcommercial multiperil (CMP) package.

Later this year and in 2004, Safeco will enable agents to useE-S-P to sell workers compensation policies, CMP package products,and other commercial auto policies, including fleet vehicles,multistate garaging locations, and farm vehicles.

WEB RESOURCE
JFP Producers Get New Site
Jefferson Pilot Financial has introduced My JPF, an online businessresource available to Jefferson Pilot Financials licensed agentsand registered representatives. The site contains more than 55business applications and 7,000-plus pages of content. My JPFprovides producers and registered representatives support for everyphase of the sales cycle, from marketing, training and education,advanced sales support and research to product detail, processingof business, compensation detail and servicing of clients.

Warren May, executive vice president-marketing and distribution,believes My JPF is a major component of Jefferson Pilot Financialsefforts to implement Web-based technology to streamline itsbusiness processes and enable producers to manage their ownoperations more efficiently. Navigating the site is simple andintuitive, and now every aspect of their business can be taken careof from one site, including investment processing, finding rateinformation, receiving training and education materials, andaccessing customized marketing programs, says May.

Built on a JAVA platform, My JPF is personalized and recognizesall users, whether they are life, annuity, or securities producers,with a single ID and password. Producers will be able topersonalize the home page, move or remove items they dont need, andcreate their own internal and external links using the My Shortcutsfeature. The My Correspondence and My Production features aredesigned to alert the user when new information becomesavailable.

ROI
IT Uncovers Millions for AIG
Demonstrating the cost benefit of IT interfaces between insurersand reinsurers, American International Group (AIG) was able tounlock in a very short period of time about $250 million in cashflow from reinsurance owed, according to an AIG executive speakingat the International Insurance Societys annual seminar heldrecently in New York.

[Reinsurance] claims recoverability on a month-to-month basisrepresents $400 million in cash flow every month, every year [forAIG], says Chris Milton, vice president-reinsurance officer forAIG. Thats $4.8 billion in cash that has to come back into AIGevery year at that particular point in time.

To facilitate the recovery of reinsurance due AIG, the carrierdeveloped IT systems that permit it to share data on a seamlessbasis with major reinsurance markets, Milton indicates. IT also hasallowed better claims management, he affirms, noting his departmenthas at any point in time 40 years of reinsurance recoverables fromvarious reinsurance agreements around the world through variousreinsurers.

Therefore, when a claim comes through, AIG needs ready access tocontract wordings and types of reinsurance certificates that mayhave been provided. As a result, he says, AIG over the last 10years has digitized 40 years of reinsurance contract data, so thecompany can access any document within the reinsurance area in realtime.

Milton says there have been a few instances when a reinsurer hasasked AIG to prove that the reinsurer was on a certain risk. AfterAIG sent the reinsurers copies of the documents, some of which wereexecuted 40 years before, he says the claims were paid within areasonable period of time.

By digitizing data, the whole payment cycle has improved, headds. What we find is our business partners are much more receptiveto doing some things they wouldnt otherwise do [because it improvestheir overall internal efficiencies with regard to datacollection], he says. This is not an easy road to go down, but in astrategic sense, its probably the only road you can go down if youhave significant volumes of business where you have an interchangewith reinsurers over an extended period of time.

The digitization of its data also has helped AIG track areinsurers claims payment record, he adds. We started mining somedata internally on a specific reinsurer that will remain nameless,he explains. It was ascertained the reinsurer very quickly attendedto claims over $1 million, but for any claim less than $1 millionand greater than $50,000, the reinsurer would fire off a lot ofquestions, Milton says. On the other hand, the reinsurer took onaverage four years to pay any claim below $50,000, he points out.This information was gathered and presented to the reinsurer, whichpaid all the outstanding claims within three months, he says.

AIGs move to digitize data and share information with reinsurershas provided a big boon to ensuring credit quality of AIGsreinsurance partners, he says. By tracking such data, AIG now canhave meaningful discussions with its reinsurance partners and has abetter view of its credit risk through the reinsurance partnership,the reinsurers amounts of risk, and how much counterparty riskexposure exists at any particular point in time, he says.

That never could have been done 10 years ago; it was toodifficult and has become possible only now through advancements inIT, he says.

He notes further advancements are in the works for AIG as thecompany begins to look at data warehousing and data mining.Admittedly, however, the company still is balanced equally betweenpaper and electronic exchange, but moves are afoot to furtherdevelop electronic exchanges with its reinsurance partners, Miltonsays.

At AIG, there are major initiatives under way to shareinformation from the front end of the business, via the brokers andrisk managers, all the way through to the back end of the businessand the companys reinsurance partners, he says.LISA S.HOWARD

WHOS USING WHAT
American Financial Group (AFG) has signed an agreement withAscendantOne that will allow AFGs IT services division to integrateAscendantOnes property/casualty solution into the carriersservices-oriented architecture.

BlueCross BlueShield of Western New York and BlueShield ofNortheastern New York have chosen Zix Corp., a global provider ofe-messaging protection and transaction services, to supplye-messaging protection needs for the healthcare providers.

Auto-Owners Insurance will replace its legacy rating environmentwith the Example platform from Duck Creek Technologies, Inc. Theinitial implementation will utilize the rating and underwritingrules engine from Duck Creek.

Unitrin Direct has selected Trumbull Services L.L.C. to providethe insurer with subrogation services using Trumbulls Web-enabledSubrosource subrogation software.

Piedmont Mutual Insurance now is using the Vision 21 homeownersrating module from IDP, enabling the insurer to eliminate doubleentries and save manual key stroking.

Michigan Millers Mutual Insurance has signed a softwarelicensing agreement with Docucorp International, a provider ofenterprise information solutions. Michigan Millers will utilizeDocucorps suite of solutions to automate its policy productionprocess. In addition, Docucorp has signed a licensing agreementwith Exeter Friendly Society, a provider of private medicalinsurance to its members. Exeter will automate its policyproduction.

Electric Insurance (EI) has selected V1STA RateMaker fromDecision Research Corp. to automate the creation of EIs ratingengine services. EI serves the personal insurance needs of GeneralElectric employees.

The California State Automobile Association (CSAA) has awarded acontract to Accenture that will allow CSAA to upgrade its humanresources and financial management systems. Accenture will provideapplication support and maintenance of these systems on anoutsourced basis.

ING Re has chosen CGI to develop a component-based applicationto support the administration, claims, and billing functions forthe carriers group reinsurance products.

The Guardian Life Insurance Company of America has chosenGlassHouse Technologies to provide vendor-neutral TPA consultingservices to manage a storage RFP and procurement process.

Arkansas Blue Cross and Blue Shield is partnering its advancedhealth information network with Webify ClaimsNet from WebifySolutions, giving providers lower-cost choices to manage theirclaims operation.

MetLife has purchased the PeopleSoft Financial Management andPeopleSoft Enterprise Performance Management products fromPeopleSoft, Inc., to extend MetLifes use of global best practicesfor financial aid and regulatory reporting.

ImageRight has signed new contracts with nine insurers thissummer, providing them with document management and workflowsolutions. The companies include: Superior Underwriters, SterlingInsurance, Professional Group Plans, Dryden Mutual Insurance, NorthIsland Group, Texas General Agency, Med James, Florida Farm Bureau,and Cooperativa de Seguros Multiples.