Contrary to the expression Its not what you know, its whom you know, a carriers success depends on both. Knowledge of the latest and upcoming technologies can be used to maintain and grow those whom carriers want to know besttheir customers. For insurers, fulfilling this requirement starts with new and improved communication options.

By Robert Regis Hyle

Not to belabor the obvious, but there are different kinds of insurance companiesand were not just talking about the differences between property/casualty carriers and those on the life/health side. There are the really large onesglobal carriersthat have very sophisticated IT departments, says Deb Smallwood, vice president of the consultancy TowerGroup. And then you have the small to mid-tier regional niche players. Their IT departments arent as sophisticated. They dont have the resourcesmoney or peopleto do a lot of the new technology. But IT leaders in the insurance field traditionally have had a tougher time selling projects than their counterparts in other financial services fields. I call insurance an industry of cautious adopters, says Donald Light, an industry analyst for Celent Communications. Typically, insurance companies are not pioneers.