EDUCATION CENTER

Prudential Retirement has launched Signature Online, a Web-basededucation center that brings together the resources of Pruden-tialand the CIGNA retirement business the carrier acquired in 2004 tooffer retirement-plan participants an online experience designed tohelp them achieve retirement security.
The center is available to all Prudential Retirement clients andtheir participants and is structured to help participants managetheir retirement accounts. Prudential Retirement is a business ofPru-dential Financial, Inc.

With Signature Online, plan participants receive valuable,practical information on a wide range of important topics,including retirement planning, investment management, tax andestate planning, and college savings. Even more importantandconsistent with our overall approach to education andcommunicationall the information can be tailored to eachparticipants distinct set of financial circumstances and needs,says Phil Waldeck, senior vice president of products and advisoryservices, Prudential Retirement.

The new center has been designed specifically to allowparticipants to customize and personalize Signature Onlinesresources and content. For example, a newly enrolled participantcan access articles on the primary concept of asset allocation,while a near-retiree can find information about risk-management,asset distribution, and creating income during retirement, headds.

INTEGRATION
Safeco Unites Web Site With Comparative Rater

Safeco announced the implementation of direct-to-carrierreal-time rating between the Priority-Rate.com Internet-basedcomparative rating system and Safecos Safeco Now sales platform viaan ACORD XML stream. Independent insurance distributors in 35states now are writing auto insurance with Safeco faster and moreefficiently, according to Anne Randall, Safecos vice president,partner integration. Many of our distributors use Priority DataSystems rating solutions every day, she says. This new ratinginterface will save distributors timetheir most valuableresource.

Prioritys customersindependent distributorswill be able to entertheir customers policy information into the PriorityRate.com systemand transmit that information into Safeco Now, which then returns abindable quote to the rating system. Next, policy issuance can befacilitated via an upload bridge back into the Safeco Now system,where the process is completed.

While in the Safeco Now system, distributors can cross-selleight other personal insurance, commercial insurance, and suretyproducts, including homeowners, dwelling fire, bus-iness-owners,commercial auto, workers compensation, commercial multiperil,business um-brella, and select surety products. Every insuranceproduct application reuses the customer information originallyprovided by the Priority-Rate.com system, cutting down processingtime for applications.

EVENTS
Security, Strategy Among Themes at Annual IASA Conference inAnaheim

Insurance carrier CIOs got insight on security issues andstrategic planning as well as some of the important technologyissues ahead during the IASA Educational Conference & BusinessShow held in Anaheim in early June.

Linda McCarthy, executive security adviser for the office of theCTO at Symantec, was the featured speaker at a technology supersession focusing on security. She warned IT executives to avoid the15 minutes of fame that often go to those companies that havesuffered security breaches.

While budgets always are a concern for IT leaders, attackersdont worry about budget restraints, McCarthy told the audience. Shealso warned that proficient attackers often think out of the boxand that spam, while normally considered merely a nuisance, now isbeing used by attackers to spread malicious code.

McCarthy advised CIOs they should not be swayed to put securityissues aside when other issues surface. CIOs spend more oncompliance than on network protection, she said. Security is abusiness issue. How much risk can you tolerate? What trade-offs areyou willing to take?

Gary Hamel, a visiting professor of strategic and internationalmanagement at the London Business School, delivered a keynoteaddress on strategy and urged those in attendance to look beyondlimitations when thinking about the future. The next big thingnever starts out as the next big thing, he said. New ideas can comefrom anywhere, he pointed out, using the analogy of oak trees andacorns. When acorns fall from the tree, the oak tree doesnt knowwhere the fertile ground is, he said and also stressed the need tobe resilient in dealing with new ideas.

A CIO roundtable featured four presentations around which topinsurance industry technology professionals could share ideas onissues such as IT delivery models, the continuing technologicalevolution, open source technology, and working in a multi-CIOorganization. The roundtable was part of IASAs Executive EducationProgram, sponsored by Guy Carpenter; Morgan Keegan; SAP; Teradata,a division of NCR; AT&T; SunGard; CSC; and Satyam.

Brian Coffey, assistant vice president, enterprise applicationsand business intelligence solutions, at Satyam, spoke at theroundtable on the key parameters within a carriers delivery models.His list included whether IT was centralized or decentralized; thenature of interfaces with business users; the mix of architecture,development, and maintenance budgets; and the talent and leadershipavailable.

The IT shop needs knowledge of how the business units operate,Coffey noted, although he predicted future CIOs will continue tocome from within the IT department. Still, he cautioned, a strongunderstanding of the business is imperative. The ability to doanalysis beats skill sets, he said.

Phillip Ehlen, chief architect in the property/casualty divisionof CSC, surprised some at the roundtable as a proponent of opensource technology. The question is not whether to use open source,he said, but where and how to use it.

Many are attracted to open source because of cost reductions,but Ehlen contended, You have to keep your eyes open. There is costassociated with open source. IT has to understand it.
Security and maintenance always are discussed as drawbacks to opensource technology. However, Ehlen pointed out proprietary systemusers constantly are using patches to fix holes in the system. Idont know if open is better, but closed doesnt solve all theissues, he said.

WHOS USING WHAT

Kemper Auto and Home, a Unitrin Company, has integrated ISOHomeValue into its agent policy-quoting system for a streamlinedunderwriting workflow. Developed by AIR Worldwide Corporation, ISOHomeValue is a Web-based residential replacement costestimator.

Firemans Fund Insurance Company has deployed FireStorm acrossits entire agency management field organization. FireStorm isincentive-compensation management software developed by GlobeNetTechnologies, Inc.

Sun Life Financials individual insurance and investments andgroup benefits business units implemented DSPA Softwares newestversion of Field Administration Support and Tracking (FASAT)system, including FASATWeb.

Church Mutual Insurance Company has licensed CommercialIntellisys, a Web-based property/casualty policy management systemfrom Insurity Inc., a ChoicePoint Company.

Integrity Life Insurance Company has completed a successfulimplementation of LIDP Consulting Services Agency ManagementSystem. Integrity Life and its sister company, National IntegrityLife, members of Western & Southern Financial Group, alsoimplemented three annuity products for each company for newbusiness.

Foresters, a financial services organization based in Toronto,has selected COSS Development Corporation to deliver needs-basedfinancial modeling software to the Foresters sales force in bothCanada and the United States on a desktop basis.

Thrivent Financial for Lutherans has licensed a component ofComputer Science Corporations nbAccelerator software to streamlineits life insurance underwriting process.

Texas Farm Bureau Insurance Companies licensed Sapiens INSIGHTfor Property & Casualty solution suite as the carriers new ITfoundation for insurance business processing. The suite includespolicy administration, claims, billing, and reinsurance.

Proformance Insurance Company will implement a suite ofproperty/casualty core processing solutions for its insurancebusiness from Fiserv Insurance Solutions. The solutions involvedinclude the Fiserv Reinsurance Solution and three Web-basedsystems: the Policy STAR policy administration system, the ClaimsWorkstation, and the Fiserv Advanced Billing system.

Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Nebraska has selected HealthTrioConnect as its online platform for providing e-health services tothe insurers healthcare community.

Great American Financial Resources, Inc., has completed a dataconversion project with the help of Universal ConversionTechnologies. The project included the conversion of 30,000 fixedannuity policies from a recent acquisition.

Aflac has implemented Lombardi Softwares Team-Works businessprocess management platform. Aflac deployed TeamWorks toorchestrate its business processes around policy management.

Norwich Union Insurance, the largest general insurer in the UK,is deploying Identify Softwares AppSight Black Box applicationproblem resolution software as part of the insurers strategy totransform application support processes.

Old Mutual Financial Network has converted a block of variableannuities to its own VPAS Life Policy Administration system anddeployed them into McCamish Systems BPO operation for policyadministration.