Smart Choices

I've often said in this column there's no one of us smarter than all of us, and the pages of this magazine each month have been precisely the proof I needed to make my case. Now, I'm going to strengthen that case. Tech Decisions and research and consulting firm Financial Insights, an IDC Company, are pleased to announce the Insurer's Choice Technology Ranking for 2008.

We are asking insurance carriers in the U.S. and Canada to respond to a survey that will determine the ranking's results, assessing insurers' technology providers across several categories, including insurance operations, developing products, and/or optimizing workflow. Insurers will be asked to name the technology companies they view as important new technology providers for both the life/health market as well as the property/casualty market.

We are doing this survey for several reasons. Barry Rabkin, senior research analyst, insurance, at Financial Insights, who is heading this project, sums it up best: "Insurance companies are under increasingly more pressure to show value in their markets of choice. Clients and intermediaries continually are ratcheting up their expectations of doing business with insurers in a straightforward and understandable manner. The marketplace expects insurers to provide products and services that meet both current and emerging needs. Regulators are demanding more transparency and expecting professional sales behavior.

"Add to these forces the growing constellation of technology firms of all flavors–from technology providers that support only the insurance industry to technology providers that participate across multiple industries–which knock on insurers' doors and promise solutions that are more agile, more cost-effective, faster to market, more analytical, etc. Insurer's Choice 2008 aims to cut through all that cacophony of promises."

We are conducting this survey to find out from insurance professionals themselves which technology firms they think are most helping them compete in their markets of choice. The survey, available as of Oct. 15, can be accessed at http://www.financial-insights.com/insurerschoice. The results of Insurer's Choice are only as good as the quality of what you tell us through this survey–and the more business and technology professionals who take the survey, the better. We certainly don't recommend this to be the only weapon in your technology selection arsenal (as a result, in advance of the rankings, slated to be announced in May, see p. 16 for insights into the best and worst vendor selection strategies to help round out your decision process). But having peer input obviously is invaluable.

So, please view this as a can't-miss opportunity for you to take part in an initiative that will tap the experience and knowledge of the entire industry–with the collective input of every Tech Decisions reader, there couldn't be anything "smarter" to be part of than this.

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