Where have all the IT workers gone? That's one of the major concerns that surfaced in our annual Town Hall meeting on insurance and IT issues. Four top IT executives addressed the state of the IT labor force, and to no one's surprise, the issue is a big worry for them as we close out 2007 and look ahead to 2008.

If the industry could ever rid itself of the legacy technology it has been married to for decades, attracting the best and the brightest from American universities might not be so difficult, but the insurance industry's ability to do that remains in doubt. As one IT leader explained, "Most [entry-level workers] never worked on a mainframe platform and have no desire to learn old technologies such as COBOL."

Tech Decisions questioned John Chu, senior vice president of e-business and technology with The Hartford; Bill Jenkins, CIO of Penn National Insurance; Craig W. Forrester, senior vice president of information technology with The Cincinnati Insurance Companies; and Brian Ness, second vice president of information technology at the Principal Financial Group. They responded with thoughtful views from the front lines on a variety of topics that will impact insurance IT in the coming year and beyond.

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