Over the last three months, there has been scant positive news to report about the state of the financial services in the U.S. and across the globe, but except for carriers such as AIG and The Hartford, the economic problems mostly have arisen in the banking and investment world–not insurance. Those in the insurance industry, particularly the property/casualty field, are not singing the blues the way other industries are. In fact, some analysts are predicting a strong year for insurance in the area of IT spending.

The reason for this is companies have wisely invested in technology over the last few years to improve efficiencies and operations, and now it is time for IT to display its mettle. As Craig Lowenthal, CIO for commercial lines and marine carrier NYMAGIC, says, "For the IT shops that have been investing in recent years, it's show time. Show the company how you really can leverage the investments made in past business intelligence projects, do some key analytics to determine where there might be some staff or resource bloat, move resources to more profitable areas, or find ways to reduce staff."

No one is implying life will be easy this year, however. "It's a very challenging period coming up," says Matt Josefowicz, director of the insurance practice at Novarica.