For most of the year, insurance IT leaders like to keep information about their strategic efforts out of the media, but each spring they burst from their shells to discuss the direction technology is headed. At last week's ACORD LOMA conference and next week's IASA conference, insurance IT leaders have and will intermingle with their counterparts as well as with vendors, analysts and consultants to discuss the problems they face and the challenges of 2012 and beyond.

If there is one word on the lips of everyone in the insurance industry today it is mobile. Rarely have we seen an issue jump to such prominence in such a short period of time. The industry is a long way from comprehending the full value mobile technology has for the industry, but they certainly are moving in that direction in a frantic pace. At a press conference with 18 separate insurance solution providers at ACORD LOMA, six of them used the M word before addressing anything else.

Smartphones and tablet devices are not just fun accessories for consumers; they are ways of transacting business—for consumers as well as business users. Just imagine being able to attach a credit-card reader to your smart phone to close sales and collect premiums simultaneously. As ACORD LOMA keynote speaker Nick Bilton showed his audience, mobile is limited only by our imaginations.