The winners of the second Novarica Research Council ImpactAwards were announced at a ceremony in New York, with GreatAmerican, PURE, Nevada General, and XL Group receiving top honorsfor their achievements in insurance industry IT initiatives andstrategy.

"Over 50 insurer CIO members of our council voted to choose thewinners, making the Novarica Research Council Impact Awards thelargest peer jury-awarded recognition in the industry," saysNovarica managing director Matthew Josefowicz.

The winners, which were chosen from a pool of 11 nominees asselected by a nominating committee of insurer CIOs, were selectedacross four categories:

• Great American Insurance Group took the top prize in thePractice category, for enhancing its IT organization's innovationcapability, creating a collaborative workplace, cross-team andparadigm-shifting thought process, and a progressive managementprocess.
• PURE Insurance was the winner in the Quick Hit category, forits creation of a pre-fill capability for auto insurance quoting,leveraging third-party data to streamline the application processand improve cross-sell with homeowners.
• Nevada General Insurance Company was the winner in theExpansion category, for developing a web-based portal for policyquoting, issuance, and endorsements.
• XL Group took home the prize in the Transformation category,for its development of a global underwriting platform forunderwriters to collaborate, access external data, and integratewith policy processing systems.

In addition to the presentation of the awards, the day'sproceedings included a keynote presentation by Josefowicz on theimpact of IT projects, and a panel discussion among the nominees,which included presentations by AIG, Assurant, Great American, ErieFamily, PURE Insurance, and XL.