Company: IBM
Product: IBM Middleware Solutionfor Insurance
Web site: www.ibm.com
IBM has introduced new middleware software solutions designed to help insurance customers solve business problems unique to the industry. These solutions will be complemented by services and support from IBM in addition to industry-specific applications software from independent software vendors.
Insurers are faced with increasing pressures to improve their operating efficiencies. To ease these pressures, IBM has five new insurance offerings: Integrated Claims Management, Integrated Underwriting, Policy Management, Channel Distribution Integration, and Insurance Customer Insight.
The IBM Middleware Solution for Insurance brings together IBM core software product functionality and industry-specific IBM middleware, which are extended further by the capabilities of the IBM Business Partner ecosystem. For example, the Channel Distribution Integration solution leverages the core capabilities of WebSphere Business Integration, WebSphere Portal, and Tivoli products augmented by industry-specific middleware functionality provided by the WebSphere Business Integration ACORD adapter and the Financial Services Portal Workbench Framework.
Mid-Continent Casualty Insurance uses the IBM system for its Storage Area Network (SAN), according to Jim Headrick, vice president of Total Data Services, which has served as Mid-Continents consultant on the project. Mid-Continent moved into a SAN about three years ago, and two years ago it purchased an imaging application that was going to run on Intel servers, he explains. Mid-Continent was going to boost its Intel server CPU count from about 30 to 100. At the time, we discussed Mid-Continents needs for a suite of products to manage the servers and the SAN or it was going to have to hire some people.
The insurer opted to look at products it could use to manage its SAN, storage, and servers, Headrick says. An advantage was Mid-Continent already was using IBMs Tivoli Storage Manager for backup/recovery. [Mid-Continent] pretty much settled on the IBM products because they allowed [Mid-Continent] an integrated management suite it could use and still be able to manage its storage and network infrastructure and servers. Some of the other vendors would do storage management or network management, but they wouldnt do all of it. [The others] wouldnt provide an integrated management solution, which is what [Mid-Continent] really wanted.
IBMs new Insurance Integrated Claims Management solution can help insurers increase the efficiency and effectiveness of their claims organization through a faster settlement process. It provides an insurer the ability to manage the complete claims cycle. Through mobility, automation, and process integration, the solution gives insurers the capabilities to improve cycle time, fraud detection, and improve their loss ratios.
Claims Management benefits include:
Manages the complete claims cycle, including skilled role-based routing of ad-justers and workload balancing.
Secures consistent access and personalized views based upon users role and responsibility, and provides the ability to monitor and adjust the process..
Results in decreased claims expense through integration and productivity improvements, improved cycle time, and enhanced speed of subrogation and recovery activities.
IBMs Underwriting Management software offers functionality to help insurers with improving their underwriting capacity and productivity by providing integration and establishment of a disciplined approach to underwriting. The system delivers a secure role-based workplace using process collaborations, document management, and integration of information.
The IBM solution for policy management helps reduce the cost of administration and streamline processes through a secure integrated workplace, including document management, workflow integration, and business process management. These capabilities offer a flexible and integrated workplace to manage the policy administration process. The workplace integrates the multiple supporting internal applications and external service provider information to manage processes such as endorsements, system entry, payment collection, and commission payment.
IBMs channel distribution solution provides insurers functionality to integrate with and manage their channels and service areas, including agents, call centers, contact center, Internet sales, and service channels. Accessibility to insured information is made available via portal and mobility solutions for channels requiring direct access to agent/broker services or to back-end financial management.
Our new software solutions reflect how customers want to purchase information technology, says Paraic Sweeney, vice president of IBM marketing, industry solutions, and business integration. Customers are telling IBM they want to buy software solutions that are cost-effective, flexible, customized, and industry specific.
Company: Ingenix
Product: MedPoint
Web site: www.ingenix.com
Ingenix MedPoint, a Web-based health-assessment tool utilized by life, health, and property/casualty insurers, has added more than two billion pharmacy claims to its data network. The addition gives Ingenix MedPoint access to more than six billion pharmacy claims for 220 million individuals, making it a portal to one of the largest networks of pharmacy claims data in the world.
Kathy Kirk, director of new business for life and health carrier Trustmark Insurance, says the Ingenix product has helped Trustmark cut down on ordering attending physicians statements. If you know what kind of medication [customers] are taking and how often they are taking it, we dont need the medical records as often, she says. If we ask customers a question and they say this is what I have wrong and this is the type of medication Im taking, [Ingenix MedPoint] helps verify it so we dont need to do an inspection report.
Trustmark has experienced underwriters and a licensed physician. The physician can advise the insurer on whether to accept or decline a policy based on the medication being used. The insurer has a weekly meeting on files that will likely be declined. [Ingenix MedPoint] has enhanced our ability to go into this meeting prepared, says Kirk. Before we decline anyone, we take the file into the meeting and run an Ingenix report.
Trustmark also is looking at ways to speed up policy issuance, and the MedPoint product can help in that regard. It has helped us save time and money, and the risk is that much better, says Kirk. We know what we are getting. There are a lot of checks and balances and verifications. It may take us a little longer in underwriting, but those few extra minutes are going to save us days of pending if we didnt have the [MedPoint] information. We know what were issuing is a better risk.
Life, health, and P&C insurers use Ingenix MedPoint to access individual prescription claim profiles. For each life covered, MedPoint stores up to a five-year pharmaceutical claims history, which includes prescribing physicians and dates prescriptions were filled. Based on the drugs prescribed, MedPoint can estimate through predictive modeling technology the probability an individual has suffered from certain conditions.
Our clients tell us they are finding MedPoint profiles for more than 70 percent of their applicants and claimants, says Phil Harker, Ingenix vice president for the MedPoint product line. That success rate makes MedPoint a viable tool in every life and health insurers underwriting process and in every P&C insurers claims adjudication process.
Insurers can use MedPoint to assist them with underwriting, claims adjudication, and fraud investigation. By law, insurers only can access MedPoint data with the permission of the individuals they are analyzing.
SHOPPINGCART
Company: Diamelle Technologies
Product: Outsourcing solution
Web site: www.diamelle.com
Diamelle Technologies, a provider of J2EE component-based software, has introduced outsourcing solutions for the insurance, finance, and banking sectors. Leveraging a large commercially available library of reusable distributed business components and Web services along with resources based both in the U.S. and in Bombay, Diamelle is able to deliver enterprise solutions. It has been an early mover to the Enterprise JavaBeans (EJB) and Web services technology.
The library of components consists of the following:
Foundation framework includes metadata, categorization, relationship, accounts, users, e-mail, and object-relational mapping..
Content Management offers document management, resources, content, publication management and versioning, with multilanguage support.
Security and Identity Management delivers services securely enforcing policies, authorization, and authentication for users, groups, or roles, with single sign-on.
CRM provides functionality such as sales force automation, marketing, customer support, and personalization.
e-Business offers catalog management with bundling and multilanguage support, pricing, contracts, shopping cart, and order management.
Marketplace includes request for quotes (RFQs) and auctions.
TThis framework of components has been designed for easy customization, allowing a solution to be tailored to the needs of each customer. These components also will be exposed as Web services available to a customers legacy systems. The Enterprise JavaBeans technology has the advantages of integrated transaction support, scalability, fail-over, and clustering and is available to Diamelles component library.
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