The Chronicle: Issue 2014-44, November 4, 2014


What's Going Through The Intersection of Insurance and Technology?

A New Era of Technology: Part 1 – Mobile
If you haven't heard of ‘CAMS’ already, it stands for Cloud, Analytics, Mobile, and Social. These four components are the driving forces behind technology development today. CAMS is changing the way the customer interacts with the business, the way the business interacts with the customer, how two customers interact, and how two business interact. I could give endless CAMS Technology examples, but I want to focus on two which, I believe, are just at their starting points: Mobile and Analytics.

Agent Connectivity: What Gets Measured...
The old adage, “what gets measured, gets done,” was validated again during the agents' sessions at the ACORD Implementation Forum this week. And, just as significantly, what got done is forming a platform for better things to come. Within the U.S. property-casualty community, Agency/Company interface is an industry with a half century of experience. A number of associations have worked tirelessly to advance the cause of electronically connecting independent distributors with insurance carriers in a manner that makes business sense. The moniker given to the model and the initiative was ‘Real-time.’

The Intersection: Insurance-Canada.ca Blog
The Intersection

an Insurance-Canada.ca Blog


Technology

IBM Watson Accelerates Global Expansion
IBM is announcing significant milestones fueling adoption of Watson and cognitive computing cloud capabilities on a global scale. Watson is a groundbreaking platform that represents a new era of computing based on its ability to interact in natural language, process vast amounts of Big Data to uncover patterns and insights, and learn from each interaction.

Gartner says advanced analytics is a top business priority
Gartner, Inc. says advanced analytics is a top business priority, fuelled by the need to make advanced analysis accessible to more users and broaden the insight into the business. Advanced analytics is the fastest-growing segment of the business intelligence (BI) and analytics software market. IT and business leaders must expand their efforts to move their organizations from using only traditional BI that addresses descriptive analysis (“what happened”) to advanced analytics, which complements by answering the “why,” the “what will happen,” and “how we can address it?”

Celent report: Are insurers ready for the Internet of Things?
Celent asked a panel of CIOs a series of questions about their company's readiness for the Internet of Things (IoT). The survey asked the CIOs about how their C-Suites view the potential importance of the IoT. The questions covered a number of topics, including technological readiness, organizational responsibility for tracking developments, and views of the IoT in the C-Suite and among IT management.

Towers Watson introduces new version of ResQ reserving software
Global professional services company Towers Watson has released an updated version of its ResQ reserving software for property & casualty insurers, which includes enhanced methods to allow insurers to quantify possible inflationary and other calendar-related effects.

Business of Insurance

Celent report: Innovation in Insurance – Differences Across Continents
Innovation in technology has been rapid and consistent since the industrial age. In the last 20 years, it has permanently impacted the way that consumers and companies interact. Continual innovation in process and technology is required to compete in such an environment, regardless of the geographic location of the insurance company. In this report, Celent analyses the differences among insurers by continent in terms of their innovation initiatives, investments, and programs.

Distribution

The Co-operators acquires Drost Insurance Brokerage
Co-operators General Insurance Company has announced that its wholly-owned subsidiary has purchased all of the issued and outstanding shares of a company that operates Drost Insurance Brokerage in Bath, New Brunswick. The Brokerage's portfolio includes home, auto, farm and commercial insurance policies.

Policy Management

Accenture introduces enhanced delivery of pre-integrated insurance software to clients
Accenture has announced a new technology capability for its Duck Creek property & casualty software that provides global alliance partners with access to its software product definitions and the ability to pre-integrate the technology into their systems prior to deployment. FirstBest Systems and Avanade are the first alliance partners to utilize this capability within their underwriting and customer relationship management (CRM) software. The integrated solution helps insurers reduce the costs of implementation and maintenance, improve the customer experience and accelerate delivery of new and updated products to customers.


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