Issue 2008-06 -- February 12, 2008
This newsletter is for members of the Canadian Insurance Industry, and those who serve it. The newsletter is published weekly, and notes information mostly about the use of the Internet and related technologies in the industry. Some is international, where we feel it is relevant to Canada.
Claims
MapInfo Case Study: James River Insurance Company.
James River Insurance needed a better way to monitor risk accumulation and to proactively assess the potential impact of claims events in real-time in order to mobilize claims resources and serve their customers' needs.
[Editor's Note: Wendy Correoso of Pitney Bowes MapInfo will speak at the 2008 P&C Technology Conference. Visit MapInfo's exhibit to learn more.]
EW Disaster Kleenup changes name to FirstOnSite Restoration.
TORONTO, Jan. 28 2008 - EW Disaster Kleenup L.P. announced today that it has changed its name to FirstOnSite Restoration L.P. and has appointed a new Chief Executive Officer and a Vice-President, National Sales and Marketing. Lyle Kerr, formerly President and Chief Executive Officer, has been appointed Chairman of the Board.
Managing Relationships and Customer Service
Guidewire Software Announces Guidewire BillingCenter 2.0.
SAN MATEO, CA, USA, February 5, 2008 - Guidewire Software®, Inc., a leading global provider of solutions for property and casualty and workers' compensation insurers, today announced Guidewire BillingCenter® 2.0, a comprehensive billing system for all lines of property and casualty (P&C) insurance. Available for immediate delivery, BillingCenter is currently in production use and is also being implemented at six additional Guidewire client sites.
[Editor's Note: Brian Desmond of Guidewire will speak at the 2008 P&C Technology Conference. Visit Guidewire's exhibit to learn more.]
More than half of UK banks, insurance companies and building societies fail to respond to online customer queries: New study from KANA and IBM.
LONDON, UK - 4 February 2008 - A new study of 52 leading European financial services companies reveals poor levels of online customer service provided by UK banks and building societies. The study, commissioned by IBM and KANA Software, Inc., comes at a time when financial institutions are looking for new ways to improve the customer experience and serve a growing population of younger customers who increasingly interact with businesses through e-mail, chat and the Web.
[Editor's Note: Jamie Bisker of IBM will speak at the 2008 P&C Technology Conference. Visit IBM's exhibit to learn more.]
DALBAR Announces Its 2007 Service Award Winners in Financial Services.
(Boston, MA. January 14, 2008) Today DALBAR released the 2007 winners of its annual Service Awards. For more than a decade, Dalbar has conducted rigorous testing of service delivery and, each year, identified those mutual fund, broker/dealer, annuity, life insurance and retirement plan providers that are able to deliver industry-leading service to their customers.
TitlePLUS(R) program from LAWPRO offers bilingual services.
TORONTO, Feb. 4, 2008 - Consumers and lawyers seeking information on title insurance or the TitlePLUS title insurance program now have access to bilingual (French- and English-speaking) TitlePLUS customer service representatives.
Distribution
CSIO Announces Annual Achievement Award.
Toronto, Ontario, 8 February 2008 - The year 2007 has, very pleasingly, been filled with a flurry to implement XML standards to improve the efficiencies and integrations with the Independent Broker Distribution Channel. In honour and recognition of these innovative achievements in support of the Independent Broker Distribution Channel, CSIO is introducing an annual achievement award.
Big "I" Recognizes Best Practices Study's Top Performers.
GRAND BAHAMA ISLAND, THE BAHAMAS, Jan. 14, 2008 - Six insurance firms from across the country have been recognized as "Top Performing Agencies" and enjoy the distinction of being included in the recently released Best Practices Study, a prestigious report from the Independent Insurance Agents & Brokers of America (the Big "I") and Reagan Consulting, an Atlanta-based management consulting firm.
eBusiness and Technology
Gartner Says Organisations Must Establish Data Stewardship Roles to Improve Data Quality.
Egham, UK, January 22, 2008 - Organisations striving to improve data quality must consider appointing data stewards, Gartner said. The success of data stewardship requires organisations to move toward a culture that views data as a competitive asset rather than a necessary evil and define clear goals for data-quality improvement.
IBM Advances Web 2.0 Platform for Business.
ORLANDO, FL - 23 Jan 2008: LOTUSPHERE -- Today at Lotusphere, IBM (NYSE: IBM) unveiled a range of Web 2.0 and collaboration tools to enable enterprise mashups and social software, and help clients improve agility and speed decision-making for an increasingly virtual, global workforce.
Information Builders Delivers WebFOCUS FLEX Enable for Highly Interactive and Visual Business Intelligence Applications Innovation Enables Development of User-Friendly Animated Dashboards.
New York, NY - January 28, 2008 - Information Builders, the leader in production business intelligence (BI) solutions, today announced the availability of WebFOCUS FLEX Enable, which gives developers and analysts the ability to easily deliver rich Internet applications (RIA) for business intelligence (BI). The application engine combines the strengths of WebFOCUS and Adobe Flex Builder to enable the development of custom interactive and animated analytic dashboards, letting users slice-and-dice business information for precise decision-making.
Consumer Information
Insurers urge government to prepare for more severe weather: Invest in critical infrastructure; revise building codes.
Insurance Bureau of Canada (IBC) President & CEO Mark Yakabuski recently called for a comprehensive strategy to adapt to the effects of increasingly severe weather.
The I.I.I. Offers Tips to Pet Owners on Various Insurance Options.
NEW YORK, January 31, 2008 - There are over a 150 million pets in the U.S., many of them considered a valued member of the family, and the cost of pet ownership is increasing—Americans spent $40 billion dollars on their pets in 2005 alone. But pet owners can now choose from a variety of insurance options in order to provide coverage for their beloved animals.
Euler Hermes Canada announces the launch of a new Credit Insurance
policy designed for smaller businesses.
MONTREAL, Feb. 4 2008 - Euler Hermes Canada, a company of Allianz and Canada's leading private credit insurer, has today launched a new Credit Insurance policy today designed with smaller or starting businesses in mind.
Marketing and the Market Place
Sun Life Financial survey finds four in ten Canadians don't know how much they need for retirement.
TORONTO, Feb. 5. 2008 - A recent survey conducted by Sun Life Financial showed an equal amount of Canadians believe they need $25,000 or less for retirement as those who say they'll need between $1 and $5 million. The wide range in estimates of one's retirement savings is backed up by the fact that 43 per cent of Canadians said they didn't know how much they needed to save for retirement.
What Can Widgets Do? eMarketer.
FEBRUARY 5, 2008 - What the heck is a widget, or what is sometimes called a gadget, badge, module, capsule, snippet, plug-in, mini or flake? Widgets are basically embedded code in an HTML page. And whatever you call them, they are popping up all over the Internet.
from Doug:
We endured a second dump of snow mid-week last week. The two snowfalls together gave us as much snow as the infamous "Mel Lastman's Call in the Troops" storm of a few years ago. Although I am a bit tired of shovelling the walks around our corner lot, it is nice to see some real winter for a change. Interesting to hear the media play up the whiners' complaints that the city hasn't cleared the snow on their street yet - fascinating what a sense of entitlement we can develop.