StoneRiver Blog

Frank Heaps
Director, P&C Product Marketing
StoneRiver

Are you keeping up with your customers? Technology is changing rapidly; we all know that. We also understand that keeping up is a huge challenge. All this change is reshaping consumer expectations and they will quickly change their expectations of their insurance carriers. Youth generally drives technology change but older consumers are quickly embracing the ability to easily access and update information. All this inter-connectivity has been around for years, but the user interaction has become so simple and so seamless that basically anyone can do it. However, too many carriers are still processing insurance on systems that are 30 years old and cannot easily adapt to the new world.

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Frank Heaps
Director, P&C Product Marketing
StoneRiver

Recruiting is a tough proposition for most carriers. The average working age of an insurance professional is 56 and they plan to retire by 66. Within 14 years the approaching talent gap will severely impact our industry. Factor in the time to train people, attrition, and market dynamics, and we are looking at a chasm in our underwriters, adjusters, management, etc.

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Frank Heaps
Director, P&C Product Marketing
StoneRiver

That is a great question. Each year we see a new report from analysts and industry media that laments the aging work force of insurance and insurance IT professionals. When you couple the aging workforce issue with carriers that are downsizing or not replacing staff that leave, this is a real and a serious business problem. We know that the market will turn at some point, and indications are it could happen within the next 12 to 18 months. Will you be ready? How long does it take you to train an underwriter? An adjuster? A CSR?

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Don Goodenow
Director, Product Management, Reinsurance & Collections
StoneRiver

You know BOB. Sure you do. BOB’s been around for a long time, and I’m sure you’ve seen BOB, or a BOB look-alike a number of times. Everyone knows BOB - Best Of Breed.

BOB’s been the object of everyone’s desire: the absolute best processing component that you could ever want. Powerful and feature-rich, good old BOB was the best at his specific task. He’s been sought-after for as long as I can remember.

But BOB hasn’t had it easy. BOB didn’t always work well with others, and this has become a big problem. Being compared to that other ideal, the fully integrated suite, took its toll. In today’s world, being BOB just isn’t good enough. But neither is just being an integrated suite.

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Frank Heaps
Director, P&C Product Marketing
StoneRiver

This is the time of year when many solution providers are hosting their first of at least two user community meetings. “User community” is not just a fancy way to say “user group” but represents a way to define multiple groups that work together for a common goal; like the community where you live. To continue the analogy, these are your town hall meetings.

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Sean Roper
Director - Insurance Division Marketing
StoneRiver

We’ve heard so much about the economic bubble and eventual downturn of the late 90’s that the term dot-com has justly been placed into the dictionary of great clichés where it belongs. Much like disco music, it represents a time somewhat fondly remembered, but ultimately a source of embarrassment.

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Don Goodenow
Director, Product Management, Reinsurance & Collections
StoneRiver

It seems like you can’t turn around without bumping into someone’s new or improved SOA-based process. Platform-based, service-oriented, loosely-coupled, API-interfaced: everyone wants to be there.

That’s great. Service-oriented architecture can deliver real benefits, but let’s remember – it’s an architecture, not a solution in itself. Just like post-and-beam is an architectural style, SOA is a way to build things. So now we have new tools. The important question is the same as it has always been: what do you build with them?

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Be sure to check out the new issue of NAIC Focus, Connie Jasper Woodroof review changes you will encounter for your first quarter reporting, remind you about some changes occurring during 2010, and look at some items the NAIC will be tackling this year. First, however, a gentle reminder about a new 2009 filing many of you will be completing shortly.

There will be a lot of other activity occurring throughout the year and the NAIC Focus is the place to bookmark for current information.

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Jerry Whetnall
Director Life Product Management
StoneRiver

When selling life insurance, it’s no secret that faster decisions lead to more business, but just as important is the relationship between decisions and agent satisfaction. Faster decisions makes for happier agents - clearly an important goal for any insurer with an eye on growth.

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Alan Hirsch
Product Support Director, Claims Workstation, Policy STAR® and FAB Billing Systems
StoneRiver

What do you think is the best way for a software provider to minimize (or hopefully eliminate) the need for application corrections? Specifically, we’re talking about situations in which customers use the application software in ways the software provider did not anticipate, or where functionality has been added or changed. Occasionally what used to work no longer does, so issues surface quickly.

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