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Christa DeOliveira, CIA, CCEP
There have been some interesting developments of late in the life insurance sector, both with legislation and regulations. While these developments are not directly a part of unclaimed property, they are still significant and are indirectly tied to unclaimed property.
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Greg Sohl, Lead Software Architect StoneRiver
Session preparation for the StoneRiver Summit is in full swing as spring approaches. The eFreedom Annual Statement team is working on a number of sessions that will continue to elevate the knowledge of eFreedom users.
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Tom Knight
Product Management
StoneRiver
It is easy to describe and understand the notion of Business Oriented Architecture (BOA), yet it is still quite hard to achieve. Insurance industry analysts have recently defined the term as an architecture that applies a new level of focus to deliver benefits to your business extending beyond the reach of your service-oriented architecture (SOA). Since BOA is built on top of SOA, the challenge to achieving BOA enablement for insurers still lies in the maturity level of their own SOA. Taking a look at the origin of SOA, and more specifically, looking at how much farther an insurer could take SOA, explains why BOA enablement is easy to describe but still very hard to achieve.
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StoneRiver Product Marketing
You may not yet have had the opportunity to read our recent paper on mobility options, Current & Future Needs: Mobile Device Access for Core Systems. The paper outlines the technology that’s important to any carrier's analysis and decision on taking core insurance processing out to the field. Never have the options been so many. As a solution provider, we are constantly asked to describe and demonstrate our mobility offering within our P&C solutions. That is a conversation we like to have and can discuss at length. However, this is often a question that needs to be answered with another question: What is your mobility strategy?
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Terry Kraft
Account Management Executive
StoneRiver
If you haven’t already taken a few minutes to read Rodney Griffin’s thoughts on “Building a Business Case for a Billing System,” it’s easy to download a copy. All of Rod’s points are valid from what I’ve observed in the insurance industry.
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Felicia Maresh
P&C Claims Expert
StoneRiver
The concept of multitasking appears to have originated in the computer industry and refers to the ability of a computer to process several tasks simultaneously. As we move through daily life, we are asking our human brains more and more often to function in a similar method. Today I sit at my desk, working on this blog, monitoring email, answering IM and telephone calls, all the while knowing that the minutes are clicking down toward a large project planning meeting.
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StoneRiver Product Marketing
Carriers are still looking for ways to improve customer service through a variety of channels like web portals and mobile apps. There was great interest during the dawn of the Internet to find ways to extend information securely to customers and allow self service. Banks immediately jumped at the opportunity and insurance carriers lagged behind for a variety of reasons including security, legal constraints, complexity of information, and platform limitations. Carriers today are taking the lead and allowing more and more access to information and the ability to enter information about their policy or claim. Our industry has made good progress to go beyond policy quoting. The goal in the end is to enhance customer experience by serving each customer in the manner in which they want to be served.
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Frank Heaps
Director, P&C Product Marketing
StoneRiver
The world of electronic media is expanding rapidly. New methods of communications are being delivered quickly on new devices. Some devices leverage existing technology like email, some provide a complementary communication method like smart phones and tablets, other are breaking new ground. The ironic point of this is that these tools provide more ways to provide personal contact and communications in a traditionally impersonal way--with no human contact.
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Craig Robinson
Reinsurance Sales Engineer
StoneRiver
It’s that time of year again … time to renew your reinsurance contracts. With reinsurance rates hardening again due to so much catastrophic activity this year, it’s more important than ever to make sure you have the proper reinsurance programs and terms in place. Small changes can mean big differences in results. What is the best way to do this? It can be a really difficult process, wading through a huge volume of experience data and analyzing contract terms.
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Frank Heaps
Director, P&C Product Marketing
StoneRiver
Late summer was a rough time for the East Coast of the United States between the earthquake centered in Virginia and Hurricane Irene. Neither event was very severe, and most of the major damage was localized to a few areas. That is good since Irene was a large storm that lost energy, and no one expected the earthquake. Thousands are recovering from the hurricane, but the forecast was for millions to be impacted—at least 1 in 5 Americans. The earthquake was a surprise that was limited in damage.