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News
for Sunday, May 23
ISF Successfully Fuses
Two Popular Conferences
Registrations
Exceed Expectations, Make Event Greater Than
Sum of Parts
Sunday, May
23
VIDEOS:
Opening Session
Video Introduction (10 minutes 8 seconds)
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Gregory
Maciag's Welcome (11 mins 43 secs)
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Gregory
A. Maciag welcomes attendees. |
The ACORD LOMA Conference
has come together on the first day of its first
year as a successful and powerful fusion of two
popular conferences. Over 2400 have come to the
3-day event in Las Vegas that has superceded and
united the ACORD Conference and LOMA Insurance
Systems Forum to make the event greater then the
sum of its parts. ACORD’s
president and CEO Greg Maciag and LOMA’s
president Tom Donaldson welcomed attendees at
the opening general session today. Maciag commented,
“With the ACORD show being in Orlando all
those years, I was looking forward to the change,
and what a change it is. This is the largest,
all industry, multi-vendor insurance systems
event in our business.” A further welcome
was extended by Lance Ewing, past president of
Risk and Insurance Management Society (RIMS),
and VP of risk management for Cesaer’s
Entertainment, the operator of Paris/Ballys where
the event is being held.
Lance Ewing
welcomes attendees to Caesar's Bally's/Paris |
In his remarks Maciag characterized
the event as being all about cooperation in an
industry that is experiencing greater levels
of cooperation. He noted with enthusiasm the
strong participation of vendors. “Without
the legion of firms developing systems for this
industry, we’d have no choices.”
He added that carriers are building stronger
partnerships with vendors & vendors are building
stronger partnerships with each other because
they serve the same customers.
Over the next three days, 175
exhibitors will showcase the very latest insurance
system solutions, and over 160 industry leaders
and experts will present 100 workshops on strategies,
technologies, and industry concerns and issues.
VIDEOS:
Opening Session
Video Introduction (10 minutes 8 seconds)
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Gregory
Maciag's Welcome (11 mins 43 secs)
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Analysts Panel Uses
Real Time Audience Response to Engage and Advise
Attendees
Sunday, May
23
VIEW VIDEO of Analyst's
Panel: (91 mins)
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Download Audience Survey
Results
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Industry
Analysts panel discuss audience feedback |
Insurance industry technology
analysts had words of encouragement for attendees
at the opening general session of the ACORD/LOMA
Insurance Systems Forum, held in Las Vegas this
week. “You have a tremendous advantage,”
said John Flynn, META Group senior vice president,
insurance information strategies. “While
other financial services businesses have been cutting
IT, insurance budgets have been consistent. You
have the advantage of consistency and an advantage
with Web services, compared to others in the financial
services sector.” Gartner
Group Research Director Kim Harris echoed those
comments. “We hear the insurance industry
is behind, but I don’t think you are,”
she said. “Yes, you have legacy systems
to maintain that hamper you from moving forward,
but with Web services and ACORD XML Standards,
most industries can’t hold a candle to
you. You have challenges, but you also have a
lot to be proud of.”
These words were welcome among
attendees, 81 percent of whom had, just seconds
earlier, said, via an interactive audience response
system, that they felt the industry was behind
others. The devices, similar in size to a TV
remote control, let participants give immediate
feedback to series of questions posed by ACORD
President Greg Maciag. Answers provided the springboard
for panelists to assess the industry as the audience
sees it.
Responses
to initial questions provided a demographic snapshot
of the audience. Fifty-two percent work for insurers,
33 percent for solution providers, nine percent
for intermediaries, and three percent each for
reinsurers or other firms. Two-thirds work in
information technology, 12 percent in operations,
two percent in distribution and 19 percent in
other roles.
During the panel discussion,
moderated by ACORD vice president of Membership
Development Denise Garth, attendees identified
their most pressing technology issue. Forty-three
percent cited product delivery via the Web, 25
percent identified customer relationship management,
19 percent selected agency management, and seven
percent each said risk selection and Sarbanes-Oxley
compliance. Matt Josefowicz, Celent Communications
insurance practice manager, was not surprised
that product delivery and agency management got
reasonably high responses. Harris wasn’t
either, but thought that risk selection and fraud
detection, which did not even register one percent
of the vote, would have ranked higher, given
insurers’ focus on results.
Business process management
also struck a chord. Eighty-four percent of respondents
said their organizations were undergoing some
sort of business process management or engineering,
with nearly half of the initiatives being driven
by the CEO. Deborah Smallwood, insurance practice
leader at TowerGroup, said, “The results
are encouraging, because you’re saying
that business process management or improvement
is important to your organization. It’s
also good to see it’s being driven at the
CEO level.” She said the timing is right.
“Take advantage of technology, standards
and guidelines, and do it,” she noted.
“There’s a short window of opportunity
coming out of the hard market.”
While only 40 percent of attendees
described the relationship between information
technology staff and business units as perfect
or good, 70 percent said it’s better than
it was five years ago. Smallwood said, “There’s
still a lot of frustration, but we’re seeing
that processes, strategies, and roles and responsibilities
are getting better defined. That should lead
to better responses.” Josefowicz added,
“Back in the late ‘90s, there was
a lot of crazy spending. It was the CIO Rock
Star period, where business gave IT an open checkbook.
A lot invested in ill-defined projects, which
led to the CIO Doghouse period. That has moderated.”
Flynn predicts relationships will improve further.
“The client server world was complex,”
he said. “Now we have simpler technology,
and the business side is understanding it better,
which will help.”
While 59 percent of attendees
said their firms have a data and information
management strategy in place, only 27 percent
said they were doing an adequate job of using
data as a competitive advantage. Smallwood acknowledged
managing data is overwhelming, but necessary.
“Go back to your organizations and tell
them data is really important,” she said.
Harris noted a difference between raw data and
useful information. “Maybe we are not being
successful because we don’t have an information
strategy, we have a data strategy,” she
said.
Outsourcing and use of technology
to support distribution brought more strategic
tips from the analysts. Harris said, “A
lot of companies are outsourcing without any
type of corporate vision. You need to know why
you are outsourcing, and you should only be outsourcing
those things that are not part of your core competencies.”
Flynn added, “You have to have a goal.”
On distribution, Smallwood
encouraged attendees to decide how they want
to employ high-tech, such as Web portals, or
high-touch, featuring personal meetings, in distribution.
Josefowicz warned participants to remember that
high-touch distribution may still require high-tech
investment.
Analysts left audience members
with parting advice and encouragement. Harris
said, “Don’t think about technology
in isolation. The largest returns on investment
are at companies that don't buy technology just
for technology’s sake, but make sure it’s
tightly aligned to the business and the underlying
processes – almost a three-dimensional
plan. As you invest in new technology, make sure
it has business outcome potential.”
Josefowicz added, “Key
to successful IT projects is for business and
IT to work together, speak the same language,
and have the same success metrics. Using the
ROI analysis process as a way to bring business
and IT together, instead of for project justification,
can be very powerful. It teaches IT folks to
put things in pure business terms, and it gives
business people a better understanding of the
real costs and processes behind the technology.”
According to Flynn, “There’s
a tremendous opportunity for IT people to play
a greater role in business process improvement.
No other group in the company has a better view
of the whole process within an organization.”
Smallwood said, “It’s
an exciting time to be part of insurance and
technology. The technology is ready for us. Seize
the opportunity. Leverage technology to get your
company a competitive advantage.”
VIEW VIDEO of Analyst's
Panel: (91 mins)
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Results
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ACORD Awards Honor Outstanding
Achievements by Companies and Vendors at ISF
2004 Conference
Sunday, May
23
Gregory
A. Maciag and ACORD Board Chairman, David
Findley, present ACORD Awards |
The 12th Annual ACORD Awards
ceremony recognizing achievements in ACORD data
standards implementations was held at a special
luncheon during the ACORD LOMA Insurance Systems
Forum in Las Vegas. In
his welcome to the winners, and the 250 attendees
of the awards luncheon, Gregory A. Maciag, president
and CEO, ACORD, emphasized the importance of
standards and the fact that "implementation
is what it is all about."
In his remarks, ACORD Board
Chairman David Findley, Senior Vice President,
Commercial Lines/Personal Lines, St. Paul Travelers
illustrated through statistics the exceptional
rise in certifications and implementations the
past year time. He also emphasized that this
was the opportunity to "recognize and applaud
our members who are actively implementing standards
and participation is what we are here to recognize."
The awards were presented by
Denise Garth, vice president, Membership and
Development, ACORD who commented that "this
year was especially competitive with over 400
submissions and 160 awards. We are honored to
present these companies with these awards and
recognize their leadership in standards adoption.
They are truly on the vanguard of the insurance
industry."
Denise
Garth, VP of Membership & Development,
ACORD, announces winners |
During the ceremony, 43
companies won Achievement and Accomplishment awards.
In addition, 64 companies received Certification
Awards. New awards
for 2004 included Early Forms Adopter Awards,
Early SOAP Framework Adopter Award and the Shared
Service/Infrastructure Platform Provider Award.
In its second year as a category,
the Industry Leadership for Straight Through
Processing award was presented to Depository
Trust Clearing Corporation, Examination Management
Services, Inc., ri3K, Aon Surety, Computer Sciences
Corporation, St. Paul Travelers, Hooper Holmes,
Safeco Insurance Companies, ACUITY, and Applied
Systems, Inc.
Many insurers, reinsurers and
brokers won multiple awards, including ACUITY,
Aon Limited, Ohio Casualty, Aon Surety and The
Hartford. Other multiple-award winners included
Secura, Frankemuth, St. Paul Travelers, GE ERC
and Safeco. GE Financial brought home seven awards
and SCOR won eight, the most of any nominee.
"This year, we were
excited to see a rapid rise in implementations
and certifications in ACORD standards throughout
the word," said Garth. "With implementations
rising more than 300% across lines of business,
these awards are becoming more competitive and
more prestigious, a true badge of honor within
the industry that allow them to stand out from
their competitors."
View
Pictures of Award Winners
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