[January 02, 2013]

Best's Review Identifies 10 Successful Insurance Innovations

The Innovation Showcase published in the January issue of Best's Review magazine is a forum for recognizing forward thinking among insurance organizations.

The 10 innovations were selected based on their impact on an insurance organization and in some cases, the industry. They represent a wide range of industry segments from personal lines to multinational and catastrophic coverage. What they have in common is measurable success that improved the performance of the business. Entries were reviewed by several insurance professionals.

The featured companies and their projects include:

• Accident Fund Holdings, Care Analytics - Early Detection. The integration of scientifically validated data analytics within workers' compensation claims-handling software created an early warning system and safety net for injured workers reliant on opioids for the treatment of chronic pain.
• Ace Group, Worldview. This Web-based portal enables multinational risk managers and brokers to monitor and manage key aspects of their multinational insurance programs - in real time, anytime, anywhere and on any Internet-enabled device right down to the local policy level.
• Ace Private Risk Services Home Contents Valuation Service. A proprietary tablet computer application that allows representatives to capture data about home contents during their inspection process to significantly reduce the risk of underinsuring the contents of high-value homes.
• AIG, environmental insurance training. A suite of online training modules to enable brokers to have better-informed business conversations with their clients about environmental insurance. Accreditation by the U.K's Chartered Insurance Institute povided immediately recognizable evidence that it met high professional standards and was a major factor in the successful promotion of the program to a wide broker audience.
• American General Life Cos., DecisionXchange. This software package performs automated, expert underwriting using table-driven and case-based reasoning. It provides case management, requirement determination and redetermination when key data changes are made. It also provides recommendations and scoring on individual requirements, and releases the case for approval. It also refers cases with unacceptable evaluations to different groups of individuals for continued handling.
• Narragansett Bay Insurance Co., Project APEX. Narragansett Bay adopted an aggressive growth strategy of entering markets in coastal states that are undergoing change and offering improved rates for homeowners. To execute on its growth strategy, the company embarked on an initiative to modernize its in-house legacy systems.
• Primerica, TermNow. Life insurance products with a design that can put an acceptance letter and policy number into a customer's hands in less than three minutes. The heart of this in-house written expert system is an application that screens the requested policy for compliance integrity. It contains more than 700 rule checks and more than 3,700 data processing methods that are critical to the company's business.
• RGA, motor vehicle records. Evidence-based research confirmed that driving behavior could be used as a factor in underwriting life insurance. RGA researched the correlation between motor vehicle records and mortality rate, the results of which have led to a more nuanced approach for using those records for life insurance underwriting, including risk stratifications by age and gender, number of violations and the type and severity of violations.
• Safelite Solutions, pre-inspection of vehicle glass claims. Working with its insurance partner, claims management company Safelite instituted pre-inspections for auto glass claims in order to reduce the increasing number of fraudulent claims.
• Sagicor Insurance Managers, The Caribbean Catastrophe Risk Insurance Facility. The fund was developed in 2007 to write parametric insurance policies that pay claims quickly after natural disasters so governments can continue to pay employees and mitigate the damage.

Founded in 1899, A.M. Best Company is the world's oldest and most authoritative insurance rating and information source. For more information, visit www.ambest.com.

Copyright © 2013 by A.M. Best Company, Inc. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

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