Who's Buying What
Recent deals for technology software and services.
Insurance Networking News, 06/01/2010
Pentelia, Flagstone Re, Aon Contract RMS' ILS Platform
Risk Management Solutions (RMS) announced three companies have picked up its insurance-linked securities (ILS) portfolio management platform. In the last quarter, Bermuda-based Pentelia Capital Management and Flagstone Reinsurance and Chicago-based Aon Benfield have signed on to use the 18-month-old Miu platform. The company recently released an updated version to include event mapping and historical catastrophic event analysis, as well as a feature to combine historical scenarios with future risks.
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"We selected Miu because RMS offers a product that best suits our needs," says Mathieu Marsan, risk manager and actuary, Pentelia Capital Management. "RMS has shown strong commitment to the capital markets through the development of a purpose-built ILS portfolio management platform, which has been enhanced since we first saw it in 2009. We are happy to join the growing community of Miu users."
RMS said since the program's release, two-thirds of ILS funds that license third-party models have adopted its platform.
AACC Selects Kognitio Pricing Service
Chicago-based automotive insurer American Access Casualty Co. (AACC) implemented Chicago-based Kognitio's Data Warehousing-as-a-Service (DaaS) pricing service. The DaaS-based pricing service is designed to compare U.S. Census data, and more than 400 million historical and current auto insurance price points with a company's loss ratio data using Quomation's PowerBatch technology. Kognitio's WX2 in-memory analytic database serves as the program's foundation.
"We saw a market with significant needs and realized there was a distinct opportunity for us to become involved and assume a leadership role," says John Thompson, Kognitio's CEO of North American operations. "By combining WX2's power with the unlimited flexibility and low cost of DaaS, we have developed a service that fills a void in the automotive insurance market. American Access' management team and analytics experts quickly recognized the value and shared our vision. They have been crucial to proving that this approach is viable and provides significant value."
American Alliance Gains 4Sight
American Alliance, Rosemont, Ill., announced its decision to use 4Sight's Business Intelligence for Property and Casualty solution for its property/casualty business.
"We were immediately impressed with the system. With the what-if capabilities, ad-hoc reporting, and over 70 standard reports and dashboards," says Marc Romanz, president of American Alliance. "4Sight for P&C will help us look at our business in a number of different ways that provide monitoring as well as looking ahead at critical items."
Austin, Texas-based 4Sight says the program is user-friendly, and can be quickly implemented and user-ready in 45 days. The Intelligence for Property and Casualty suite is designed with more than 50 preconfigured reports, and supports most computer operating platforms and database programs.
CEMIC Implements ISCS Policy Admin Suite
CEM Insurance Co. (CEMIC), a Deer Park, Ill.-based property/casualty insurer specializing in niche offerings, announced installation of ISCS' Web- and SOA-based underwriting program, SurePower Innovation Policy Administration Suite.
"As our product base, agent base and written premiums continued to grow, it was clear the use of additional technology was a necessity to more efficiently process our current business and assist with controlled growth moving forward," says Christopher DuCharme, director of program operations for CEMIC. "The most important benefits [of the SurePower implementation] to CEMIC were the efficiencies the system provided, the additional data and reporting features, and the ability to equip our agents with cutting-edge technology to remain competitive within our environment."
ISCS' SurePower Innovation, created to serve commercial, personal and specialty lines of business, is designed to automate underwriting, manage policy and claims, allow for integrated reinsurance and billing, and provide document management, rules-based data warehousing, and document imaging. The companies said the program's implementation met the projected eight-month goal.
ServiceLogix & FirstBest Partner, Beacon Benefits
Beacon Mutual, a Warwick, R.I.-based workers' compensation provider, opted to use software created through a partnership between Denver-based ServiceLogix and Burlington, Mass.-based FirstBest Systems Inc. The program Beacon has slated to implement combines ServiceLogix's insurance applications for policy administration, StoneRiver Power Suite, with FirstBest's Underwriting Management System, a program used in conjunction with its Agent Portal program.
"The FirstBest partnership is a natural extension of our commitment to providing best-in-class insurance applications. With FirstBest's underwriting workstation and agency portal, which provide carriers with best-practice functionality in tandem with flexible and configurable platforms, carriers now have better capabilities to improve underwriting quality and productivity," says James Thomson, president and CEO, ServiceLogix. "FirstBest has a growing customer roster of the most innovative workers' compensation carriers. Our partnership will help us implement more robust solutions for workers' compensation, a line of business that has become increasingly competitive."
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