Who's Buying What

Insurance Networking News, May 1, 2009

MANULIFE INKS OUTSOURCING DEAL WITH THOMSON REUTERS

Toronto-based Manulife Financial Corp.'s asset management division has signed a multi-million-dollar outsourcing deal with New York-based Thomson Reuters. As part of the agreement, MFC Global Investment Management will use the Thomson Reuters Portia recordkeeping system for more than $66 billion in public assets under management. According to Thomson, the service will allow for "the introduction of a single book of record for the public asset component of its investment management business."

Many asset managers choose to manage their own middle- to back-office solutions, notes Christy Bremner, global managing director of Portia. But by handing much of that responsibility over to Thomson Reuters, all the MFC infrastructure, including physical hardware and systems, will be located in a hosted data center. The arrangement will provide "a single consolidated global platform, as well as strong technical support and the assurance of a stable operational environment," says Bremner.

"There is a range of activities that we perform on their behalf - not just physical infrastructure in a data center," adds Bremner. The hosted software services will also include data management, disaster recovery support and management reporting.

The Portia investment accounting software, which handles books and records and supports reporting, performance management and a range of mid-to-back-office activities, has 300 clients. Twenty-one of the platform's customers use the outsourced version, with the rest opting for an in-house installation.

ANTARES SELECTS DATADIRECT TO AID CLAIM ADJUDICATION

Antares Management Solutions, a business division of Strongville, Ohio-based Medical Mutual Services LLC, is using DataDirect Shadow, a single, unified integration architecture supporting mainframe SOA enablement and data integration, to integrate mainframe data into a service-oriented claims processing application, the companies report. The product from DataDirect Technologies Inc., an operating company of Bedford, Mass.-based Progress Software Corp., will be used to improve the efficiency of medical billing and customer service.

The auto-adjudication technology was created specifically for Medical Mutual of Ohio and its TOPPS system. In an effort to address the business need to support physicians and providers with patient liability information in real time, Antares set out to build a robust claims processing application that would enable physician offices to submit claim information, and immediately get processing results. The new Web-based application would enable patients to know, at the point of service, the total amount owed for the medical procedure, the company says.

To address integration and agility challenges common to modernizing legacy applications, the company adopted a service-oriented architecture approach. The existing insurance claims processing application relied on mainframe green screens within the customer information control system (CICS) as the primary interface to access billing information stored within a mainframe DB2 database.

THORNTON & PARTNERS SELECTS FINEOS CLAIMS

Thornton & Partners, a Dublin, Ireland-based loss adjuster firm and partner to global loss-adjuster firm Crawfords, selected software from FINEOS Corp., also headquartered in Dublin, to become the new enterprisewide software solution for Thornton's loss adjusting claims operations. Designed to provide major efficiency gains and an enhanced service to Thornton's insurance clients, the new system offers a modern platform that will scale to meet Thornton's predicted business growth over the next few years, according to FINEOS.

"The powerful business process management capabilities within FINEOS Claims ensure the automation, generation, execution and measurement of tasks required to handle claims," says John Eves, managing director at Thorntons. This will help reduce the amount of time loss adjusters have to spend on routine administrative tasks, freeing them up to concentrate on the service we provide. The solution will also allow us to easily measure our performance against the service agreements we have committed to with our insurance clients."

SENTRY INSURANCE LAUNCHES GUIDEWIRE POLICYCENTER

Sentry Insurance, a Stevens Point, Wis.-based property/casualty insurer, has recently launched PolicyCenter from and Guidewire Software, San Mateo, Calif. PolicyCenter is now being used by 400 Sentry Business Products sales producers and staff processing policy submissions for two business units - standard business products and dealer operations.

Sentry uses PolicyCenter to support the account setup and submission process for 12 lines of insurance in more than 40 states. PolicyCenter has been integrated with existing customer relations management software, document management and other legacy systems. The new system significantly improves Sentry's submission process that formerly required labor-intensive data entry into multiple systems.

Sentry wanted to invest in technology that would streamline its new business sales and underwriting processes, as well as help simplify IT support efforts and reduce system maintenance costs, according to Don Olson, Sentry's VP of business products systems.

For more information on related topics, visit the following channels:

• Agent Network
• Claims
• Compliance
• Customer Service
• Data Management
• Distribution
• Enterprise Technologies
• Insurance Network
• Outsourcing
• Policy Administration
• Risk Management
• Underwriting