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April 21, 2002 at 08:00 PM
Hollywood, Fl.
While attendance at this years LOMA Systems Forum held April 7-10 was markedly down, several vendors made waves in this oceanside locale by announcing new technology initiatives that leverage the benefits of the Internet.
A LOMA staffer reported that the official attendance for the 2002 forum was 650, down from 850 a year ago. Several disappointed exhibitors, however, pegged the crowd at about half of the 2001 level, based on the light traffic they saw on the exhibit floor.
Meanwhile, InSystems, based in Markham, Ontario, Canada, debuted InSystems eXterity, an insurance-specific portal that offers a portal server plus a suite of insurance application “modules.” The modules, says InSystems, can be configured to create customer self-service, as well as agent-broker portals, as well as other insurance-related portals.
A portal, the company explains, is a personalized Web site built on a common set of services that enable firms to connect employees, customers, partners and suppliers to corporate computing resources from any Internet-capable device.
According to Andrew Jackson, chief marketing officer and general manager of InSystems newly-created eXterity Division, the new portal software is aimed at group and life insurance carriers. The carriers, in turn, can develop and provide portal capabilities to agents and brokers, as well as support customer self-service.
InSystems says eXterity is designed for carriers who want to provide such services to their customers, agents, brokers, third party administrators and regulators. “InSystems eXterity enables faster, less expensive development, deployment and maintenance of custom-built portals, providing insurance carriers with greater business agility,” the company notes.
Jackson characterizes the new software as a “build your own portal” application. He also emphasizes that while some training may be required for IT departments of companies that use the software, once that is done, users will be able to work with the application “coming out of the box. Once its implemented, you dont have to be an IT person to use or modify it,” he observes. “If you can personalize a My Yahoo! page, you can configure an eXterity application module.”
InSystems says there are currently more than 40 eXterity application modules available. These include such critical functions as enrollment, application, claims status and filing status.
According to Jackson, the first implementation of eXterity at Canada Life “took less than six months.” For future implementations, “we expect to shorten that to three months,” he notes, “its highly dependent on a carriers existing systems. Its [a systems] integration, like any IT project.”
Jackson says the new software requires a Web server or application server. “We typically see IBM WebSphere as the platform.”
Pricing for eXterity is done on a per-CPU basis for servers, and a per-module basis for users, says Jackson. A basic implementation would start at less than $200,000, while a typical implementation would run “between $500,000 and $1 million.”
Jackson emphasizes that the portal software is “incremental,” allowing companies to “start small and add over time.”
A Web module that enables 24-hour-a-day, seven-days-a-week access to producers, policyholders and home office personnel was introduced by the Genelco Software Solutions division of Liberty Insurance Services Corporation.
According to Greenville, S.C.-based Genelco, the new integrated front end to the companys life administration system provides access to policy information, forms and other resources and allows for policy transactions. The Web module “enhances the CRM capabilities for life operations” and is integrated with Genelco Life+, a life, health and annuity back office administration software application.
