The findings came in a series of industry "pulse'' surveys conducted by New York-based Tillinghast, a worldwide management and actuarial consulting operation.

Insurers composed the overwhelming majority of respondents drawn from the 248 North American financial services companies participating. The first survey, the company said, found an insurance industry confident that new technology will drive significant industry change.

In this second survey, said Tillinghast, insurers admitted measuring only mixed results to date. "They are seeking refined measurements that will capture new success factors, especially in the area of distribution and customer management," the research found.

"Taken together, the two surveys confirm that new technology has accelerated insurers' shift in focus from developing their products to better understanding and responding to customer needs,'' said Jenny Emery, Tillinghast's global e-business leader.

Over the past three years, insurers have measured the most improvement for their new technology investments in business processes and operations, said Tillinghast. More than 80 percent of respondents reported that technology has driven improvement in both employee productivity and turnaround time.

Yet only about half of the respondents have seen evidence of technology-driven success in net operating results, return on capital invested, and growth, the researcher noted. Fewer have seen evidence of success using other traditional measures like market share, retention ratio and return to shareholders. And almost half (48 percent) indicated they were looking for ways to refine their measures to capture new success factors engendered by new technology.

"Respondents expressed a lot of faith in traditional business measurements,'' said Ms. Emery. "But they are also seeking refinements that focus on measuring the satisfaction and value of customer segments and the performance of distribution channels."

Despite the mixed results to date, respondents expect new technology to drive measurable improvements across the board over the next three years, said Tillinghast.

An overwhelming majority of respondents expect to see new-technology-driven improvements in customer profitability (70 percent), company profitability (78 percent), market share (78 percent), customer retention (81 percent), revenue/premium growth (83 percent), expenses/expense ratios (88 percent), turnaround time (90 percent), and employee productivity (94 percent).

"P-C insurers were the hardest hit by Sept. 11 and more than other respondents indicated new technology was helping them manage the impact of the attacks in their underwriting, pricing and products, said Ms. Emery

Based on anecdotal evidence, she said, Tillinghast believes this response demonstrates a hope by primary insurers that improved access to greater volumes of data can help them better understand increased concentrations of exposure and risk.

Despite being the largest single-event loss in the industry's history, most respondents indicated that the Sept. 11 attacks would not significantly affect how quickly they would implement new technologies, Tillinghast reported.

In fact, at least 15 percent said the attacks would accelerate their implementation in distribution and customer management, as well as in business processes and operations. In contrast, very few said it would decelerate their implementation, the research noted.

More than one quarter of respondents said technology has played or will play a major role in managing the impact of the attacks on business processes and operations, stated Tillinghast.

Twenty percent in the survey said new technology has played or will play a major role in distribution and customer management. Only 8 percent said it has played or will play a major role in underwriting, products and pricing?though 22 percent of property-casualty insurers said it has played or will play a major role in those areas.

The second e-Track survey, which was administered late last fall, draws respondents from among the 248 companies in North America that participate in Tillinghast's e-Track program, the company explained.

Forty-two percent of the companies participated in this second survey. Life insurers (46 percent) and property-casualty insurers (31 percent) dominated the respondents, though health insurers accounted for 18 percent.

Finance executives made up 30 percent of respondents, senior management/planning executives 28 percent, and IT/e-business executives 16 percent.

Additional information is available at www.tillinghast.com.