The deal also calls for ISO to provide sales and marketing support to the Nashua, N.H.-based AscendantOne, said ISO. Terms were not disclosed.

The two companies will seamlessly integrate ISO's loss costs, manual rules and forms information into AscendantOne's RateFocus and PolicyFocus applications, the announcement said. In addition, ISO will work with AscendantOne to ensure the RateFocus rating calculations conform to the published ISO manual rules.

The AscendantOne solutions ? powered by ISO ? will provide insurers with an efficient and accurate methodology to quickly build company-specific insurance programs and easily analyze, manage and implement ISO program revisions, ISO noted.

ISO and AscendantOne will make RateFocus and PolicyFocus available for all ISO lines of insurance, beginning with the July launch of ISO's new Businessowners Program, the company added.

According to Frank J. Coyne, ISO's president and chief executive officer, the investment by ISO will enable it to achieve "revenue acceleration, cost reduction, and customer satisfaction."

ISO said the AscendantOne offering is the first solution that efficiently incorporates ISO loss costs, rules and manual information directly into insurers' rating and policy-administration systems. This capability "significantly increases the ease and speed of revising insurers' programs with current ISO information."

Additional benefits from the ISO-AscendantOne joint product development efforts are insurers' cost savings from eliminating manual input of ISO information into their rating and policy-administration systems, higher productivity and compressed implementation time, said ISO.

ISO is a source of information, products and services related to property and liability risk. For a broad spectrum of commercial and personal lines of insurance, ISO provides statistical, actuarial, underwriting and claims information and analysis; consulting and technical services; policy language; information about specific locations; fraud-identification tools; and data processing.

AscendantOne delivers open XML-based technology and services that "directly transform property-casualty front office economics, while boosting the marketing and client retention capabilities of insurance providers."