Assimilation
ISO invests in AscendantOne
Combination will deliver policy management, rating tools

Insurance Services Office (ISO) likes what its seen of AscendantOne and has made a significant equity investment into the insurance technology services company. The deal will combine the loss costs, manual rules, and forms information of ISO (www.iso.com) with the XML-based insurance rating and policy management products of AscendantOne (www.ascendantone.com).

The ISO data will be integrated into AscendantOnes RateFocus and PolicyFocus products; ISO will also provide sales and marketing support to AscendantOne. RateFocus will also conform to the published ISO manual rules for rating calculations.

Both products will be available for all ISO lines of insurance beginning with the July launch of ISOs new Businessowners Program (BOP).

Frank Coyne, president and CEO of ISO, said the investment in AscendantOne will create revenue acceleration, cost reduction, and customer satisfaction. Increasingly, insurers have been urging ISO to offer its own rating and policy administration solutions and we believe that AscendantOne is the right technology partner to address this market need, he said.

Paul Philp, president and CEO of AscendantOne, said, With the support of ISO, AscendantOne can more effectively deliver its tools and services to the property/casualty industry.

Workers Comp
Decisions? Decision Manager.
HNC offers a tool to root out fraud.

HNC Software (www.hnc.com) released two products for the workers comp market: Decision Manager for Claims, and a new version of an older product, CompAdvisor version 3.5.

HNC Decision Manager for Claims is an automated decision-making system designed to improve efficiencies in the claims process. The company reports that workers comp carriers are registering a 135 percent combined loss ratio since September 11, and need to improve efficiencies in claims processing.

When a claim is filed, HNC Decision Manager raises questions about medical factors, return-to-work issues, possibilities for litigation, and costs. Claims adjusters can act on these issues quickly, and less experienced adjusters have the same body of knowledge available as more experienced ones.

CompAdvisor Version 3.5 accelerates bill review workflow, which can also bring cost savings to the insurer. Medical bill information is scanned and imported directly into CompAdvisor. It then reviews and re-prices the medical bills. The system is integrated with HNC Decision Manager for Medical Bills and is available in client/server or Web-based hosted ASP configurations. With high-speed scanners and optical character recognition, over 80 percent of medical bills can be processed without manual data entry.

Valuation
Whats it worth to you?
CCC adds trucks, tractors, trailers, and snow mobile valuations to service.

CCC Information Services (www.cccis.com) has released version 2.0 of its Commercial and Recreational Vehicle Valuation Service (CRV) to help carriers improve their valuation processes for heavy-duty trucks, tractors, commercial trailers, motorcycles, marine and personal watercraft, motor homes, and snowmobiles.

CRV 2.0 integrates with CCCs private passenger vehicle total loss system. The systems share a platform and a language, and offer users easier access to comprehensive valuation reports through CCCs Total Loss or Pathways collision estimating systems.

We havecapacity to handle twice as many requests as we see today, said Mary Jo Prigge, president of CCC sales and service.

CRV 2.0 offers monthly management reports to track detailed vehicle valuation information including cycle times, adjuster performance, valuation amounts, vehicle identification numbers, and claims supplement information.

Update Your Address Books
Insurance Technology Solutionsa subsidiary of ePolicyhas changed its name to ePolicy Solutions (www.epolicysolutions.com). Please make a note of it.

Corrections:
In our April issue, we mistakenly referredto AUGIE as “the AMS User Group Information Exchange.” In fact, it is the “ACORD User Groups Information Exhange.” We regret the error.

In our May issue, we inadvertentlypromoted TechDEC speaker Craig Lowenthal.He is first vice president and CIO ofHartford Financial Products, not CIO of The Hartford itself.