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Business Intelligence — systems and processes to translate raw data into actionable information — is rapidly becoming THE competitive tool for insurers in the 21st century. Insurance-Canada.ca, with its partner ci-Canadian Insurance Magazine, is pleased to announce its 2007 Technology Conference, which will give you the information you need to plan, develop, and implement a successful BI strategy for your organization.

Conference Topics

8:00 – 9:00: Registration and Coffee

9:00	Welcome and introduction: Patrick Vice, Director - Information Technology, Frank Cowan Company Limited.
	Keynote: "History is not our Destiny; But it is our Future" - Mike Corcoran, Corporate Strategy and Chief Communications Officer, Information Builders Inc.
in the context of "changing our information delivery processes to drive strategic business value from historical data", Mike will discuss: Top P&C challenges: dispelling deeply embedded legacy assumptions; Trends driving industry wide change; Examples and assessment of how trends address key challenges; How SOA aligns; Predictions on where information delivery will affect the P&C business model.
	"Using BI Analytics to Set the Pricing Standard" - David A. West, Insurance Industry Marketing Manager, SAS Institute Inc.
In the increasingly competitive insurance market, price is surpassing brand in importance to the insurance consumer. Providing consumers with a competitive price that accurately reflects the exposure they present is crucial to the ongoing success of every insurer. Innovative companies are ensuring their success by creating extremely granular pricing models that enhance their competitive position without resorting to charging unprofitable premiums. Pricing accuracy is key. Equally important is the ability to identify novel rating characteristics and to implement new pricing models before the competition. Companies who follow the business-as-usual course will be rapidly overtaken by more innovative competitors. In addition, innovators will force adverse selection on their competitors while simultaneously attracting the most profitable portion of their competitors business. Successful adopters of this business model rely heavily on the use of analytics to improve their business. Companies must provide an analytic platform complete with appropriate tools and data. The creation of an analytic competency center is a major step on the road to competing through analytics. During this session, we will discuss several examples of companies who are taking the lead in this industry through their analytic approach. We will discuss the critical success factors for the creation and performance management of an analytic competency center as well as the hazards to avoid along the way.
	"Empowering Insurance Decisions with Microsoft Business Intelligence Solutions:" - Dennis Maroney, Industry Manager – Financial Services Worldwide Commercial Sector, Microsoft Corporation - Seth Rachlin, Chief Executive Officer, Moore Stephens Business Solutions LLC
Today’s insurance industry is extremely competitive – you need to increase strategic business performance at all level of the organization to drive sales and profitability. Integrating Business Intelligence solutions enables decision-makers to analyze critical data, minimize risk and increase compliance. Integrating every employee — from the information worker to the CEO, adds value to every decision, streamlines processes and promotes collaboration. This, in turn, helps increase the impact of all employees, delivering Key Performance Indicators and controlling costs. Dennis and Seth will focus on how to leverage business intelligence to improve performance within an insurance carrier and will address: How leading insurers are using Key Performance Indicators (KPI’s) to drive sales, underwriting, and operational performance with specific examples from Property & Casualty and Life companies. A process for identifying the “right” KPI’s for a company. Building a data architecture to produce these KPI’s and make them available including techniques and approaches to speed deployment and deliver value within 6 months. How to use Portals, Dashboards, Scorecards and other end-user tools to make performance management part of everyday business processes in finance, underwriting, claims, and agency operations.
	"Managing Broker-Underwriter-Insurer Relationships in the World of Privacy and Disclosure" - David R. Nash, Senior Partner, McKenzie Lake Lawyers LLP
Mr. Nash will draw on extensive consultation, negotiation, and litigation experience to describe critical elements in the use of business intelligence information. Given increased reliance on information in risk selection, underwriting, and claims management, brokers and insurers must pay particular attention to managing the relationships to ensure roles and responsibilities are clearly defined. Brokers must be aware of consequences of inadequate, incomplete, or inaccurate information, and the requirement to disclose in a timely fashion; Underwriters must act on the information appropriately; and insurers and re-insurers must manage the push for writing business with the pull of accountability. Mr. Nash will also describe developments in the rapidly changing world of privacy.
noon	Networking Lunch
	Keynote: "Setting the Landscape: An Overview of Predictive Analytics in the Insurance Market" - Mark B. Gorman, Strategic Research Advisor, Insurance, TowerGroup
The utilization of predictive analytics is currently a hot topic in the insurance market. The “buzz” is driven by the activity of a few market leaders who are using business intelligence and predictive analytics to gain competitive advantage. Other organizations are being motivated to respond, either to avoid being left behind or because they see an opportunity to leap frog the competition and gain competitive advantage as well. But carriers aren’t stopping there. Companies are no longer looking at just lagging indicators; predictive analytics is bringing to the forefront the ability to use business intelligence to leverage leading indicators to make business decisions. They are using predictive analytics to assess the propensity for fraud, to predict the required reserves on a claim, to identify opportunities for subrogation, to identify cross sell and up sell opportunities, to more precisely price a risk, to better focus audit activity on customer files, and to differentiate levels of service to agents and customers. The critical question is no longer whether or not to utilize business intelligence and predictive analytics, but rather where to use them most effectively. In the midst of all this market activity has emerged confusion regarding how to move an organization to a new business model that leverages predictive analytics. This session will discuss the key market drivers for increased utilization of business intelligence and predictive analytics, overview how carriers are utilizing them and outline the crucial components for execution of business intelligence strategies in a competitive market.
	"Standards for Consistent, Accurate, and Timely Information" Moderator: Jim McGregor, CEO, The Precept Group - Dean Bottschen, Senior Standards Analyst, CSIO - Kevin Campbell, President, Policy Works - Karim Hirji, Director, Commercial Lines Research & Development, ING Canada - Mark Orlandi, Program Director, Property & Casualty/Surety, ACORD
This panel discussion will discuss the contribution that standards offer to Business Intelligence. Business Intelligence helps make better and more timely decisions. The potential value of the information that BI tools present depends on the breadth, depth and quality of the data that is stored. Standards have long been seen for their tactical and operational value, but serve in a strategic role with the rise in the value of consistent, accurate, and timely data. This panel consists of experienced standards developers and users who will provide unique insights into the important role Standards play in the effective capture, analysis and use of data. Presenters include: Mark Orlandi, ACORD; Kevin Campbell, PolicyWorks, CSIO (invited).
	"Accelerating P&C Agility Through Effective Information: A Case Study" - James Barber, North American Insurance Sales Manager, Information Builders Inc.
It has been difficult to empower business users with flexible access to: all P&C information - summary to detail in real P&C business deliverables in a powerful real time application that delivers confident/auditable results Hear real P&C insurance and reinsurance case studies outlining how this has been done promptly at an enterprise level: business drivers, how they delivered prompt business results within an enterprise architecture, how they addressed project risk & rework along with lessons learned, impact, and next steps.
	"Extending Business Intelligence with Location Intelligence" - Craig Bedell, Director, Global Insurance Vertical, MapInfo Corporation
MapInfo Location Intelligence enables you to answer a fundamental, yet complex question faced by nearly all organizations: Where? It's a critical factor in countless strategic and operational decisions in business, and especially in insurance. Associating your organizational data with location is the foundation for making critical decisions that improve performance. Spatially enabling Business Intelligence is a powerful use of two of today’s leading best business practices. When integrated, insurance companies can better formulate, analyze, and make decisions based upon robust Key Performance Indicators. Learn how Location Intelligence and Business Intelligence can work together to: provide new insights into customers and markets, helping identify areas of untapped market potential, and understand portfolio risk and power more informed mitigation decisions. Craig will discuss the business principles and value that Location Intelligence can bring to a Business Intelligence investment. He will demonstrate this through slides, customer examples and a live demo.
4:30	Conclusions & Close - Doug Grant, Principal, Insurance-Canada.ca
4:30	Reception: Hosted by Information Builders

Conference Silver and Bronze Sponsors:

Gold
Silver
Bronze

Supporters at the Conference

Policy Works: Commercial Management Systems DMTI Spatial Inc. helping you realize the benefits of location intelligence. Avanade the global IT consultancy dedicated to using the Microsoft platform.

Conference Speakers

James Barber, Insurance Solutions Manager, Information Builders

James Barber is the Insurance Solutions Manager for Information Builders. In this role, James is responsible exclusively for selling and implementing reporting and data management solutions for the insurance market place in North America.

James joined Information Builders in 1999 as an Insurance Account Executive, leading research into insurance information delivery and management best practices. During this time James has helped insurers grow their business and has worked on many projects including projects to integrate customer information spanning 11 policy systems, streamline broker and supplier relationships and accelerate new policy system reporting and integration, to name a few.

Prior to Information Builders, James worked for IBM Canada for nine years where he was responsible for large account sales.

James holds an Engineering degree from the University of Waterloo and an MBA form Wilfrid Laurier University.

Craig Bedell, Director, Global Insurance Vertical, MapInfo Corporation

With 31 years of Property & Casualty experience, Craig Bedell leads MapInfo’s Global Insurance Vertical.

Craig’s unique combination of 18 years of field office sales, marketing, underwriting, and management experience with Aetna Casualty & Surety; The Travelers Insurance Company and Continental Insurance Company is augmented with 7 years as a broker for one of the nations largest independently owned firms. Additionally, Craig has 6 years experience as an Internal Business Consultant and Business Architect in IT with Fireman’s Fund Insurance Company’s Home Office in Novato, CA before joining MapInfo Corporation global leadership team in Troy, NY in May 2005. He is an Associate of Risk Management and a licensed insurance broker.

Craig is responsible for MapInfo’s global strategic offerings to the Insurance Vertical and is directing the firm’s consulting, technical solutions, data offerings, and professional services with a Team Charter to achieve the position of Trusted Advisor for Location Intelligence.

Dean Bottschen, Senior Standards Analyst/CSIOnet Manager, CSIO

Since joining CSIO almost one year ago, Dean’s role has been to help improve the efficiency and effectiveness of the Independent Broker Channel through the development and delivery of CSIO Standards. He works with a team at CSIO to publish Forms Standards, AL3 Standards, XML Standards, and Implementation Standards. In addition, Dean also manages the CSIOnet, the industry-wide network responsible for the delivery of Upload and Download of policy data between Brokers and Companies.

Prior to CSIO, Dean spent 10 years with Applied Systems Canada where he focused on the delivery of quality products and services for successful electronic integration, and workflows, between Brokers, Vendors, and Companies within the Canadian market.

Kevin Campbell, President, Policy Works

When Kevin Campbell co-founded Policy Works® Inc. with his father in 1991, the two had a mission to link brokers and insurers electronically and a vision to provide brokers with a single tool to manage all of their commercial lines business. As President, Kevin provides leadership to his exceptional team to help make this vision a reality through Policy Works, Canada’s premier Commercial Management System (CMS). A long-time vocal supporter of commercial lines standards, Kevin actively promotes the adoption of industry-wide standards in Canada.

Policy Works Inc., a pioneer and leader in developing Commercial Management Systems, builds solutions to meet the needs of commercial brokers and underwriters alike. Policy Works technology streamlines the commercial lines process to allow for the efficient and effective management of the entire policy lifecycle. Policy Works is fast becoming the industry standard for commercial lines management and is integrated with Broker Management Systems (BMS’s) throughout Canada.

Mike Corcoran, Vice President, Corporate Strategy and Chief Communications Officer, Information Builders Inc.

Michael Corcoran is Vice President of Corporate Strategy and Chief Communications Officer for Information Builders. With more than 20 years’ experience in the software industry, he is responsible for working with the executive management team to develop and communicate corporate and product strategy. During his career, Mr. Corcoran has held top management positions in sales and marketing, business development, product management, and systems management. He has played key roles in the development and acquisition of major technologies, including business intelligence, integration middleware, internet technology, data warehouse, application development and expert systems.

Previously, Mr. Corcoran served as Vice President of Marketing, responsible for product marketing and corporate marketing. He served in this role for 7 years, helping Information Builders to re-emerge as a market leader in Business Intelligence and Enterprise Integration in today’s web-based computing environment. Prior to working for several major software manufacturers, Mr. Corcoran began his career building and managing financial, supply chain and order processing systems at Grumman Aerospace Corporation.

Mr. Corcoran is a frequent speaker at industry and financial investor conferences and has lectured at the Yale School Of Management, Columbia University, University of Michigan, New York University, and St. John’s University. He has also contributed hundreds of articles to the leading technology and business publications.

Michael lives with his wife and three children in Long Island, NY. He spends much of his free time involved in youth programs, including coaching in USA Hockey’s Tier I Youth Travel Program.

Mark B. Gorman, Strategic Research Advisor, Insurance, TowerGroup

Mark is a strategic research advisor in the Insurance practice at TowerGroup, focusing on bridging the gap between the insurers and business and technology solution providers. With 25 years of industry experience, Mark has demonstrated success in delivering profitable new products, services and solutions into the insurance industry.

Mark is experienced in setting strategic direction and conducting research, and developing and marketing the solution that achieves success. He firmly believes that there are significant opportunities for insurers to adopt and embrace solutions that will drive profitability, revenue growth, operational efficiency, and customer satisfaction.

Before joining TowerGroup, Mark was head of Decision Management and Software for the Insurance Market at FairIsaac where he developed the strategic direction and the development and deployment of the decision management software solutions for the international P&C insurance marketplace. This software was primarily leveraged in the underwriting department. Mark also developed the marketing alliances required to enhance a solution into an integrated solution by combining CRM capabilities, third-party data acquisition software, and rating engine software. Prior to FairIsaac, Mark worked for two leading Life and Annuity insurance companies and their asset management and brokerage subsidiaries in a variety of marketing, product management, product development, and research and development roles.

Mark received an MBA from University of Minnesota. He is a Chartered Life Underwriter, Chartered Financial Consultant, and has held NASD Series 7, 63, 24, 65 licenses.

Karim Hirji, Director, Commercial Lines Research & Development, ING Canada

Karim Hirji is the Director for Research and Development, Commercial Lines at ING Canada Inc. In his role, Karim is responsible on a national-basis for providing leadership and direction in the development, implementation and on-going monitoring of business projects, processes and programs. He is also responsible for identifying opportunities designed to support improvements to the financial and operational performance of commercial lines. One of his main focus areas is the implementation of the CSIO commercial lines standards at ING Insurance in order to assist brokers in improving their workflow.

ING Canada Inc. is the largest provider of property and casualty insurance in the country, offering automobile, property and liability insurance to individuals and businesses through its insurance subsidiaries. ING Insurance is Canada’s largest property and casualty insurance company. It offers its products through a network of 2,800 independent insurance brokers.

Dennis Maroney, Industry Manager – Financial Services Worldwide Commercial Sector, Microsoft Corporation

Dennis M. Maroney is the managing director of insurance for the Worldwide Financial Services Group at Microsoft Corp. In this role, Maroney is responsible for the expansion of Microsoft’s Insurance Value Chain of industry partners dedicated to combining Microsoft® technology and ACORD standards to provide innovative solutions.

Other areas of focus for Maroney are mobility and mainframe migration solutions. In addition, he has recently focused on process management and compliance issues in financial services, working with industry leaders such as Michael Hammer, Ph.D., and Jim Champy.

Maroney has co-founded three financial services exchanges, acting in either the chief operating officer or chief technical officer capacity. These financial services exchanges’ initiatives included a consumer-targeted effort involving Wal-Mart Stores Inc., risk management involving XL Capital Ltd. and a human interface guideline (HIG)-sponsored claims initiative.

Before his entrepreneurial role, Maroney worked at Commercial Union (CU), where he was the executive reporting to the chief executive officer in charge of e-commerce. Throughout his 18-year career at CU, Maroney assumed positions of increasing authority in both IT and business units. He was nominated for a Smithsonian Award by Microsoft for his previous developmental work at CU.

Jim McGregor, CEO, The Precept Group

The Precept Group Inc. is a regional insurance broker based in Waterloo, Ont. It is made up of a retail brokerage with 11 offices in Ontario, (Precept Insurance Brokers), a national wholesale insurance brokerage, (ABEX, Affiliated Brokers Exchange Ltd.), a financial services brokerage, (Precept Financial Services Inc.), and a premium finance company, (Innesbrook Capital Inc.).

Jim started his career working for an insurer forty-two years ago and has been an insurance broker for thirty four years. During that time he has had a strong interest in the development of broker-company interface, has been active in the development of broker management interface solutions with various insurers and has served as chair of the broker council at CSIO.

Mr. McGregor has a Bachelors of Arts degree from the University of Guelph and is a Canadian Certified Insurance Broker (CCIB).

David R. Nash, Senior Partner, McKenzie Lake Lawyers LLP

David received his law degree from the University of Ottawa in 1974 and practices in the areas of civil litigation, health services, administrative labour law and aboriginal law.

He has extensive experience acting as insurance defence counsel.

David was former Chief of Staff to the Honourable Tom Hockin, M.P. and is a Past Chair of the Board of Directors of St. Joseph's Health Centre at London, Ontario and is a former past Director of the Ontario Casino Corporation. David is a Past Chair of St. Joseph's Health Care Foundation.

Mark Orlandi, Program Director, Property & Casualty/Surety, ACORD

Mark's role as Program Director, Property & Casualty / Surety (PCS) includes directing the development and maintenance of ACORD electronic PCS Standards (XML and AL3) and acting as liaison to ACORD’s PCS Steering Committee. These standards include various transactions that support the personal, commercial, and surety lines of business including claims and inquiry transactions. He has spearheaded several initiatives in the areas of education/training and data mapping.

Prior to joining ACORD in 1998, Mark spent 13 years with Westfield Insurance Companies where his roles included personal and commercial lines underwriting, staff underwriting, marketing, and agency/company interface (supporting AL3 download with agency trading partners).

Seth Rachlin, Chief Executive Officer, Moore Stephens Business Solutions LLC

Seth Rachlin is CEO of Moore Stephens Business Solutions, providers of the bIntelligent for Insurance performance management solution. Over 60 carriers, brokers, and reinsurers use the dashboards, scorecards and key performance indicators that Moore Stephens provides to ‘bIntelligent’ about how they run their business – see history, understand what is happening today, and plan their future.

Mr. Rachlin comes to Moore Stephens from a career building businesses that serve the operations and technology needs of the insurance industry. As CEO of consulting firm Connect Systems, Inc., he ran a number of significant systems projects that were critical to the reengineering of business processes at clients such as MetLife, New York Life, Prudential, Liberty Mutual, and One Beacon. He and his team built systems to automate customer and investor outreach in association with four demutualizations (insurance IPO’s) and eight class action settlements. These systems managed the distribution of over 200 million pieces of mail as well as complex workflows involving over five billion pages of documents.

Since selling Connect to a French public company in 2002, he has worked as a strategic technology advisor and consultant to senior industry executives.

Mr. Rachlin holds an undergraduate degree from Princeton University, multiple graduate degrees from Columbia, and has published widely in academic, technical, and popular journals.

David A. West, Insurance Industry Marketing Manager, SAS Institute Inc.

David West is the global insurance marketing manager at SAS, the world's largest privately-held software company. West is responsible for the development of strategies, product management and product marketing for the insurance industry. He works closely with the research and development teams, customers and global analysts to identify specific business pains felt by insurance industry executives and provides counsel on how business intelligence from SAS can help. Industry needs range from combating fraud and predicting claims to managing enterprise risk and improving marketing efforts.

West joined SAS in 1997 after spending 13 years in the insurance industry. During ten years with Prudential Property & Casualty, he held a variety of positions which touched all aspects of P&C operations. Following his P&C career, he joined the IT department at Prudential HealthCare where he led a team of programmers and analysts in their support of PruCare’s SAS data warehouse.

West holds a bachelors degree in psychology from Davidson College and is an instrument-rated private pilot.

Hosts and Moderators

Patrick Vice, Director - Information Technology, Frank Cowan Company Limited.

Patrick has over 20 years experience enabling technology and electronic commerce in the risk management and insurance communities. For a more extensive biography.

Doug Grant MBA CIP, Consultant, Insurance-Canada.ca

As a keen analyst of computer and networking evolution for more than thirty years, and the opportunity and impact on the insurance industry, frequent industry speaker, columnist, and consultant. Doug is cognizant of the changes that are occurring in the Internet insurance world. As a principal in the Insurance-Canada.ca Web site, he brings a unique perspective to the session. For a more extensive biography.

Patrick and Doug will be hosts of the seminar and will welcome and set the stage, build the links between topics, and then provide conclusions and points to ponder at the end of the session.

(Examples will be used throughout)

Questions? call Doug Grant 416-921-7756 or email at doug.grant@insurance-canada.ca

See a list of our Previous Seminars.

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