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Entire contents Copyright © 1999 Business Insurance "Online Service Options Spreading on the Web: More Internet
Sites Target Risk Manager"
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TORONTO -- Risk management and insurance industry
service providers are gearing up to merge with the traffic on the
information superhighway. Several vendors demonstrated their new online wares
during the 34th annual conference of the Risk & Insurance
Management Society Inc., held last month in Toronto. While many
displays in the conference's exhibit hall featured a new element-World
Wide Web "home page'' addresses-only a few industry service
providers are actually offering services over the Internet. Among the more advanced services is the Risk &
Insurance Management Society Inc.'s own RIMSNET site, which features
easy Internet access to the same services that had previously been
available to subscribers only with a direct modem connection. While
access to the RIMS home page-http://www.rims.org/-is free to all
Internet users, RIMS members also can subscribe to RIMSNET to obtain
additional information and resources via the Web site for $19.95 a
month. The expanded service includes access to news,
bulletins, events and developments affecting risk managers worldwide.
Subscribers also can read RIMS publications online, apply for
scholarships, grants or posted job openings via electronic mail,
connect to hundreds of other risk management and insurance sites on
the Web or even sign up to attend next year's RIMS conference in
Atlanta. The site, which was developed by Information Inc.
of Bethesda, Md., is continuously evolving, including plans to
eventually include a floor plan of the exhibit hall at the 1997
conference with hypertext links from numbered booths to exhibitors'
home pages. Also under development is an online conferencing center,
which will allow RIMSNET subscribers to communicate with each other in
"real-time'' from anywhere in the world with Internet access. The
system will work much like the online "chat'' rooms hosted by
such information services as America Online, CompuServe or the
Microsoft Network. Another Internet service unveiled at this year's
RIMS conference is a site created by Insurance USA, a joint-venture of
RIMS, Sun Microsystems Inc., The College of Insurance, Aon Risk
Services Inc., the Electric Power Research Institute, the Disaster
Recovery Business Alliance and software developer and systems
integrator IMONICS. The new Web site, unveiled April 21, provides
worldwide weather forecasts and maps and hundreds of pages of content
on insurance and risk management topics, as well as hypertext links to
sponsors' home pages. Insurance USA can be found on the Web at
http://insuranceusa.iconnet.net/ Unlike many other Web sites, Insurance USA is not
intended to be a sales or marketing platform, according to Ann Deering
and Patrick Vice, strategic partners with Sun Microsystem's insurance
team. Ms. Deering and Mr. Vice will jointly manage the site. Insurance
USA will serve as an centralized information source, organizing
original content and other Internet resources to make it easier for
professionals in risk management and insurance to find the information
they need as quickly as possible. "As the site grows, we expect
it will be the first stop on the information superhighway for visitors
and sponsors alike,'' Ms. Deering said. Regular features of Insurance USA will include: The
Technology Corner, providing updates on software and hardware,
electronic commerce, risk assessment products and research; Virtual
Insurance Reporter, providing exclusive weekly news, interviews,
executive appointments; Disasters du Jour, developed primarily by the
University of Delaware's Disaster Research Center; Legal Liaison,
contributed by the Defense Research Institute and other sources; as
well as a Conference Calendar. "Insurance USA gives RIMS another presence on
the Internet,'' explained Louis J. Drapeau, president of RIMS. The two
Web sites can be accessed from one another via hypertext links. "We
think of it as an insurance plaza,'' said Mr. Drapeau, who is also
manager-insurance and risk management of The Budd Co. in Troy, Mich. "Our
own proprietary system, RIMSNET, will now be available on the
Internet,'' and "Insurance USA will be a billboard to part-time
and full-time risk managers in need of support and services.'' Other new services featured at RIMS that will come
online in the coming months include: Access A&A, which will be
available to Alexander & Alexander Services Inc.'s clients via the
World Wide Web beginning on June 21. Through Access A&A, clients
will be able to access their insurance portfolios, industry
information, proprietary A&A research, insurance products and
alternative solutions on a real-time basis. The service also will
provide electronic links to A&A account service teams (BI, April
15). "We've harnessed the potential of the Internet
and demystified it by organizing vast information pools into an
easy-to-use format,'' said Mia Shernoff, Access A&A program
director in New York. A&A clients will be able to access the site
via their own risk management department home pages, which also will
be created by the broker. Sedgwick James Inc., Chubb & Son Inc. and Sun
Microsystems announced completion of a "proof of concept'' for an
Internet-based venture that would allow policyholders, brokers,
consultants and insurers to exchange information via the Internet.
Among other things, the system will allow access to generic insurance
information to satisfy routine requests for certificates of insurance.
Also in development are online directories of offices and contacts;
loss run data; policy data; loss control information; and electronic
mail interconnection RMDNM-. Because the site is still under
development, its Web address is not yet available. Near North Insurance Brokerage Inc. announced the
planned launch of "World Link,'' which will provide Internet
access to insurance regulations and information on political and
social conditions and social security issues in more than 180
countries. The service, intended primarily for the Chicago-based
broker's clients, will be launched sometime in June. Besides the unveiling of these new information
services, several other vendors at the RIMS conference announced
strategic partnerships to develop similar Internet information sites
for risk management and insurance professionals. For example, RiskINFO and RMISWeb announced that
they are joining forces to provide risk management professionals with
a greater depth of information content and services. "RMISWeb is
pleased to be the risk management information systems resource within
the RiskINFO site,'' said Mike Turner, creator of RMISWeb and
president of InfoTech Consulting Inc., an Internet consulting company
based in Ann Arbor, Mich. The collaboration will provide "tremendous
opportunities to publishers as well as to providers of risk management
services to harness the benefits of this important new medium,'' he
said. Besides assisting the insurance industry in
developing leading-edge Internet software applications, RiskINFO of
Larkspur, Calif., also features several industry publications on its
Web site, including: "Practical Risk Management,'' "The
Warren Report,'' and "Smart's Insurance Bulletin,'' among others.
RiskINFO's Web site can be accessed at
http://www.riskinfo.com/ RMIS-Web's address is:
http://www.rmisweb.com/ . Not to be upstaged in the online arena, CIGNA Property & Casualty, a division of CIGNA Corp., hosted an online chat on America Online during the week that offered tips for "Defensive Driving on the Information Superhighway.'' The 45-minute "chat'' featured John Ingram, technical director of loss control services for CIGNA P&C, and Butler Lampson, systems architect with Microsoft Corp. The two Internet security experts also spoke at a RIMS session covering security issues related to all business uses of technology. |