ISO's manual rules, loss costs and forms are seamlessly integrated into AscendantOne's browser-based rating, underwriting and policy-administration platform
NASHUA, N.H., May 22, 2003 — Essential analytical pricing and underwriting information for four major commercial lines of insurance from ISO is now available through AscendantOne®, Inc.'s new policy-management and rating solution, Company President Charles Boodro announced.
AscendantOne, a unit of ISO, is now able to deliver loss costs and quoting support for the businessowners program (BOP 2002), commercial automobile, general liability and inland marine. In addition, base loss costs and quoting support for three more lines — crime, property and commercial package policies— will be available in June.
Each of these base deliveries incorporates at least one state. All states are intended to be available by year-end 2003.
Insurers can deploy and customize AscendantOne's component-based rate-quote-issuance, underwriting, policy and account-management system seamlessly with their existing IT infrastructure and quickly offer turnkey commercial insurance programs utilizing current, ISO-validated loss-costs data. The AscendantOne property/casualty solution efficiently incorporates ISO's rules and loss costs directly into insurers' rating and policy systems. This capability significantly increases the ease and speed of revising insurers' programs with current ISO information.
"The ISO-AscendantOne ratemaking and validation process directly involves both ISO actuarial and AscendantOne insurance-technology experts," said Boodro. "Together, we deliver an industry first— a web-enabled pricing, underwriting, quoting and policy-management solution powered by timely and accurate ISO information directly to insurers and their distribution channels via secure, easy-to-use, browser-based interfaces," Boodro added.
AscendantOne's property/casualty Solution Suite is also available for non-ISO personal lines of business, including farm, homeowners, personal automobile, personal inland marine and personal umbrella.
DesignerFocus™, a tool for business users, enables AscendantOne and ISO staff, as well as business users at insurance companies, to build and customize insurance programs more cost effectively. The powerful, browser-based DesignerFocus tool also enables efficient rating and underwriting maintenance and modifications for any property/casualty insurance program or line of business.
"ISO-AscendantOne solutions provide insurers with a fast and accurate methodology to build company-specific insurance programs and easily analyze, manage and implement ISO program revisions," said Jonathan Kaplan, vice president of product development, AscendantOne. "Our property/casualty Solution Suite features a universal, XML-driven, web-services-ready rating engine that insurers can deploy to manage any ISO line or run rating, underwriting and quoting for non-ISO lines of business and independent insurer programs," Kaplan added.
RateFocus™ and PolicyFocus™ are key components of AscendantOne's property/casualty Solution Suite for insurers. In conjunction with DesignerFocus, these rating, underwriting and policy-administration components are designed for insurance-business professionals, not programmers, so they can easily calculate, develop and edit rates and rules, as well as modify existing ISO insurance programs to match company-defined preferences and rating methodologies.
Insurance companies can efficiently and proactively manage ISO and regulatory changes with AscendantOne's advanced inheritance technology and with an industry-first rate-management tool that identifies any changes that occur across ISO's regulatory updates. Companies can highlight and implement ISO changes that impact actual production-level rate deployments. Insurers can also expedite regulatory filings and implement rate changes more quickly with AscendantOne's flexible products than with traditional legacy systems. Additional benefits for insurers from the ISO-AscendantOne joint product development efforts include speed-to-market, cost savings from eliminating manual input of ISO information into rating and policy-administration systems, higher productivity and real-time collaborative service for profitable customer retention.
About AscendantOne
AscendantOne, a unit of ISO based in Nashua, N.H., features the Solution Suite — comprehensive, browser-based property/casualty rate-quote, underwriting, policy and account-management capabilities powered by ISO's manual rules, advisory loss costs and forms. Our scalable, XML-driven solutions complement existing IT infrastructures, delivering new network-based economic value to insurers. With distinctive and leverage-able business methodologies, the Solution Suite facilitates efficient pricing and policy service for all commercial and personal lines. AscendantOne's best-of-breed web-services architecture enables highly collaborative and cost-effective new-business-to-renewal workflows — anytime,anywhere and for any property/casualty distributor or demand chain participant. For more information,see www.AscendantOne.com.
About ISO
ISO is a leading 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 data, analytical and decision-support products; consulting; data processing; and technical, statistical and actuarial services. ISO field services include on-site rating and underwriting services and the evaluation of community loss-mitigation efforts. ISO's products help customers with sales and prospecting, underwriting, rating and quoting, customer management, policy administration, product development, claims administration and fraud detection. ISO's AIR Worldwide subsidiary provides technologies to assess and manage natural and man-made extreme-event risk. Through its ISO Claims Services, Inc. (iiX unit) and Intellicorp subsidiaries, ISO provides motor vehicle reports and criminal-records information and through its AscendantOne unit delivers policy-management and rating solutions. In the United States and around the world, ISO serves insurers, reinsurers, agents, brokers, self-insureds, risk managers, insurance regulators and other government agencies.
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Release: Immediate
Contacts:
Giuseppe Barone / Erica Helton
MWW Group (for ISO)
201-507-9500
gbarone@mww.com / ehelton@mww.com
Massood Abolfazl
603-546-2432
massood@AscendantOne.com