Tech Chiefs Take on Standards, iPad, Light Bulb

Thomas Alva Edison would have been glowing had he been at the “Technology Issues in the U.S. & U.K.” panel discussion at the annual National Association of Surplus Lines Offices (NAPSLO) conference in San Diego last month.

The panel was moderated by Mike Ardis, NAPSLO’s director of communications and technology, and on it sat some of the top technology officers in the industry.

The high-tech conversation tackled subjects like standards, XML and the iPad, as well as the electric plug, electrical outlets and the light bulb.

Frank Neugebauer, chief information officer for Farmington Hills, Mich.-based wholesale brokerage Burns & Wilcox, used analogies to the commercial use of electricity and the light bulb to discuss standards.

“At the end of the day standards enable these things,” said Neugebauer, who was previously chief technology officer at ACORD Corp.

Panelists focused on standards and data exchange through extensible markup language (XML), praising programs like the Reinsurance Large Commercial Standard in London, and a number of other programs in the U.S. and abroad.

Mike Roy, chief information officer with Scottsdale, Ariz.-based Risk Placement Services, said the technology talk in the insurance industry in the last seven or so years has gone from a focus on networking and infrastructure to a focus on data and data exchange.

“This is where everybody seems to be focusing their energy, their attention,” Roy said.

“Streamlining” was another keyword, and the panelists used it while referring to what they called the “war on keystrokes.” Panelist Peter Montanaro, head of delegated authorities for Lloyd’s of London, offered a British take on that front.

“Americans call it the war on keystrokes,” Montanaro said, adding that in the U.K, and at specifically at Lloyd’s, “the vision is to have the capability to deliver straight-through processing.”

Panelists got into a debate about the future of the iPad, and how new hardware may change how business is being done.

Neugebauer dismissed Apple Computer’s touch-screen phenom as a trend, but Montanaro defended Apple’s hottest product.

He said Lloyd’s recently had a program to give away 35 iPads to brokers and to see what they used them for. Most of them used them for business, and have continued using them, he said.

Topics InsurTech Excess Surplus Tech