More than 350 insurance industry executives attended the users’ forum, held recently in Naples, Fla. The event featured more than 150 sessions on topics ranging from industry trends to how product configuration software can reduce time to market for insurance products.

“Insurers that are unable to assess their customers’ needs, build products to support them, and deliver them to the sales channels quickly will find it difficult to compete,” said Kimberly Harris-Ferrante, research vice president at Gartner Inc. “Product configuration technologies let insurers craft and test new products with less IT involvement, improve integration between the product engine and policy administration systems, and improve product management through the use of a central product library.”

The need for more finely tuned products was also identified in the November 2006 report “Insurance CIO/CTO Pressures, Priorities, Projects and Plans for 2007: Survey Results” by global financial services research and advisory firm Celent LLC. Celent presented the results of the survey at the conference.

“Improving time to market for life and annuity products with their rapidly proliferating features, minimums and guarantees is a widely acknowledged competitive necessity,” said Matthew Josefowicz, managing director of Celent’s insurance practice. “The ability to innovate products is worthless without the ability to get those products to market rapidly.”

Conference attendees were also able to view enhancements to CSC’s new Product Accelerator product configuration software, which enables carriers to quickly launch and modify products by providing a single source for product definitions and documentation across the entire product lifecycle. By moving the description of product features and calculations from a company’s software code into Product Accelerator’s centralized repository, business and marketing users gain greater control over new product introduction.

“By meeting with our clients regularly, we are able to learn about their emerging business and technology challenges and demonstrate our commitment to helping produce continually improved business results,” said Michael W. Risley, president of the Life and Annuity Division of CSC’s Financial Services Sector. “This ongoing collaboration and its impact on software like Product Accelerator help keep us at the forefront of the market.”-CSC release