The focus of IT investment has been and continues to be on core systems, according to carriers and analysts alike. But what exactly has that money been buying, and are insurers getting their money’s worth? A panel of industry experts reveal what solutions insurers must implement now in order to be competitive today and in business tomorrow.

Featured Speakers:

 Karen Pauli
 Research Director
 TowerGroup

Karen covers a wide range of topics in property and casualty insurance, specializing in distribution, underwriting, claims, predictive analytics, core systems, and business optimization.

Before joining TowerGroup, Karen was assistant vice president at OneBeacon Insurance, formerly Commercial Union. Besides directing development projects involving automated underwriting, predictive technologies, and agency point-of-sale functionality, she led product development projects, legislative compliance efforts, and underwriter training. Previously she headed the underwriting audit function in the home office of Crum & Forester, establishing measures and conducting field reviews. Her first assignment at that company was a regional underwriting manager, responsible for profit and loss in 12 states and a staff of 100; she also was involved in the development of agency management tools and served as a claims technical consultant. She began her career in insurance at Safeco in personal lines underwriting, managing a team of underwriting professionals and responsible for territorial profitability.

Karen is a frequent speaker at insurance industry conferences and is regularly featured in industry periodicals. A graduate of Bradley University, she has a B.S. in history.

 Chad Hersh
 Principle
 Novarica

For the past seven years, Chad has been the primary researcher and  author of the market leading reports on insurance core systems, and is a widely recognized expert on the topic who has presented at numerous conferences and conducted numerous vendor selection projects for US and international insurers. He joined Novarica from analyst firm Celent, where he spent five years after serving as an e-business director and IT strategist at AIG American General. He holds a BA in Economics and an MS in Accounting with a MIS concentration from Rice University, where he has also taught consulting and e-business.

Kimberly Harris-Ferrante
Vice President and Distinguished Analyst, Insurance Industry Advisory Services
Chief of Research, Industries Research

 Kimberly Harris-Ferrante is a vice president and distinguished analyst in Gartner Research, where she is responsible for monitoring the business and technology trends within the property and casualty and life insurance industries. She specializes in strategies and technologies in the global insurance sector for distribution, customer relationship management, exception-based underwriting, policy administration, claims management and administration, business process management, business intelligence, and infrastructure management and optimization. She is an active participant in Gartner's outsourcing research and chief of research for the industries practice within Gartner.

Ms. Harris-Ferrante has been an insurance analyst with Gartner since 1998 and has been active in the research field since 1992 in areas such as social sciences, healthcare, law and information technology. In these positions, she supported quantitative research projects, including focus group support, survey creation, data entry, programming, statistical analysis, and report writing.

Ms. Harris-Ferrante earned a bachelor's degree in psychology from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and a master's degree in sociology from East Carolina University. She has completed coursework for a Ph.D. at North Carolina State University. Her key areas of concentration included research methodology and statistics.

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