News. P&C Insurers Replacing/Enhancing Policy Admin Systems – U.S. P&C insurers are actively undertaking replacements and enhancements to their policy administration systems, according to a recent survey published by research and advisory firm Novarica, in association with the Insurance Accounting & Systems Association Inc. Among the key findings of the survey: (1) Overall IT budgets are holding steady at 3 percent of premium. External spending was a little over half of the average budget. (2) Agent e-business was the across-the-board winner for systems, delivering the best return on investment over the past 18 months. (3) Seventy-one percent of respondents shared five top priorities: policy administration system (PAS) replacement, e-business, PAS enhancement, underwriting or supporting a new line of business. (Source: Insurance Networking News)

News. E-mail Trends Highlight Marketing Options – Bill McCloskey, the founder and chairman of an e-mail analysis company, recently revealed the most popular trends in electronic marketing. Here are the top two: (1) The largest corporations are shifting focus from e-mail marketing to newer channels. Many larger Fortune 100 companies are pulling their attention away from e-mail and instead are looking at other new marketing channels, such as mobile texting, RSS, blogging and social networks. The tried-and-true e-mail marketing campaign is not the hot, exciting toy in the boardroom at these companies. (2) More smaller companies are jumping on the e-mail bandwagon. In contrast, McCloskey has noticed over the last six months stronger interest in smaller companies using e-mail in their b-to-b efforts. The insurance industry and others are beginning to see a lot of excitement in e-mail marketing because the technology is more sophisticated and it’s easier to create the campaigns and manage them. (Source: BtoBonline.com)

Views. New Forms Available – We’re using this e-marketing vehicle to let you know that we recently revised our Profile and Position Description/Set-Up forms. The core of The Omnia Profile® remains the same – a successful, highly validated tool you’ve come to know since 1985. The difference is we’ve developed two separate Profile forms, one for candi-dates for hire, transfer or promotion, and the other for developmental and retention reports on existing employees. As before, we’ll check for consistency between a candidate’s responses and the job and workplace demands you provide on the new Position Description and Set-Up form, and objectively measure tendencies before you hire. Because existing employees already know about your job demands and work culture, the redesigned Profile form for career development and retention will prove equally valuable in gauging the individual’s potential for success within your organization. Please click here to download the forms: http://www.omniagroup.com/newforms.html.