A.M. Best Co. Recognizes Availity With E-Fusion Award.

Business Editors

OLDWICK, N.J.,--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Oct. 3, 2003

A.M. Best Co. presented its second annual E-Fusion award to Availity LLC for its online portal Availity@Gateway, which connects Florida-based physicians, hospitals, clearinghouses and other health-care professionals with insurers.

The award was presented at A.M. Best's Insurance & Technology conference Sept. 30 in Philadelphia. The E-Fusion award recognizes outstanding, resourceful uses of Internet technology by an insurance organization.

Availity Chief Executive Officer Julie Klapstein said recognition of the project demonstrates that "a small team can accomplish big things in the industry," and that "it is possible to lower cost and improve health-care across the country."

Based in Jacksonville, Fla., Availity began as a joint venture between two health insurance competitors, Navigy Inc. (a subsidiary of Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Florida Inc.) and Humana Inc. It subsequently added Aetna and Cigna and includes more than 60% of Florida physician offices and 100% of Florida hospitals. The company offers doctors and payers a way to share electronically the paperwork that usually gets faxed, phoned or mailed. Eligibility and benefits inquiries, claim submissions, claims status inquiries and authorization and referral submissions are all handled by logging onto the Web site.

Availity currently processes more than $1 million in Web transactions per month, Klapstein said. "Our next step is to expand outside Florida, but we first have to add a group of health plans, because you have to have a large enough market share to attract providers," she said.

Availity was selected from five finalists including the following entries:

PersonalPlans by Marsh@WorkSolutions is a Web-site platform for health-care providers, designed both to establish an enrollment process for employer-based benefit plans, and as a marketing vehicle that providers can use to roll out new products on either a broad scale or for targeted employees. The platform offers multiple life and auto products from several carriers, and differs from aggregators in that it provides binding quotes, said Jeff Goldberg, vice president, Web technology, for Marsh Affinity & Private Client Practices. More than $15 million in annual premium came through the platform the first year, said Mark Harle, vice president of Marsh@WorkSolutions.

AnnuiTRAC, a transactional Web site developed by Integrity Life Insurance Co., allows internal sales desks and external producers to electronically complete all transactions that don't require a signature. The site, which offers only fixed and variable annuities, is currently being used by more than 3,100 independent agents, said Sundeep Dronawat, Integrity vice president, e-commerce. "Agents love the site because of its extensive functionality," said Charlie Blackorby, Integrity technology marketing manager. "We don't want to be all things to all people, but we want to be all things for a niche market," Dronawat said.

PBO Online, built on the Wildnet Insurance Platform for Global Aerospace, is a fully scalable, Internet-based insurance trading and processing platform that has streamlined the business process for the company through automation and workflow management. Global Aerospace initiated the project to help the company capture a larger share of the light aircraft--private, business and pleasure planes--market, a book that is high volume, low premium. "The vision for Global was simplicity and efficiency," said Mark Birrell, chief executive of Wildnet Group. "Straight-through processing allows brokers to enter data, and Global doesn't have to enter it again." Business processed through the platform grew 50% in 2002 over 2001. Global predicts 100% growth in 2003.

General Fire & Casualty Co.'s Geographic Information Systems Integration Project uses global positioning and provides users with individual maps showing the insured location and the risk areas. Knowing the exact location of the insured risk permits a more closely controlled risk aggregation, overlaying data sets for the area to provide a full picture of the insured risk. The project provides valuable information for a variety of property/casualty products and is used specifically to rate the company's new livestock catastrophe product, said Brian Emmen, GIS manager. "The magic of the system is not just collecting raw data, but the analysis of the data on our agents' desktops as they work with clients," he said.

A.M. Best has also recognized five honorable mention entries, including Ceres Group (QQLink), IMT Insurance Co. (IMT Online), Royal&Sun Alliance/MedRisk Inc. (Healthport), Scottsdale Insurance Co. (Agency Information Exchange) and Valley Oak Systems (iVOS).

A.M. Best Co., established in 1899, is the world's oldest and most authoritative insurance rating and information source. For more information, visit A.M. Best's Web site at www.ambest.com.