ChannelPoint Technology Powers Online Sales for Providence Health Plans.

Business Editors & Health/Medical Writers

WESTMINSTER, Colo.--(BW HealthWire)--July 24, 2001

ChannelPoint, Inc., a leading provider of business-to-business, e-commerce solutions for the approximately $2.8 trillion global insurance industry and a leading technology solutions provider in the U.S. health insurance market, today announced that Providence Health Plans (PHP) is the latest health carrier to employ ChannelPoint's technology to power their Internet-based customer acquisition initiatives.

"We're thrilled to add Providence Health Plans to our growing roster of top-tier healthcare clients," said Jess Parks, Vice President of Health and Ancillary Markets at ChannelPoint. "Providence Health Plans recognizes the value of electronic customer acquisition and is moving aggressively to e-enable its sales processes. Our Internet distribution technology gives them significant competitive advantage by enabling real-time proposals for new business sales in the small-group segment."

ChannelPoint HealthSuite, developed over the past four years, is a technology infrastructure that enables health-carrier clients to rapidly implement their electronic customer acquisition initiatives. The technology supports carrier deployment and integration of multiple e-business application modules in multiple channels, using a single, carrier-based e-commerce infrastructure.

"We're receiving positive responses from agents regarding their ability to get instant, 'real-time' quotes," said Barbara Christensen, regional director of PHP Sales and Marketing. "We're also seeing administrative efficiencies, for both us and the agents, in not having to handle paper."

Providence Health Plans now uses HealthSuite infrastructure to offer the following functionality for small-group e-distribution through their current broker/agent network:

-- Real-time Internet-based quotes and proposals

-- Plan filtering and sorting capabilities

-- Persistent, retrievable group quoting information

-- Census import functionality

-- Health Plan tools for real-time access control and reporting

-- Carrier resources, including collaterals and forms

-- Professional branded proposals, that can be personalized by

the broker/agent and accessed in PDF or HTML formats

About Providence Health Plans

Providence Health Plans provides health care coverage to more than a million adults and children in Oregon. Providence focuses on improving the health of its members by creating access to high-quality health care programs and preventive services through top-rated benefit plans that are preferred by providers and customers. Providence Health Plans, first in the nation to be NCQA-accredited for all product lines, is part of Providence Health System in Oregon, which is ranked the ninth-best-integrated health network in the nation. Visit www.providence.org/healthplans.

About ChannelPoint, Inc.

ChannelPoint provides Internet-based, business-to-business solutions that enable e-commerce for carriers, distributors and customers in the $2.8 trillion global insurance industry. The company provides solutions and expertise focused on delivering value in the Life, Property & Casualty, and Health Insurance lines of business. ChannelPoint provides technology and services for more than 500 carriers and 60,000 agents and brokers, and powers leading insurance portals. ChannelPoint's technologies leverage the power of the Internet to streamline and automate the insurance distribution process to facilitate end-to-end transaction processing. The company's technology enables the creation of e-markets that bring together buyers and sellers of insurance products. ChannelPoint is headquartered in Westminster, Colo. For more information, visit www.channelpoint.com.