POMPANO BEACH, Fla., Oct. 15, 2007 (PRIME NEWSWIRE) -- Florida-based Raymond James & Associates, Inc. has signed on with Blue Frog Solutions, a leading provider of life and annuity solutions for order management, compliance, and straight-through processing for the life insurance and annuities industry. Raymond James' insurance subsidiary, Planning Corporation of America (PCA), expects to go live with Blue Frog's AFFIRM for Annuities Compliance and Order Management System in May 2008.
Raymond James, which provides financial services to individuals, corporations and municipalities through its subsidiary companies, has more than 4,640 financial advisors serving 1.6 million accounts in 2,200 locations throughout the United States, Canada and overseas. Total client assets are approximately $207 billion.
Through the financial advisors of Raymond James' broker-dealer subsidiaries, PCA provides product and marketing support for a wide range of insurance products, including fixed and variable annuities, life insurance, disability insurance and long-term care coverage. Annuity sales are an important part of PCA's business; the firm reports approximately $3 billion in annual annuity sales.
While PCA currently has an order entry system in place, the firm made the decision to replace it. "We were looking for a partner that could help take us to the next level, and after extensive research we selected Blue Frog," says Beth Maziad, vice president of PCA.
According to Maziad, there were several reasons PCA wanted a new order entry system which would include regulatory compliance and suitability. "We are able to manage these processes today, but we wanted a more efficient and effective way to handle it going forward. Blue Frog's solution will help us to continue managing the many forms that come our way daily so we can satisfy the requirements set by the states, insurance company legal departments and compliance personnel. We also wanted a better way to accommodate the many changes that have taken place in the annuity space over the past 10 years," Maziad pointed out. "We needed a solution that makes it easy for our advisors to work with clients while turning sales into a single, effective process."
"The success of Blue Frog in providing insurance order entry solutions to major distributors is an important part of bringing the industry to a new level of compliance readiness," said Lana Macumber, Director, Relationship Management, Insurance Services, DTCC. "The new partnership between Raymond James and Blue Frog helps DTCC integrate more insurance distributors and carriers into our networked community as we work together toward industry adoption of straight-through processing."
"We are proud to have been selected by this most prestigious firm," says Brad Levine, Blue Frog's President and Founder. "We have had a long-standing relationship with Raymond James and are looking forward to both continuing and expanding our work with the firm, and contributing to the company's success."
Additional information on AFFIRM for Annuities Compliance and Order Management System is available at: http://www.bluefrogsolutions.com/annuities.asp
Blue Frog Solutions, www.BlueFrogSolutions.com, based in Pompano Beach, Florida, is a leading technology solutions provider and business processing outsourcing (BPO) firm that focuses on the life, annuities and long-term care market. Blue Frog automates both front and back end business processes between carriers and distributors with a focus on compliance to create automated business process efficiencies. Blue Frog's solutions are based on the firm's flagship ADMServer Framework software suite. As one of the largest providers of ACORD-based transactions and DTCC solutions, Blue Frog currently provides ADMServer solutions to more than 60 percent of the top 40 life and annuity companies and many of the largest distributors in the U.S.
The Blue Frog Solutions logo is available at http://www.primenewswire.com/newsroom/prs/?pkgid=707