LAKE BUENA VISTA, Fla., May 22, 2005 (PRIMEZONE) -- Blue Frog Solutions, a leading provider of standards-based middleware solutions for the life insurance industry, today received four awards from the Association for Cooperative Operations Research and Development (ACORD) at a luncheon held at the ACORD LOMA Insurance Systems Forum taking place here May 22-24.
The ACORD Awards recognize outstanding achievements for standards implementations that highlight business value, business opportunities and trading partners. Blue Frog won an Industry Leadership for Straight Through Processing Award for its Affirm for Annuities Compliance & Order Management solution, which is built on the firm's ADMServer framework.
In addition to the Industry Leadership for Straight Through Processing Award, Blue Frog Solutions also received three additional awards at the ACORD LOMA Insurance Systems Forum, a Certification Award, an Early Adopter Award -- Transactions, and an Infrastructure Platform Provider Award.
The Industry Leadership for Straight Through Processing Award was bestowed on Blue Frog along with BISYS Education Services, (recently acquired by Kaplan Professional), based in Indianapolis, and The Hartford Financial Services Group, Inc. (NYSE:HIG) one of the nation's largest financial services and insurance companies. BISYS supports the Can Sell messages for producers and carriers to get licensing and appointments checks prior to the policy being written. The Hartford uses the system by submitting product profile information and receiving electronic applications using ACORD format.
According to Brad Levine, CEO of Blue Frog Solutions, Affirm has been successful because it's a completely standards-based solution, and because Blue Frog has focused on institutionalizing the compliance nature of annuities transactions. "Our architecture is open and standards-based and it's driven with a focus on managing the changing regulatory compliance requirements," says Levine. "We are particularly proud to be the recipient of the Straight Through Processing award, as well as the Platform award which we have now won two years in a row. These are not easy awards to win, and it really shows the power and versatility of our ADMServer Framework and its adoption within the life insurance industry."
A Microsoft partner, Blue Frog Solutions leverages Microsoft technologies to build its offerings. "Blue Frog's ability to synergize ACORD standards and Microsoft technology into powerful middleware solutions for the insurance enterprise is the reason they are a vital member of the Microsoft Insurance Value Chain," says Kevin Kelly, Managing Director, Insurance Industry, Microsoft Financial Services Group. "Message-enabling systems and providing context-specific transactions and connectivity between legacy and next-generation applications are activities that are at the heart of how Microsoft and its partners are improving the way our industry experiences insurance."
BISYS Education Services, one of the three co-recipients of the Industry Leadership for Straight Through Processing Award, provides a license and appointment validation interface to this system. "As an industry leader in technology and a subject matter expert in utilization of ACORD standards, BISYS is pleased to participate in this implementation, supporting the Can Sell messages," says Eric P. Anderson, president of BISYS Education Services. "Our combined solution helps customers realize significant efficiencies, and helps us create a more robust service offering and to expand our network and increase connectivity between distributors and carriers."
The Hartford, the third of the ACORD award co-recipients, uses Blue Frog's Affirm offering as part of the sales process for annuities, one of the company's most important products, says Michael Hicks, Vice President, Investment Product Services, The Hartford.
Blue Frog Solutions, (http://www.bluefrogsolutions.com), based in Pompano Beach, Florida, is a leading technology solutions provider and business process 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.
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