GRX Has Software Deal With Oil Insurers

NU Online News Service, March 5, 4:03 p.m.EST?GRX Technologies in Providence, R.I., said it hassigned a deal to provide two insurers that service a large portionof the oil and chemical marketplace with software to store andmanage risk-related data.

Terms of the arrangement were not made public. The carriers areBermuda-based Oil Insurance Ltd. and Oil Casualty Insurance Ltd.According to GRX, the two mutual companies are owned by 90 of theworld's largest energy and chemical firms.

Erik Dorsey, GRX marketing manager, informed NationalUnderwriter by e-mail that OIL and OCIL are using hiscompany's technology to form a new service for the energy andchemical concerns' risk managers and brokers called "TheJoule."

Among the brokers involved, he said, are the Houston and Bermudaoffices of Marsh, Aon and Willis.

The parties or shareholders will use this service to interactwith OIL, OCIL, and other markets. The markets in turn will use theservice to interact with the reinsurance marketplace, Mr. Dorseysaid.

He explained that this interaction would mean use of the systemsoftware to store and manage risk-related data, to digitize therisk-placement process (from submissions to binding coverage), andto collaborate in a secure and auditable network.

He added that "we have all players in the risk and insuranceindustry--risk managers, brokers, primary carriers, reinsurancebrokers, reinsurance carriers--forming an insurance supply chainelectronically."

Jack Wesley, president and chief executive officer at OIL andOCIL said the system was "history-making" allowing the mutualshareholders and their brokers to "lead all risk professionals inthe adoption of forward-thinking technologies."