ISO Invests In AscendantOne

NU Online News Service, April 16, 9:10 a.m.EST? Insurance Services Office, Inc. said it has made asignificant equity investment in AscendantOne Inc., an insurancetechnology and services company.

The investment is designed to deliver insurance rating andpolicy-management products that integrate ISO's loss costs, manualrules and forms information with AscendantOne's flexible XML-basedtechnology solutions, according to Jersey City, N.J.-based ISO.

ISO said the arrangement will give insurers the capacity toexpedite regulatory filings and implement rate changes quicker.

The deal also calls for ISO to provide sales and marketingsupport to the Nashua, N.H.-based AscendantOne, said ISO. Termswere not disclosed.

The two companies will seamlessly integrate ISO's loss costs,manual rules and forms information into AscendantOne's RateFocusand PolicyFocus applications, the announcement said. In addition,ISO will work with AscendantOne to ensure the RateFocus ratingcalculations conform to the published ISO manual rules.

The AscendantOne solutions ? powered by ISO ? will provideinsurers with an efficient and accurate methodology to quicklybuild company-specific insurance programs and easily analyze,manage and implement ISO program revisions, ISO noted.

ISO and AscendantOne will make RateFocus and PolicyFocusavailable for all ISO lines of insurance, beginning with the Julylaunch of ISO's new Businessowners Program, the company added.

According to Frank J. Coyne, ISO's president and chief executiveofficer, the investment by ISO will enable it to achieve "revenueacceleration, cost reduction, and customer satisfaction."

ISO said the AscendantOne offering is the first solution thatefficiently incorporates ISO loss costs, rules and manualinformation directly into insurers' rating andpolicy-administration systems. This capability "significantlyincreases the ease and speed of revising insurers' programs withcurrent ISO information."

Additional benefits from the ISO-AscendantOne joint productdevelopment efforts are insurers' cost savings from eliminatingmanual input of ISO information into their rating andpolicy-administration systems, higher productivity and compressedimplementation time, said ISO.

ISO is a source of information, products and services related toproperty and liability risk. For a broad spectrum of commercial andpersonal lines of insurance, ISO provides statistical, actuarial,underwriting and claims information and analysis; consulting andtechnical services; policy language; information about specificlocations; fraud-identification tools; and data processing.

AscendantOne delivers open XML-based technology and servicesthat "directly transform property-casualty front office economics,while boosting the marketing and client retention capabilities ofinsurance providers."