The Oracle Insurance Industry Strategy Council meeting will convene a group of more than 10 leading global insurers to help drive Oracle's strategy for the insurance industry.

"Customers have always told us that they were eager to change their relationship with Oracle from vendor/customer dependence to a long-term strategic partnership," said Paco Aubrejuan, Vice President of Industry Applications at Oracle. "The role of the Industry Strategy Councils is to facilitate the collaboration necessary to realize this strategic alliance. Furthermore, this, and other Oracle Industry Strategy Councils, will provide customers a forum to share experiences and provide input and feedback to Oracle on product strategy."

Oracle Industry Strategy Councils include a select group of senior executives from customer companies considered leaders in their industries. Oracle today hosts councils for 10 industries with plans to launch several more in the next year. The councils exist to build and strengthen executive-level customer relationships, validate Oracle's product direction, identify areas of concern and enable customers to directly influence Oracle's strategic vision for select vertical industries.

The Oracle Insurance Industry Strategy Council will span all areas of insurance operations, all applicable Oracle product lines and all geographies to provide Oracle with guidance to continue to enhance and expand its world-class, industry-leading applications.

Oracle Insurance Strategy Council members include Commission de la Santé et de la Sécurité du Travail (CSST), Country Insurance & Financial Services, Irish Life, Sun Life Assurance Company of Canada and Swiss Re.

Strengthening Oracle's Insurance Industry Applications
One of the topics for review at this week's meeting will be the newly released Siebel Claims 8 product, a comprehensive solution that delivers end-to-end Web-based management of the entire claims lifecycle − from intake through settlessettlement. This newest release of Oracle's Siebel Claims further strengthens Oracle's application capabilities in the core insurance space. Combined with the Oracle E-Business Suite and Oracle's PeopleSoft Enterprise applications for financial and supply-chain management, Oracle enables claims straight-through-processing, helping insurance carriers reduce claims resolution time and costs.

"With nearly 80 percent of premium income spent on claims and claims-related processing costs, insurers seek ways to streamline processes while improving customer service," said David Sardilli, Oracle Senior Vice President for Financial Services, Industries Business Unit. "Siebel Claims 8 enables carriers to use configurable business rules to automate manual tasks across the entire claims lifecycle − helping to drive faster and more cost-effective claims resolution. As important, its powerful analytics capabilities deliver new insight into losses, fraud, service and adjuster performance, helping insurers to elevate their market position by reducing costs and elevating responsiveness to customers."

Using Siebel Claims, insurers can automate coverage determination, taking the guesswork out of the adjuster's job and reducing claims leakage from potential misreads of coverage limits, deductibles or other policy terms and conditions. In addition, insurers can use Siebel Claims business rules to automate recognition of recovery potential, allowing them to follow up on appropriate activities within required time frames, lowering loss adjustment expenses and significantly increasing amounts recovered. Siebel Claims 8 represents a significant leap forward for Oracle in the insurance market.

Paving the Way for New Opportunities
"With its growing portfolio of industry-specific solutions across the insurance enterprise, Oracle sees a strong need to formalize its working relationship with key customers," said Srini Venkat, Senior Director of Insurance Applications for Oracle. "The Insurance Industry Strategy Council is a milestone event in Oracle's effort to increase the strategic dialogue with these customers, enabling the delivery of expanded vertical solutions and lifecycle support tailored to the specific needs of insurers. Oracle is committed to fostering an open dialogue with its customers so that together we can build world-class insurance solutions."