Growth for workers' compensation insurers is down, but expertsat research and advisory firm Novarica say firms are strategizingwith updated technology to stay competitive.

Novarica released a new report, Business and Technology Trends for 2010: Workers'Compensation, highlighting recent technology initiatives byworkers compensation insurers and top issues for 2010-2011.

"New business growth is down due to increased business failures,and fewer new businesses being started. Rising unemployment iseroding payrolls and the workers comp's exposure base," notesKarlyn Carnahan, a principal in Novarica's insurance practice andlead author of the study. "Competitive pressures drive pricedeclines which eat into premiums above and beyond recession-inducedexposure losses. All of this makes the marketplace intenselycompetitive, and technology-enabled performance is the key tocompetition."

Novarica's research finds that workers compensation insurers arefocusing on five key areas in their technology strategies:

Claims. Carriers who are using modern systemsare rapidly gaining competitive advantages by improved efficienciesin claims handling, and improved data leading to better outcomemanagement.

Business Intelligence. Predictive analyticstools for those who have sufficient data are becoming more popular,but these depend on having a solid data infrastructure inplace.

Portals. Extending functionality to the agentsand the consumers continues to rise in importance. It's less andless about differentiation and more and more just the price to payto be in the game.

Policy. Investments in core policyadministration systems are key to operational flexibility in arapidly changing marketplace

Document Management. Despite the move towardsstructured data, paper and electronic documents are still thepredominant information storage and transmission medium for manyinsurers, and gaining control over this area is criticallyimportant.

The report provides an overview of business trends and data,analyzes the players in the marketplace, and provides examples ofover 20 recent technology initiatives by named workers compensationinsurers.