In Focus

As they look for the information technology power they need to do business effectively, many insurance industry companies often find it most efficient to look to outside partners rather than attempting to create systems in-house. Whether it's information processing, document storage or help with various business processes, a number of companies have positioned themselves to provide IT outsourcing to the insurance industry. Here's a look at some of the key players.

Accenture

Headquarters: New York

Web site: www.accenture.com

Relevant data: Accenture has a global network of more than 40 delivery centers that provide various outsourcing services

What it offers: Through its insurance industry group, Accenture provides a range of insurance-specific as well as cross-business outsourcing services that include IT infrastructure outsourcing, application outsourcing and business process outsourcing.

Affiliated Computer Services Inc.

Headquarters: Dallas

Web site: www.acs-inc.com

Relevant data: ACS has more than 55,000 employees supporting clients in nearly 100 countries.

What it offers: Customized information technology outsourcing solutions from ACS range from large-scale mainframe processing centers to desktop computers. In the business process outsourcing area, ACS leverages proprietary workflow systems and process re-engineering with its own staffing, delivery and compensation models.

Computer Sciences Corp.

Headquarters: El Segundo, Calif.

Web site: www.csc.com

Relevant data: CSC has an outsourcing team of 5,000 in the United States, India and South Africa.

What it offers: Back-office administration for property/casualty, life, annuities and pensions; global application outsourcing team supports full life cycle production for applications--maintenance, enhancements, development, upgrades, production support and user support--supporting legacy and third-party applications.

IBM Global Services

Headquarters: Armonk, N.Y.

Web site: www.ibm.com

Relevant data: 198,000 professionals in approximately 160 countries; IBM Global Services' revenue totaled $47.36 billion in 2005.

What it offers: Data center outsourcing services including the possible transfer of employees and IT assets to IBM; IBM Flexible Hosting Solutions provides an integrated Web-based repository for document and records management; Managed Storage Services allows customers to purchase storage capacity and management services on a subscription fee basis.

Unisys Corp.

Headquarters: Blue Bell, Pa.

Web site: www.unisys.com

Relevant data: Unisys has 37,000 employees in 100 countries and more than 400 insurance company clients around the world.

What it offers: Through its global insurance outsourcing centers, Unisys provides supporting information technology infrastructure and manages business-process workflow, migrating operations to handle multicurrency capabilities, changing regulatory requirements and other market factors.