Moves (November 01, 2005)

Provider of automation solutions for the p&c insurance industry Applied Systems Canada, and Canada-specific software solutions developer PowerSoft have integrated PowerSoft’s PowerQuote rate comparison and sales tool with Applied Systems’ agency management systems, The Agency Manager (TAM) and TAMOnline. Making use of Applied Systems technology, PowerSoft will develop a two-way integration that will allow the exchange of client information in either direction between PowerQuote and current versions of TAM and TAMOnline. “Integration between TAM and PowerQuote … means brokers will truly have choice for their front-end sales and quoting tools,” PowerSoft president Chris Lang says. Integration between TAM and PowerQuote will be completed soon and available across Canada.

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Crawford Adjusters Canada has appointment Scott Sutherland as vice president and chief information officer. John Sharoun, chief operating officer of Crawford, says the new title better reflects Sutherlands increasingly important role in the organization and aligns him more closely with his global information technology colleagues throughout Crawford & Company. “The information resources provided by IT have become a critical tool for Crawford’s employees and customers that they are now an integral part of our service offering,” Sharoun says. Sutherland has over 25 years of experience in the information technology field, 19 of which have been with Crawford. He will continue to be responsible for all aspects of the firm’s information technology assets including software development, data storage and recovery as well as hardware and telephony infrastructure. The most significant of these responsibilities is the development and maintenance of the firm’s CMS Claims Management System (CMS). A team of in-house software developers built this custom written software from the ground up and is preparing to release a major upgrade to the software by year-end.

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Salutations go out to Conrad Speirs, president and ceo of Speirs & Co. Ltd., a Vancouver insurance broker and the recipient of the 14th annual BC Insurance Person of the Year award – “Salute 2005.” Speirs is also the ceo of the specialty underwriter Sports-Can Insurance Consultants Ltd., and the multi-line insurance wholesaler Can-Sure Underwriting Ltd. And to round it all out, he is also the past president of the Insurance Brokers Association of BC and its national body IBAC. Following graduation, Speirs entered the insurance claims field with a BA from the University of BC and moved into a family insurance firm four years later.