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Insurers expect to recoup costs with new HCAI system     (Copyright Thompson’s World Insurance News     Not to be redistributed by individual recipients.)     A more robust Health Claims for Auto Insurance system about to be relaunched in Ontario is the result of lessons learned from past problems.     The claims processing system was initially launched three years ago and became mandatory for insurers in February 2008. But it suspended operations a month later due to a number of unanticipated problems including a data overload.     “There was a host of technology problems that became the root of all evils,” HCAI director Gerry Dornan said. “No one had ever done anything like this before.     “There are 30,000 or more people that can log onto this application and the behaviour of those individuals was unknown and there were some assumptions made about the technology that just weren’t good assumptions.     “We’ve now retooled the entire environment and gone through a series of third-party validation cycles. I can confirm that at this point in time we are processing at 50% of our transaction volume. We are underutilizing the technological environment which is monitored on a regular basis.     “The infrastructure retooling that we’ve done has more than addressed the issues we had.”     One of the benefits of this system is increased data quality. At present no one — not government, industry, or even health care providers — has any idea of the total number of dollars being spent on auto insurance health claims. “This will allow the industry to better manage these costs,” Mr. Dornan said.     Much more in our May 24, 2010 edition, including FSCO’s rollout guideline. If you are not a regular reader, go to www.thompsonsnews.com and click on subscribe on the right hand side of the page.        Thompson’s World Insurance News P.O. Box 1027,  Waterloo, Ontario,  Canada  N2J 4S1 Tel: 519-579-2500 Fax: 519-745-7321 mpub@sympatico.ca THOMPSON’S WORLD INSURANCE NEWS , Canada’s only independent weekly for p&c insurance professionals, has been the industry’s most trusted news source since 1988.