ISO Acquires AscendantOne, Developer of Policy-Management and Insurance-Rating Software Applications

January 1, 2011 / 3 min read

JERSEY CITY, N.J., March 13, 2003 — Insurance Services Office, Inc. (ISO) has acquired the assets of AscendantOne® Inc., a leading developer of insurance policy-management and insurance-rating software applications and services. ISO will continue to operate the AscendantOne business from its Nashua, N.H., location and with the involvement of the same team of developers, rating analysts and customer support professionals that have built the company.

AscendantOne will continue to provide software applications which seamlessly integrate ISO's core insurance information — loss costs, manual rules and policy form information — into its XML-based policy-processing and rating applications. AscendantOne's rating methodology and calculations conform to published ISO manual rules validated by ISO's insurance experts for each ISO line of insurance.

The new ISO unit will also provide products insurance companies can use with their own independent insurance programs and non-ISO lines of business.

"We acquired AscendantOne in response to our marketplace," said Frank J. Coyne, ISO's chairman, president and chief executive officer. "Our customers have been urging us to offer them our own policy administration and rating solutions for some time. AscendantOne's products and services provide a natural extension of ISO's core services by enabling us to deliver our analytical information using powerful applications and leading technology," said Coyne.

"ISO, the property/casualty industry's leading source of data and analytical pricing and underwriting information, is ideally suited to provide policy-management and rating-platform solutions delivering timely ISO information directly to insurers through our flexible web-based XML system," said AscendantOne President Chuck Boodro.

"We chose AscendantOne after a detailed exploration of existing and emerging technology platforms for policy administration and rating. We believe AscendantOne has the best business-driven tool, which will allow our customers to easily integrate ISO information," said ISO's CEO.

"As an ISO unit, AscendantOne is fully powered by ISO information and enjoys the strength of ISO's financial resources and well-established name and reputation throughout the property/casualty insurance industry," Boodro said.

Coyne noted that over the past ten months, ISO and AscendantOne have collaborated successfully on developing this new component-based delivery solution.

"Our two companies' strengths in providing timely insurance decision support together with web-services technology will offer insurers a new, cost-effective means of assessing risk, acquiring new business, servicing their policyholders and retaining their profitable accounts," said Boodro.

Coyne noted AscendantOne will deliver enormous value to insurers in a variety of ways by helping them achieve:

increased profitability;
significant cost savings by eliminating manual input of ISO information into their rating and policy-administration systems;
compressed analysis and implementation time for ISO program revisions;
shorter development cycles and speed to market for new and existing products; and
expedited regulatory filings and rate-change implementations.

About ISO
ISO is a leading source of information, products and services related to property and liability risk. For a broad spectrum of commercial and personal lines of insurance, ISO provides analytical and decision-support products, consulting, technical services, statistical services and data processing. ISO's products help customers with sales and prospecting, underwriting, rating and quoting, customer management, policy administration, product development, claims administration and fraud detection. ISO's AIR Worldwide subsidiary provides customers with the most advanced technologies to assess and manage natural and man-made extreme-event risk. Through its iiX and Intellicorp subsidiaries, ISO also provides motor vehicle reports and criminal-records information. In the United States and around the world, ISO serves insurers, reinsurers, agents, brokers, self-insureds, risk managers, insurance regulators and other government agencies.

Release: Immediate

Contacts:
Giuseppe Barone / Erica Helton
MWW Group (for ISO)
201-507-9500
gbarone@mww.com / ehelton@mww.com