If there is a problem viewing this release due to screen resolution settings, please download printable
version.
CINCINNATI, June 19, 2007 /PRNewswire-FirstCall via COMTEX News Network/ -- Cincinnati Financial Corporation (Nasdaq: CINF) -- The Cincinnati Insurance Company announced today that it has added technology to allow its local independent agencies to upload selected information directly from their agency management systems to e- CLAS(R), Cincinnati's system for processing dentist's and businessowners package policies. Cincinnati earlier this year added CinciBridge(TM) upload capability to its WinCPP(R) commercial rating system.
"Our decision to offer this technology gives us another tool to further strengthen our agency relationships. CinciBridge makes it easier to do business with us, enhancing our ability to sustain industry-leading growth," said James E. Benoski, president and chief executive officer of The Cincinnati Insurance Company. "CinciBridge streamlines application submissions, saving time and reducing error due to duplicate entry. Agencies can leverage the information they've already entered in their agency management systems to submit applications and initiate commercial quotes, providing more efficient service. This frees their time to compete for business by providing prompt, personal and professional service."
CinciBridge works with interactive services from the two major insurance agency management system vendors, Applied Systems, Inc. and AMS Services, Inc., to provide real-time policy rating and submission. To protect privacy, information is transferred by secure methods using the IVANS/Transformation Station network for Applied customers and the TransactNOW system for AMS users.
Cincinnati is one of the first carriers in the industry to implement commercial lines bridging technology as promoted by the Agents Council for Technology and ACORD-User Groups Information Exchange. Both organizations advocate for real-time services, allowing independent agencies that represent multiple carriers to process policy transactions from the agency's client file.
Cincinnati Financial Corporation offers property and casualty insurance, our main business, through The Cincinnati Insurance Company, The Cincinnati Indemnity Company and The Cincinnati Casualty Company. The Cincinnati Life Insurance Company markets life and disability income insurance and annuities. CFC Investment Company offers commercial leasing and financing services. CinFin Capital Management Company provides asset management services to institutions, corporations and individuals. For additional information about the company, please visit www.cinfin.com
This is our "Safe Harbor" statement under the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Our business is subject to certain risks and uncertainties that may cause actual results to differ materially from those suggested by the forward-looking statements in this report. Some of those risks and uncertainties are discussed in our 2006 Annual Report on Form 10-K, Item 1A, Risk Factors, Page 20. Although we often review or update our forward-looking statements when events warrant, we caution our readers that we undertake no obligation to do so.
Factors that could cause or contribute to such differences include, but are not limited to:
- Unusually high levels of catastrophe losses due to risk concentrations, changes in weather patterns, environmental events, terrorism incidents or other causes
- Increased frequency and/or severity of claims
- Inaccurate estimates or assumptions used for critical accounting estimates
- Events or actions, including unauthorized intentional circumvention of controls, that reduce the company's future ability to maintain effective internal control over financial reporting under the Sarbanes- Oxley Act of 2002
- Events or conditions that could weaken or harm the company's relationships with its independent agencies and hamper opportunities to add new agencies, resulting in limitations on the company's opportunities for growth, such as:
- Downgrade of the company's financial strength ratings,
- Concerns that doing business with the company is too difficult
- Perceptions that the company's level of service, particularly claims service, is no longer a distinguishing characteristic in the marketplace or
- Delays or inadequacies in the development, implementation, performance and benefits of technology projects and enhancements
- Ability to obtain adequate reinsurance on acceptable terms, amount of reinsurance purchased, financial strength of reinsurers and the potential for non-payment or delay in payment by reinsurers
- Increased competition that could result in a significant reduction in the company's premium growth rate
- Underwriting and pricing methods adopted by competitors that could allow them to identify and flexibly price risks, which could decrease our competitive advantages
- Actions of insurance departments, state attorneys general or other regulatory agencies that:
- Restrict our ability to exit or reduce writings of unprofitable coverages or lines of business
- Place the insurance industry under greater regulatory scrutiny or result in new statutes, rules and regulations
- Increase our expenses
- Add assessments for guaranty funds, other insurance related assessments or mandatory reinsurance arrangements; or that impair our ability to recover such assessments through future surcharges or other rate changes
- Limit our ability to set fair, adequate and reasonable rates
- Place us at a disadvantage in the marketplace or
- Restrict our ability to execute our business model, including the way we compensate agents
- Sustained decline in overall stock market values negatively affecting the company's equity portfolio and book value; in particular a sustained decline in the market value of Fifth Third Bancorp (Nasdaq: FITB) shares, a significant equity holding
- Recession or other economic conditions or regulatory, accounting or tax changes resulting in lower demand for insurance products
- Events that lead to a significant decline in the value of a particular security and impairment of the asset
- Prolonged low interest rate environment or other factors that limit the company's ability to generate growth in investment income or interest- rate fluctuations that result in declining values of fixed-maturity investments
- Adverse outcomes from litigation or administrative proceedings
- Investment activities or market value fluctuations that trigger restrictions applicable to the parent company under the Investment Company Act of 1940
- Events, such as an epidemic, natural catastrophe or construction delays, that could hamper our ability to assemble our workforce at our headquarters location
Further, the company's insurance businesses are subject to the effects of changing social, economic and regulatory environments. Public and regulatory initiatives have included efforts to adversely influence and restrict premium rates, restrict the ability to cancel policies, impose underwriting standards and expand overall regulation. The company also is subject to public and regulatory initiatives that can affect the market value for its common stock, such as recent measures affecting corporate financial reporting and governance. The ultimate changes and eventual effects, if any, of these initiatives are uncertain.
SOURCE Cincinnati Financial Corporation
Media, Joan O. Shevchik, +1-513-603-5323, or Investors, Heather J. Wietzel,
+1-513-870-2768, both of Cincinnati Financial Corporation
http://www.cinfin.com/