Oracle To Buy Insurance Software Maker

Oracle has agreed to buy AdminServer, a maker of insurance policy administration software. Financial details were not disclosed.

Oracle plans to make AdminServer's software a core component of Oracle's existing insurance-related products, such as Oracle Billing, Siebel Claims, and Siebel Customer Relationship Management for Insurance. Oracle says more than 1,000 insurers, including the top 20 companies, use its software.

The addition of AdminServer is expected to give Oracle a more comprehensive insurance policy management system. Oracle plans to offer software for managing multiple insurance product lines, such as life, annuities and reinsurance.

AdminSever's management and employees will form a global business unit within Oracle focusing on the insurance industry. Rick Connors, chief executive of AdminServer, is expected to become general manager of the unit.

Oracle plans to market the combined insurance product line as a replacement for the legacy policy administration applications used today in the industry. Such applications are "extremely inflexible and imped enterprise agility and efficiency," Oracle President Charles Phillips said. "Together, Oracle and AdminServer plan to deliver the most modern, comprehensive, standards-based and well-integrated enterprise software suite for the insurance industry," Phillips said in a statement released Tuesday.

Oracle expects to close the transaction by the end of June.

Oracle has been on a buying spree since 2005. The business software maker acquired 13 companies in 2005 and in 2006 and 11 companies last year. So far this year, Oracle has bought BEA Systems and Captovation, and has acquired technology from Empirix.

The BEA acquisition, completed last month, is the biggest so far this year. The company's middleware technology is expected to augment Oracle's offerings in business intelligence software, particularly in the area of products and services for accessing transaction data for analysis in real time.