TORRANCE, CA--Oct 29, 2001-- Xplor International, the worldwide electronic document systems association, honored Clarica Life Insurance Company with its 2001 "Innovator of the Year" Award. Clarica, a Canadian insurance and investment company, received the award for its inventive use of the IBM Infoprint(TM) Color 130 Plus to drive web-based, "intelligent" marketing campaigns, highly customized direct mail campaigns, and personalized insurance brochures, which are available in a variety of versions and languages for the Clarica sales force. The 2001 "Innovator of the Year" Award was presented Sunday evening, Oct. 28, at Xplor(R) 2001, the Global Electronic Document Systems Conference & Exhibit, in Orlando Fla. U.S.A. About the Award Xplor International's "Innovator of the Year" Award honors a company, individual, or organization that has made a significant achievement in the electronic document systems industry, providing an imaginative application, tool, or advancement of a current technology that improves the capabilities of the industry and helps society communicate more effectively. Xplor International President and CEO Robert W. Wert said, "It's a privilege to recognize Clarica's talents for utilizing electronic document technology. As this year's innovator, Clairca has demonstrated how state-of-the-art document technology and creative applications can streamline business operations, improve customer relationships, and improve the bottom line." About the "Innovator" Clarica's advanced use of print-on-demand marketing techniques using the IBM Infoprint Color 130 Plus allowed the company to be better able to conduct 1:1 marketing, increase the sales force's self-serve capability, increase its brand control, strengthen its use of advance technology, and realize great savings by eliminating outdated inventory and printing the right brochures for the right customer. "Winning the Innovator of the Year award was a real thrill for all of those involved with this new technology at Clarica. It means a great deal to us to be recognized by our peers in the industry and is something we'll never forget," said Dave Evans, EDP, director of document services, Clarica. Also leveraging the IBM Infoprint Color 130 Plus, Clarica's sales force now chooses from a variety of insurance brochures available on the company's intranet, which can be cost-effectively personalized and, in some cases, printed in five different languages. The brochures are tailored with each agent's photograph, name and contact information, which is pulled from a database and printed directly on each piece. During the first experiment with customized brochures, agents ordered one year's worth of life insurance brochures in six weeks. Today, agents can choose from an entire line of personalized insurance, investment, and introduction brochures. Clarica is currently developing marketing material that is driven by business intelligence and predictive modeling. About Clarica Clarica (CLI: TSE) has provided insurance and investment solutions to Canadians for 130 years. As well as individual and group insurance, Clarica also provides a full range of savings and retirement products. In Canada, Clarica serves more than 3.3 million customers through 8,000 staff, agents, financial planners and group representatives who operate out of 90 offices throughout the country. In the U. S, Clarica operates from two mid-western locations to serve 225,000 policyholders. About Xplor International Xplor International is the worldwide association representing more than 5,000 members in more than 2,500 companies which develop and use the technology of the US $125-billion document systems industry.