NEW YORK — Rick Roy, senior vice president, customer operations, for CUNA Mutual Group has been named as an Insurance & Technology 2006 Elite 8 honoree. The award recognizes exceptional vision and leadership among top insurance industry chief information officers. Roy will be recognized at an awards dinner at the publication's Eighth Annual Executive Summit at the Arizona Biltmore Resort & Spa in Phoenix on Nov. 6. As CUNA Mutual's CIO, Roy has spearheaded strategies to reduce the company's infrastructure costs by $14 million. He also led the push to invest in new products and applications including enterprise resource planning and customer relationship management initiatives, a new claims system and a marketing database. Roy is currently working to enhance customer service through the consolidation of customer service facilities and operations, including call centers, claims operations, product administration, billing and collections. Insurance technology executives and leading industry analysts nominate Elite 8 honorees. The editorial team of Insurance & Technology judges the finalists based on their vision, leadership, effective resource management and ability to help their companies compete and consistently meet strategic objectives.