Companion Property & Casualty: Delivering Claims “Care Packages” Quickly with DocFinity® Workflow
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Anyone who has spent a year at a college or a summer at camp knows the value of a thoughtfully assembled care package, the great anticipation of its arrival, and the joy it brings when it finally arrives. When you are away from the things to which you’ve become accustomed every day, you long for them, wishing someone could magically airlift them to you right away. When a care package arrives, you are overjoyed by the goods someone put together to meet your needs, and the more quickly it comes, the better.
Companion Property & Casualty, which is headquartered in Columbia, South Carolina with an office in Pennsylvania and agents all over the country, knows a lot about the business of “care packages” and the importance of delivering them quickly. Between 25,000 and 35,000 people who have had a disaster or disturbance in their lives submit new claims to Companion every year, and wait in anxious anticipation of speedy processing in the hopes that a “care package” with the appropriate remuneration can help them rebuild their lives. The miracle that has enabled Companion to accelerate the processing of these claims and the thousands of documents that accompany them is DocFinity Workflow. DocFinity has helped the property & casualty staff to be a saving friend as implied by its namesake, Companion. They are able to deliver the right papers to the right workers all over the USA within moments of each new claim’s arrival in the mailroom. Claims are processed efficiently so that the right people get the right checks as quickly as possible.
The need
In 2002, Companion’s property & casualty claims backlog was becoming a growing problem due to the increasing number of claims, medical bills, correspondence, and other documents already on file. In addition, new claims were being received daily. Recognizing that the file storage, which already occupied a building bigger than many mid-sized retailers, was a problem that would only become more complex, a team of business and IT staff began searching for a solution to their file storage, file management, and processing backlog issues. The Manager of Information Systems for Companion and the person who served as the business champion for the project began searching for vendors who could provide solutions through technology, beginning with a half-dozen viable companies. When the list was slimmed down to four, the RFP process began. DocFinity was ultimately chosen because of its workflow solution, overall completeness and flexibility of the suite, integration capabilities, and value for the investment. After the decision was made, the real work began.
How it works
The main goal of Companion was to create a digital mailroom coupled with a powerful workflow engine to move information effectively from beginning to end. This meant that the company would need to transform all of its paper and other forms of incoming information into digital form before any of it was sent to the intended individual or processed in any way. Each document or series of forms was then processed electronically and sent wherever it needed to go. Between 2,000 and 3,000 daily faxes, e-mails, handwritten correspondence, images, and documents needed to be individually scanned or otherwise imported into a storage repository, like an electronic filing cabinet, so that the material could be accessed and the work could begin immediately.
Like an airlift of packages to people in need, DocFinity Workflow is designed to get information to all staff who require it as quickly as possible. At Companion Property & Casualty, new claims applications, agent letters and correspondence are received every day, as are more than 500 medical bills, volumes of declaration pages that outline coverage, loss history documents, audits, and other forms. All of these have to be matched to appropriate papers and placed into correct files with messages to the correct staff that the file is ready to be processed.
DocFinity Imaging, Workflow, HSM (Hierarchical Storage Management), and Barcode Server are some of the main pieces that have revolutionized this process, simplifying it dramatically and multiplying the volume that could be processed with the current staff.
The electronic process: an overview
Although each process involves a different number of people and documents, the process at Companion can be categorized in five distinct steps: the preparation step, the scanning step, the indexing step, workflow, and integration with IBM On Demand. DocFinity software captures the papers from the start and flows the mirror image of the documents electronically from beginning to end.
1) The preparation step
A “prep team” of four full-time staff is responsible for opening all of the incoming mail and searching for a customer number on the documentation that will be used as an identifier – the equivalent of a customer name or number on a manila file folder. Each member of the team selects the appropriate bar-coded separator sheets for the customer whose materials he is processing (color-coded for ease of use) and inserts the appropriate sheet in front of each section of sheets to be scanned. For example, a customer may submit a claim application along with medical bills and correspondence. The separator sheets are inserted between each section and a combination of bar codes and information typed by the indexer are used to tell the machine the types of information that are to be included in the scanned file – the customer number, type of correspondence or document, date-time stamp indicating when it was received, and other important information. After a customer’s materials have the separator sheets inserted to define the kinds of information in the packet, they are bundled together for the next team to further the processing and start pushing the documents down the electronic trail.2) The scanning step
A “scanning team” of three is responsible for scanning in the documents and, as a key element of quality control to ensure that no single document is misfiled, adding the customer number, which the scan operator adds as part of the batch name, into a table; the other fields are automatically populated from information encrypted within the bar codes. The customer number is critical, since it is one of the key fields used to index all of a customer’s related documents for later retrieval. DocFinity’s imaging and object importer functionality, which are within the DocFinity Core product, are the means of getting the various kinds of incoming information into a central place: faxes, e-mails, letters, images, and forms are all stored together in one place, the DocFinity repository. When the documents have been scanned and a customer number has been entered for the batch of associated documents, the information is automatically updated and can be viewed by the power indexing team.3) The indexing step
Like workers in an aid organization preparing a care package, the indexing crew of three eagerly awaits the news that the documents are in the repository, which they do by simply monitoring the power indexing screen. A member of the team opens it, verifies the indexing information in a matter of seconds, and HSM sends it into a workflow. Any documents with indexing errors or incomplete scans are returned to an electronic corrections queue; notification is received right away in the scanning department that immediate re-scanning or re-assigning of the customer number is required, and then it is returned to the indexing team for validation. This process provides the quality assurance that ensures complete accuracy of information before it is ultimately stored in the OD390 repository.4) Workflow: airlifting the package toward its destination
As soon as validation is complete, the forms are received by a member of the staff, who reviews the document electronically. He or she checks off appropriate tasks related to the document and DocFinity HSM sends the work into the appropriate workflow if necessary, based on the folder information. Within seconds the document can be reviewed from anywhere in the world, even simultaneously if the document requires approval or responses from multiple parties in various locations. Three mail prep staff, three scan operators, and three indexers are involved up to this point in the paperless operation. After the task is completed by the appropriate party(ies), it is automatically pushed by DocFinity Workflow to the next person, and the next, and the next. This brings approved claims closer to the final recipient much more quickly than by traditional methods, and increases customer satisfaction significantly.5) Integration with IBM On Demand: guarding the storehouse
As soon as the claim has been processed and the electronic “paperwork” has been completed, the files are handed off to the IBM On Demand 390 (OD390) mainframe, which is the information repository for the organization and their parent company. The landmark DocFinity integration with OD390 enables the company to maintain their high-level, built-in security system, which constantly stores and simultaneously guards all of the company’s mission-critical information, files, images, etc., until the next time it is needed.
Ultimate organization: lost claims are ghosts of the past
Like any business, Property & Casualty knows what it is like to have the process slowed by unexpected problems. While Companion historically had an extremely high efficiency rating for a paper-claims office, the company faced periodic delays typical in any organization: staff who were on vacation, became ill, left the company, and claims that were stuck to other paper claims or misfiled. With a storage space the size of a mid-sized warehouse as well as documents from agents and others working on claims spread out throughout the country, simply locating a claim within the entire process was traditionally very difficult…..care packages were sometimes hopelessly delayed because of incomplete information. “Customer service has improved tremendously,” according to the Manager of Information Systems at Companion. Because the information is now available electronically wherever it is needed within seconds, there are no more lost files….and no more approved claims that get stuck in the routing process. Niente. Nichts. Nada. None.
Moving forward with DocFinity at Companion P&C
The ultimate intent for Companion is to incorporate workflow into all of its operations. Currently, they have 41 operational workflows for the claims as well as the loss control department, voluntary underwriting, and assigned risk underwriting departments, and six new workflows will be implemented in the next few months. The finance department, premium audit department, billing, and a second division within assigned risk underwriting are the next areas that will be automated. Companion reallocated the former file storage space to more than forty good-sized cubicles, and its multiple operations are noting measurable increases in processing speed and accuracy everywhere the process has been implemented thus far.
Many of us are familiar with a saying written by the ancient Roman poet Quintus Ennuis, who once declared, “A friend in need is a friend indeed,” which scholars understand to mean “a sure friend is known when someone is in difficulty”. With the help of DocFinity, Companion assumes the role of a friend to its policy holders, delivering care packages to assist those who are in need more quickly than ever before and bringing both joy and monetary relief to those who require it most.
