An East Coast Insurance Company and DocFinity®: Prompt Delivery of Services for Businesses

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Like a large umbrella, this corporation on the east coast is an insurance holding company for a colorful array of wholesale insurance agencies. Smooth, efficient operation ensures that its subsidiaries and those whom they insure are well-covered and well-served. Their primary focus is on writing insurance for commercial lines and government municipalities, and personal lines.

Background

The insurance company, a subsidiary of a much larger corporation, is headquartered in Pennsylvania, and operates in 9 states. It owns a number of subsidiaries that handle a variety of underwriting services and which are spread across several states on the east coast.

The Business Challenge

The mountain of paperwork for the company had grown considerably over the years, not only because of the company’s growth and the relative increase in paper, but because of the increasing federal regulations and the corresponding paper trails that show who has accessed and annotated which documents, and when. Efficient management of this information had become difficult. The home office and its satellite offices faced a common business challenge: the need to help their employees manage the paper squalls effectively and to become more efficient.

Due to the nature of the company’s customers and the services they offer, such as providing liability insurance for local government police, there are lengthy applications for underwriting and a large amount of required supporting documentation for the municipalities. This also holds true for a variety of businesses in the excess and surplus lines industry. It didn’t just rain paper—it poured. The underwriting organization needed to capture, store, and easily retrieve the extensive documentation in order to serve its customers efficiently and cost-effectively. Effective methods of disaster recovery were also critical for each and every one of their clients. It became clear that document imaging would be the best solution to their business challenge because it captures and stores information digitally for easy and efficient retrieval, with the added benefit of ensuring greater security of sensitive information and a means of recovering data and images quickly and completely in the event of a disaster.

Finding the Right Solution

In 2002, while searching for an imaging system for their underwriting departments, the VP and Manager of IT attended a tradeshow in Orlando and discovered Optical Image Technology, Inc. and the DocFinity suite of electronic document management software. The organization was searching primarily for a competitively priced system that would integrate with their in-house policy management system, as well as Microsoft Office and SQL Server, while enabling users to access files regardless of their geographic location. In 2003, as they narrowed down the viable vendors, they visited Optical Image Technology, Inc.’s headquarters to evaluate the products and services more closely. After considering other major players, OIT’s DocFinity products were chosen as the best match for their needs based on the integration capabilities of the suite, competitive pricing, scalability, and the dedication of a member of OIT’s sales team to find the right solution for their business needs. In January 2004, they purchased the DocFinity Core for the imaging process, as well as DocFinity Workflow, Hierarchical Storage Manager, and Barcode Server.

Implementation: Readying for the Storm

Their first priorities were to automate the home office and to follow with nine other remote underwriting agency offices. The home office, which has 50 underwriting employees and several additional scanning staff, is comprised of 4 departments that focus on different areas such as commercial auto insurance, commercial package, personal lines, and more. As they began the process in April 2004, employees were initially excited, yet cautious with the idea of automation, and training the scanning staff was equally challenging at first. Today, management and staff are seeing and reaping the benefits, and through their successful conversion they have become a role model for the other offices.

One of the reasons the company was successful in overcoming any resistance early in the game was the approach the consulting team took of working with each and every employee involved. Following the belief that experience is the best teacher, even the project champions were faced with the challenge of learning how to automate, but they did so with gusto and determination.

Teamwork: Holding the Umbrella Handle Together

A critical part of the rapid success of the project was the leaders and their inclusive approach. The Manager of Information Technology and the Manager of Applications Development have an indefatigable energy and they worked hard to consider everyone’s needs. They established a training period of three solid weeks per department at the home office, working together at the site for one week, followed by one week of training by each of them individually working with Microsoft Word documents, Microsoft Excel documents, and policy documents. The IT manager’s role was to serve as the consultant for the imaging project, whereas the Manager of Applications Development helped clients to analyze and streamline their business processes so that they could prepare for automation. During this time, they met with each employee individually to understand every step of their business challenges, to put every step of each process into the imaging system, and to address the personal concerns some of the staff had about automation.

This time-consuming approach and the regular site visits afterward demonstrated management’s commitment to 100 percent success and led to the majority of the staff embracing the project. Now, the investment is paying off for everyone, even those who were reluctant at the start. In retrospect, the IT manager commented: “It takes about six months for a new site to have everything work smoothly, with a staff that completely embraces automation. The first three months are the toughest, but the investment is definitely worth its weight in gold.”

Forecasting the Future: Bright and Sunny

Today, the home office and three other separate locations have completed the automation process successfully, using this same model of a three-week training period, individual attention to each employee’s work processes and concerns, and periodic check-ups after the implementation is complete. Word of their success has spread from office to office, and the most recent locations have embraced the idea of automation more quickly. The constant squall of documents gusting into the office quickly evaporates through the imaging process, keeping all of the critical information intact and under control without seas of paper. An important addition to the automation process is the bar coding of information from their policy management system, which can then be added to the workflow queue for efficient handling. Staff efficiency and customer service continue to improve as the system is rolled out through more of the offices.

Widening the Umbrella: Cost-Effective Coverage

In addition to the four offices that the company has automated, six more remain. The next challenge is to bring the process to an office of twenty employees, followed by five smaller locations. As the organization continues to grow and add new locations, the staff will benefit from rolling out DocFinity Imaging from the start, ending the paper storm before it even begins.

In a way, DocFinity is an insurance policy for this company, ensuring that the ongoing gusts of incoming and outgoing information are effectively managed, and that the agents and companies they serve can shine with top-quality customer service each and every day.