LIGHTENING THE (OVER)LOAD
LIGHTENING Iron bars do not a prison make but paper documents can chain agents to rooms full of files and slow, slow processing of applications, renewals, claims and other insurance transactions.
However, new document management technology, including scanners, imaging databases and network facsimile transmission can set agents free from paper and release a wave of productivity.
"There was a time when we thought that transactional filing was the answer to our paper problems," says Margaret Hatley, office manager at Dorman & Reynolds Insurance in Anniston, Alabama. "T-filing reduced some of our files but created its own problems. No one customer service representative (CSR) could ever find the right file when it was needed.
"CSRs were always running around the office looking for files when they should have been at their desk, on the phone, helping customers and marketing."
Late last year, the six-person agency unlocked the freedom of a paperless office with a document imaging system linked to its Applied Systems agency automation system. The agency installed small PaperPort Strobe sheetfed document scanners from Visioneer, Inc., in Fremont, California, on each desk, linked to a Microsoft NT-based office network.
When policy documents arrive from insurers, they are scanned directly into the system and then thrown away, Hatley says. The digital capture of the documents takes about 20 seconds per page and creates an office-wide database that covers all current transactions, like the old-fashioned transaction file, but without the paper and its limitations.
"Any employee can find any customer file with our agency automation system and the document database," she explains. "Both systems are present on our office network and employees can move back and forth from the Applied Systems database to the document database easily."
When documents need to be sent to customers or back to insurers, employees never have to leave their desks. They're able to create cover letters with word processing and attach the documents from the database. These are faxed directly from the office network using network fax software.
The paperless system eliminates the time and effort of about two full-time employees, Hatley says. "Managing paper is very time-consuming. You don't realize just how much time is spent tracking down paper and filing it until you have eliminated the need.
"We've eliminated a file clerk and many hours of paper management for our other employees. As a result, they get to focus on providing more efficient services and cross-marketing."
Tague Insurance Agency, a 10-person personal and commercial lines agency in Carlsbad, California, pursued a similar process, moving from a traditional paper filing concept to transactional filing in 1992 and then beginning a movement toward document image management in 1996, says Renee Tague, accounting director.
"It all starts with a re-evaluation of your workflow," she says. "Before you even install any new technology, you have to think about what you have been doing with paper management and whether all the paper has been important.
"You don't want to give up anything that could be valuable to the agency, but you discover pretty quickly that most of the paper you have been keeping simply is not important."
Tague Insurance also chose to install Visioneer PaperPort scanners at each desktop, using the database of scanned documents as an online transactional file. Most documents are shredded after being scanned but can be re-created on demand by printing them out of the database.
Few copies are ever printed, however, Tague says. If they are needed, they are usually faxed from an office network fax. The agency plans to add Internet access later this year and expects to send documents by electronic mail to a growing list of customers who have e-mail.
Tague says the paperless process saves the time of one employee for every $2 million of premium volume and frees up time for greater creativity in the office.
"We do a lot of brainstorming among our employees and try to maintain a free flow of information and ideas. We are heavily cross-trained in personal and commercial lines and now can multiply our service by having customer documents available to anyone in the office. Virtually anyone can answer a customer's question at any time," she says.
Ted Baker, an agency automation consultant who assisted Dorman & Reynolds and other agencies with eliminating paper, says the process is one part new technology such as the scanners and networked fax, and one part a new philosophy in workflow management.
"Electronic filing--rather than transactional filing--causes you to rethink everything about your workflow," he explains. "Even before you start scanning, you start to eliminate documents from your workflow."
Customer premium notices, cancellation notices and copies of other communication between customers and carriers are practically irrelevant to daily agency activities, Baker says. Most can be shredded without scanning into an agency system.
Most policies are boilerplate language behind the declarations page, so Baker advises agencies to keep only one policy master copy and dump the rest--and scan only the declarations which are relevant to your customer, he adds.
"Ask yourself, 'What are we keeping and why?'" Baker says. "The answer will surprise you and the results of the process will amaze you with the amount of productivity they produce."
Lois Van Horn, principal of the Athens Insurance Center in Athens, Georgia, is one amazed agent.
"We're just about there--the Utopia of no paper," she exclaims. "T-filing is a dinosaur. It didn't do anything to eliminate paper. But now we're eliminating the paper and eliminating wasted time. It's very exciting--a complete paradigm shift for the agency."
Athens Insurance Center started with electronic filing of personal lines documents nearly five years ago with a DocSTAR image management system from BitWise Designs in Schenectady, New York. The agency began by capturing any personal lines documents that were not transmitted by download by its personal lines insurers. The system also is used for archival storage of agency contracts and other business documents.
Last year, the agency added an Applied Systems agency automation system and installed the popular Visioneer PaperPort desktop scanners for commercial lines documents.
The combined systems save employees nearly two hours a day in filing time and many hours of frustration time, Van Horn says. "I feel born again as an agent, not just a paper pusher. We are all freed to do what we do best as agents--sales and service."
For many agents, the next step in electronic filing is a high-speed connection to the Internet that allows for direct transfer of digital information, says Ted Baker. By sending and receiving information over the Internet, agents can eliminate the need for scanning incoming information and can avoid creating paper documents for their clients.
Agents and insurers have been experimenting with uploading and downloading of policy information for many years, Baker notes; but a variety of issues relating to standards has hobbled comprehensive single entry, multiple company interface (SEMCI). Internet-based electronic mail, however, dodges the issue of standards for many kinds of information.
"Agents and insurers will soon be using e-mail for product information, pricing and policy delivery," he says. "And with more and more customers using electronic mail for business and personal reasons, agents will be using e-mail to communicate directly with their customers--avoiding the creation of paper documents in their outbound communication."
PaperClip Software, Inc., Hasbrouck Heights, New Jersey, a document management software developer, is already working on the communications standards issue and has developed an Electronic Document eXchange (EDX) standard for document transmission over the Internet and corporate extranets.
The open standard was designed for the company's PaperClip32 document management system but is compatible with most other imaging systems, according to Marketing Vice President Mike Bridges. By using direct online transmission of documents, agents can reduce the cost of document processing from about
$1 per page with a scanner-based system to about $.25 per page.
PaperClip software is being used by nearly 100 insurance industry customers including Bisys Insurance Services, Little Falls, New Jersey, one of the nation's largest network marketers of life insurance and financial services. The company sells life insurance mutual funds and brokerage services through 9,000 financial institutions and corporations. Bisys adopted the PaperClip32 software late last year and has installed the system in 450 locations.
Bridges say the EDX standard is being tested by ACORD for transmission of commercial lines documents and may be adopted for personal and commercial lines document transmission later this year by users of Delphi Information Systems' agency management system.
A new joint initiative by the Independent Insurance Agents of America's Agents Council for Technology and ACORD also may provide a solution to many of the Internet communication standards problems. The initiative calls for a fast-track development of a standard vocabulary and Document Type Definitions (DTDs) for eXtensible Mark-up Language (XML), a new Internet computer language, that allows information to flow from computer to computer without needing to conform to rigid proprietary standards.
Using XML, customer information can be entered once in an agency computer and then modified to fit other data standards. It moves along an insurance workflow path from the agency to multiple underwriters, rating programs, information providers or claims adjusters. The client information can include the usual database entries and unusual information such as photos or digital signatures.
XML works by allowing information to be tagged with a digital label that can be read by a receiving computer system. A receiving system locates relevant information by the tag and incorporates whatever information is necessary for the step of insurance workflow for which it is responsible--and ignoring the remainder. This process allows information to be shaped to meet various proprietary standards without the laborious process of re-entering or reformatting.
"By working with ACORD to deliver a shared industry standard set of vocabularies and DTDs, agents and insurers can be assured of interoperability and information sharing without the fragmentation that's threatening to hinder progress," explains Leonard Brevik, IIAA chief information officer and executive director of ACT. *
The author
Len Strazewski is a Chicago-based freelance writer specializing in marketing, management and technology topics. In addition to Rough Notes, he has written on insurance for Business Insurance, the Chicago Tribune and Human Resource Executive, among other publications.
Ted Baker
Advanced Automation
Dallas, Texas
Web site: www.advancedautomationinc.com
Phone: (800) 528-6178
DocSTAR
BitWise Designs, Inc.
Schenectady, New York
Web site: www.docstar.com
Phone: (518) 346-7799
PaperClip Software, Inc.
Hasbrouck Heights, New Jersey
Web site: www.paperclip.com
Phone: (201) 329-6300
Visioneer
Fremont, California
Web site: www.visioneer.com
Phone: (510) 608-6300
©COPYRIGHT: The Rough Notes Magazine, 1999