Watson:
improved efficiency
at encova insurance
driving faster processing for policy applications with the dayhuff group and ibm
Insurance companies need access to a range of documentation to process claims and applications, making it hard not to get buried in paper. For The Motorists Insurance Group, this was an all too familiar challenge. With teams in its Personal Lines business relying on complex manual processes to manage a multitude of tasks and documents, it was difficult to track policy applications and revisions, and make decisions in a timely, accurate manner.
The result? Slow, inefficient application processing that had a negative impact on the company's responsiveness to clients, and threatened its competitive advantage.
Jarrod Reed, Senior Project Manager at The Motorists Insurance Group, explains: "Previously, paper coming in needed to be sorted, prioritized, and then handed to the right person to do the work. From that point on, we had very little visibility into what work was being done, making it difficult to keep track of the progress of individual cases. There were instances where an independent agent would call up to inquire why a certain piece of business hadn't been processed, and we would have to go from desk to desk to see who had been assigned that particular job."
taking an integrated approach
Over the years, The Motorists Insurance Group had built a highly customized technology infrastructure for managing its underwriting activity. At the core of this environment was an IBM Content Manager repository, containing more than 10 years of historic data.
The Motorists Insurance Group chose to use this Content Manager system as the strategic platform for a new approach to processing policy applications and revisions. Around this platform, the company is working to deploy IBM Case Manager and a range of complimentary applications developed specifically for the insurance industry. In this effort they have partnered with the Dayhuff Group, an IBM Premier Business Partner.
"Before we began our search, we reached out to all the business lines and affiliates to learn what they wanted most from a policy workflow solution," remarks Tara Robison, Resource Manager at The Motorists Insurance Group. "Using this input, we honed in on two products, and ultimately selected IBM Case Manager. We felt that Case Manager was a truly enterprise-level solution that could work for all our business lines, and wasn't just focused on insurance."
The Motorists Insurance Group has gained a flexible and efficient way of managing underwriting processes in its Personal Lines business. The company has developed an automated workflow for managing homeowners and property insurance applications, and is working to roll out additional workflows for its Personal Lines Division.
"We have been able to fulfill two key aims: getting rid of paper and providing transparency," says Jarrod Reed. "In the past, we had one staff member whose sole responsibility was to print and deliver paper to the Personal Lines team. Now that we have gone paperless, we have been able to redeploy this associate to a new role."
Cutting through complexity
With a robust platform in place for managing the end-to-end lifecycle of policy applications and revisions, The Motorists Insurance Group can provide Personal Lines teams with the insight and control they need to work quickly and efficiently.
Jarrod Reed states: "For the first time, we will be able to see exactly what is happening with the work that is being distributed - it will no longer be a guessing game. We will be able to answer questions such as: what, why and how are we doing? Where can we make improvements? With this kind of insight, teams will be able to make more informed decisions and handle a greater volume of work more effectively. As a result, The Motorists Insurance Group can respond to customers about their policy applications much faster. This will potentially allow us to increase customer satisfaction and loyalty, giving our business a valuable competitive edge."