Insurers Focus on Operational Efficiency

If 2009 was the year to do more with less, then 2010 has become the year to "Do a lot more with a little more." According to a survey conducted by IVANS Inc., 93% of insurance carriers queried are increasing their investment in automation technologies to improve operational efficiency.

Clare DeNicola, president and CEO of IVANS Inc said,"Like most organizations, carriers are working with finite resources and want to invest in projects that will have the greatest impact on their business." Insurance companies recognize the need to maintain a competitive edge by enhancing customer experience.

"Insurance organizations know that building stronger relationships with customers and agents is a solid bet for sustaining their business, so the 2010 agenda is heavily weighted towards technology that helps them and their agents respond more quickly and knowledgeably to customer demands."

In a recent survey conducted by the Novarica Insurance Technology Research Council, insurance IT executives ranked policy administration as another of the industry's hottest areas of importance. Matthew Josefowicz, director of Novarica's insurance practice, explains:

Policy administration is a high priority area for insurers in 2010, since it is critical to introducing or modifying products, serving customers and distributors, and sourcing data for business intelligence (BI).

The key to success in improving both efficiency and customer experience, while also being able to introduce new products quickly, is automation. The ability to gather data in an easy to use and understand web interview, allows insurers to quickly build products and respond to customers. And because all of the data is available for reuse and reporting, insurers can manage their sales process and more easily maintain quotes and live policies.

Benefits of automating insurance documents and processes include getting products to market faster than your competitors, improving compliance and lowering your cost of product development. Sound good?

Book Review: The Lawyer's Guide to Working Smarter with Knowledge Tools

In The Lawyer's Guide to Working Smarter with Knowledge Tools, Marc Lauritsen, President of Capstone Practice Systems (an Exari Document Automation Services Partner), outlines best practices for leveraging technology to maximize your "return on effort."

"Knowledge tool is not yet a common or standard term. I use it to refer to software with significant knowledge content that does something, that applies to or processes knowledge, beyond just storing or moving it."

In our last post, "How to Match Your Requirements to a Document Assembly System" we provide guidance for those who are still evaluating solutions. Lauritsen's book goes beyond the process of choosing software applications, delving deeper into the financial and functional benefits of technologies like work product retrieval, document assembly, and interactive checklists.

"My emphasis is on the aspects of legal work that can be systematized and the functional possibilities of knowledge systems - not the technical details."

Proper utilization of knowledge tools, according to Lauritsen, can help lawyers and other professionals, avoid "unnecessary motion" by reusing previous intellectual investments. "Usually the cost of recording, preserving, and retrieving knowledge is less than the cost of reacquiring it."

Lauritsen's goal is to find ways to get more done with less. One way to accomplish this is to reuse work and information, rather than redo. "What we're talking about here," he says, " is gaining an edge - getting a better return on effort."

Nikki Dever contributed to this post.

How To Match Your Requirements To A Document Assembly Solution - 4 Tips

In a previous post I explained the importance of gathering requirements at the start of a project. In this post I'm going to discuss the relationship between certain requirements and different document assembly solutions.

Users

Document assembly systems work by prompting users to provide information. However, the mechanisms for prompting users can range from rudimentary mail merge-type interfaces at one end to dynamic Web Wizards at the other.

How slick the interface needs to be depends to a great extent on the expertise of the person answering the questions. A senior lawyer drafting a familiar document will be more comfortable with a system that gives them direct access to the documents as they're drafting. In contrast, an inexperienced business user will prefer an intuitive system that only asks a few questions at a time which - along with important guidance information - are easy to understand. This means it's important to clarify who will be using the system(1).

Note: Document assembly, by its nature, enables non-experts to create documents that would previously have been done by a lawyer. So don't assume that those who previously drafted the documents will still be the ones doing so.

Project Scope

Some document assembly systems are intended for a handful of users producing simple documents. Others are designed for use in large organizations such as Fortune 500 companies, top law firms and government agencies.

The appropriate system for you will depend on both your current situation and on possible future requirements. Your initial project should be well-defined. Once you've successfully delivered that, then look to handle a bigger challenge - that could involve additional users, more complex documents, or greater integration.

Note: Any system can address the easy stuff. Make sure at the outset that you choose a system that can scale(2) to handle what you might ultimately require.

Maintenance

If you only need a short term throw-away solution, template maintenance isn't a major issue. However, once you start automating more documents - or even end up relying on a system for longer than anticipated - maintenance suddenly becomes the ONLY issue.

Note: Make sure you understand how easy it will be for you to maintain templates (3) in five years after they've been modified umpteen times. Creating a template from scratch is easy. Modifying it to handle unexpected changes - that's the real challenge.

Vendor Support

Which brings us to support. Support is an essential consideration (4) - particularly if you're planning to rely on the vendor for a number of years. The keys here are expertise and accessibility.

True expertise encompasses technical ability (knowing how to implement and use the system), subject matter expertise (knowing how users of the system do their jobs), and industry knowledge (understanding of the broader industry context).

For a vendor to be accessible they ideally need to operate in your geography and/or timezone. However, just as important is responsiveness. How passionate are they about truly trying to solve your problems? How willing are they to go that extra mile?

Note: Great support doesn't just happen. Expertise is born from years of hard work, learning and refinement. And responsiveness comes down to a vendor's culture as much as anything.

Conclusion

The bottom line is that it is essential to gather your requirements AND to match them to the appropriate solution before starting your document assembly initiative. Document assembly software comes in many shapes and sizes, from simple desktop add-ins and products to enterprise-strength online solutions. Understanding which best meets your needs is key to a successful implementation.

Oh The Pain - of Insurance Renewals

At the Risk & Insurance Management Society Conference (RIMS2010 Boston) last month, Exari conducted a survey of Risk Managers to assess the "State of the Renewals Process."

We surveyed Risk Managers from across the United States and Europe, representing a wide range of industries, to learn what they have to do each year when the time comes to renew their corporate insurance coverages.

The goal of the survey was to determine whether the annual process that they go through was satisfactory or if there were ways to improve the experience. The results showed that in fact, people reported varying levels of satisfaction with the current process.

The majority of respondents reported that they were sent last year’s data by their brokers and asked to manually update that document(s) with any changes. Most Risk Managers would collect the current data using a combination of Word and Excel.

In some cases, it was necessary to collect multiple spreadsheets from across the enterprise and try to reconcile them.

It was not a surprising conclusion that there was a direct correlation between the respondents' overall level of satisfaction with their broker and the ease of renewing their policy. In fact, the majority reported that they would consider switching to a broker who made the renewal process less painful.

To read the full results of the survey, request your copy of the Benchmark Report here.