Hyland Software's Document Management Blog

Insurance System Interoperability: The Fix for Legacy Systems and Meeting Customer Demands

// May 20th, 2011 // No Comments » // Insurance // Ruth Fisk

Efficiency. Cost-savings. Fewer steps in a process. In the insurance technology world, these are terms that are thrown out a lot as benefits of using particular software solutions, like ECM.

And while, in and of itself, a particular product might be effective for what it was designed to do, the insurance market is quickly teaching us vendors that it’s not always how well a product works on its own that matters. In fact, more often, it’s how well these products work with other products that really makes the difference.

For example, I feel like every other article I read is about legacy systems. You know, the custom-built systems no longer being supported by a long-lost vendor, or that in-house coded product that someone thought was a good idea 15 years ago that your business depends on. Either way, these systems exist, and therefore, you need to figure out how to make the best of the data they hold.

But, if you’re like most folks in insurance, you already know this. That’s not the problem. The problem is that the vendors who offer the types of solutions you need don’t care as much as you need them to about interoperability with other products.

Why is this such a problem? Because the entire value proposition – efficiencies, cost-savings, fewer steps – are completely diminished when getting a new system adds more work for every other system.

Think about when customer information needs to be updated, as in adding an additional insured. Sounds simple enough. But because every single system that touches the customer needs to be updated, and it’s typical that none of the systems talk to each other, it becomes a manual process of re-keying information over, and over and over.

Aside from this process being incredibly time consuming, it leaves far too much room for human error. If that happens, a whole new set of problems arise, where people from the business and IT side have to waste time troubleshooting where the error was made.

To make this fix, insurance companies need to only consider technology, especially ECM, that is designed to be out-of-the-box ready to interoperate on a data level with other systems. As I mentioned earlier, it’s not enough anymore to buy technology for the sake of what that piece is designed to do. With incredible demands from customers to provide better service, and constantly shrinking margins, interoperability is a necessity for insurers to maintain a competitive advantage.

ECM for GWP: Enabling Growth in Insurance Through Content Management

// May 3rd, 2011 // No Comments » // Insurance // Guest Blogger

This is the second of a three part series from Strategy Meets Action (SMA) partner – and now Hyland guest blogger – Mark Breading. You can read the first post, Content is King in the Insurance Enterprise, here.

Enterprise content management (ECM) and gross written premium (GWP) are two terms that are not often used in the same sentence in the insurance industry. Systems to manage documents and content have been relegated to the back office and cost cutting initiatives in years past.

However, a new role for ECM is emerging – improving communications with customers and enabling top line growth. An SMA study revealed that 48% of insurers consider managing the storage, archiving, and retrieval of documents to be highly strategic, while another 43% consider it important. In addition, 82% of survey respondents cite the capture of paper based information and its integration into systems as highly strategic or important.

As insurers fight for market share in a competitive, mature market, the interaction with prospects and customers becomes more and more vital. Customers are short on time, overloaded with information, price conscious and expectant of excellent service. Agents still play an important role, but customers also want to deal through websites and call centers, and expect to use smartphones, iPads, laptops, and many other devices. And they expect the documents they receive and the information available on the website or via call center reps to be accurate, up to the minute and easy to read.

Given the important role of documents and content in the eyes of the customer, it is not surprising that insurers are investing in IT solutions to improve customer communications and content management. According to an SMA survey of over 500 individuals, the number one business driver for investment in this area is improving customer service, with 66% of insurers citing this as a top IT investment factor. The next two top business drivers are better understanding customer needs (59%) and improving retention (50%). All three of these investment drivers are top-line oriented – aimed at growing the business, not simply cutting costs.

Not that ECM systems are difficult to cost justify. Improving operational efficiencies are part and parcel of any content management system implementation. Properly done, the reduction in paper, improved workflows, and streamlined management of information has the potential to save significant amounts of money, resulting in good return on investment (ROI). However, unlike a decade ago, the cost savings are no longer the primary reason for investing in these systems.

So what parts of the insurance business offer the most potential for ECM systems to help drive increased premiums? The answer to this question differs by insurer size, as is often the case in the insurance industry. Those with greater than $5B premium see new business/underwriting and marketing/product development as the top two areas for leveraging ECM and CCM (customer communications management) systems. They are clearly focused on the front end of the value chain and the potential to add new customers, and to cross-sell/up-sell existing customers.

On the other end of the spectrum, insurers with less than $250M premium believe that policy servicing is the key area (70% of respondents to an SMA survey cited this as a key business area). The very large insurers still focus on how to leverage ECM systems, with 44% naming this as an important business area. However, a higher percentage identified the front-end of the value chain as important for ECM.

Insurers in other tiers have a slightly different set of priorities. Mid-sized insurers ($250M to $1B in premium) focus on marketing/product development as the top area to leverage ECM/CCM systems, with claims as a close number two. The top two focus areas for Tier 2 insurers ($1B to $5B premium) are, in order, new business/underwriting and policy servicing.

Taken as a whole, there are many opportunities for ECM systems across the entire insurance value chain to improve both the top line and the bottom line. In summary, ECM and growth in GWP really do belong in the same sentence – and you can throw in ROI at the same time.

About the Author

Mark Breading, a Partner at SMA, is a recognized industry expert in the CCM space. With exceptional knowledge and experience in all aspects of customer centricity – CCM, CRM, customer insights, ECM, data and analytics, and more, Mark is the go-to person for all things customer related. Mark can be reached at mbreading@strategymeetsaction.com

Content is King in the Insurance Enterprise

// April 26th, 2011 // No Comments » // Insurance // Guest Blogger

This is the first of a three part series from Strategy Meets Action (SMA) partner – and now Hyland guest blogger – Mark Breading.

A popular theory regarding the World Wide Web is that content is king – the richness of the information is what draws people to use selected sites and entices them to use services and take action. This same theory applies to the insurance industry – the information is what drives the industry.

Information is the lifeblood of the success stories in the insurance industry. Plain and simple, companies that create and manage their information better – from documents to content in a wide variety of formats – tend to be more successful.

To learn how insurers are managing documents and content, and to find out how enterprise content management (ECM) systems fit in the big picture, SMA recently conducted a short survey about how insurers in North America manage information. Insurer participants consisted of 191 respondents representing all lines of business and all company sizes, and I’ll be covering the results from SMA’s survey in a series of blog posts.

Understanding the massive scope of document and content management in insurance requires a quick look at the fundamentals involved in the business of insurance. Insurance is a complex, many-faceted business, providing individuals and businesses with financial protection, loss control/management advice, and wealth accumulation capabilities. The industry ecosystem includes dozens of lines of business, many functional areas (such as marketing, underwriting, and claims), and a wide variety of business partners, as well as governmental agencies that produce regulations that affect business operations in each state and province in North America. Add to this the complexity customers bring with specific needs and expectations – all interacting with insurers and their partners every day.

Put all of this together and you have a document-centric industry – one that builds many forms, letters, statements, etc., all containing content such as policy and coverage provisions, loss run information, contract details contained in certificates of insurance, specifics of marketing promotional offerings and claim information. These documents flow in high volumes within the insurance enterprise and between insurers, agents/brokers, customers, and other third parties. And, a significant amount of the information in this flow is private and sometimes sensitive – with handling that is subject to regulation. Because of this, a critical issue for ECM systems is the ability to deliver documents and content securely to key groups of users.

The primary user group for ECM systems is internal users, i.e. insurance company employees. Sixty-one percent of the insurance company survey participants said that internal users are extensively using ECM systems, as depicted in Figure 1.

The capabilities of ECM systems typically extend out to agents and brokers, with 60% of insurers reporting some usage by their distribution partners, although only 12% cite extensive usage. Customers and other business partners (such as claims partners) also sometimes benefit from insurer ECM systems, with 40% of insurers identifying some usage by these groups. In the insurance industry, the use of technology solutions frequently varies significantly by company size. This is true for ECM systems. Tier 3 and 4 insurers (under $1B in premium) cite greater use of ECM systems by their employees than do their larger counterparts. 

Based on this information, one result is clear: The growth of content in insurance companies will drive an increasing need for enterprise content management systems. It is common for the amount of information created, captured, and stored by insurers to increase at the rate of 30-50 percent per year. Couple these huge amounts of information with the increasing expectations of customers for timely, accurate information, delivered to them through many different channels, and you have a compelling need for a common system to manage content across the enterprise – and out to the extended enterprise.

Content will remain king in the insurance world – and insurers that want to fully capitalize on their content should deploy integrated, modern enterprise content management systems.

About the Author

Mark Breading, a Partner at SMA, is a recognized industry expert in the CCM space. With exceptional knowledge and experience in all aspects of customer centricity – CCM, CRM, customer insights, ECM, data and analytics, and more, Mark is the go-to person for all things customer related. Mark can be reached at mbreading@strategymeetsaction.com.

Novarica ACE Rankings: Shakespeare Meets Insurance Software Solutions

// February 18th, 2011 // 2 Comments » // Enterprise content management, Insurance // Lindsay McCune

“What’s in a name?” Our dear Romeo and Juliet asked the same question. Understanding the answer to this query was a struggle for these star-crossed lovers – and is a contemporary concern for modern-day insurance technology buyers (follow me on this one). With so many buzzwords and acronyms surrounding us, understanding IT and even more so, enterprise content management (ECM) can be a challenge.

Recently, Novarica’s Average Customer Experience (ACE) Rankings  were published (congrats to all the vendors ranked!). After looking at the category Hyland was ranked in – Document Management – something I’ve often considered finally clicked in my head. When it comes to ECM in insurance, most of us are still asking the same question as our Shakespearean friends, “What is in a name?” Document management? ECM?  Imaging? Workflow? Records management? Collaboration?  What’s the context for all of these terms?

Here are just a few points to consider:

• “ECM” means different things to different people and organizations
• With a turbulent market, acquisitions, such as a services vendor purchasing a document  management shop, can make it more confusing
• What business problem you trying to solve?

I ask these questions, because after looking at solutions that were grouped together in the ACE Rankings, especially in Document Management, like solutions weren’t being compared.

But, for the buyer, that’s okay – as long as they realize that rankings like this are simply meant to act as one snapshot of the market. The more important research in identifying what kind of ECM solution you need..  What business problems are you trying to solve? Where will the solution be deployed?  Who will be using it? Can it provide value throughout your enterprise?

Again, rankings are just the start to helping you answer these questions and become an ECM pro.

Another suggestion: turn to your peers!  With so many communities available, people just like you can solve the “what’s in a name” puzzle. Firms like Forrester, AIIM, Gartner, and Celent can give you the basics, propelling you to be the trusted advisor in your organization.

And, after all of your extracurricular reading, you will realize that the question all along wasn’t “what’s in a name?” It was “how does that definition of ECM software apply to me?”  

Insurance ECM pros, what tips can you give organizations in the market for a solution that are sorting through all of the nomenclature?  

Stay tuned for more tips and tricks through the ECM landscape.  It will have you smelling as sweet as a rose, or something that would smell as sweet!

IT strategy rapidly evolving as virtualization grows

// December 30th, 2010 // 1 Comment » // Cloud Computing, Enterprise content management, Government, Healthcare, Insurance, Software as a Service // Glenn Gibson

Just when you thought it was safe to get back to work, your IT world is changing again. Or at the very least evolving.

It’s been doing so since at least 2008, when Gartner, the well-known information technology research and analyst firm, spotlighted one trend, which it calls “the highest-impact issue, changing how organizations plan, buy, deploy and manage IT through 2012.”

And that’s virtualization.

It sounds a bit Matrix-y, and that’s okay, because it is in a way.  Virtualization refers to the virtual rendering of an actual thing, like an operating system, storage device, server and so forth. Your employees encounter it most often when they’re running virtual desktops from their computers at home.

If you’re avoiding it, you might want to rethink your approach. Agile businesses are moving quickly to adopt virtualization, allowing their employees to access information anywhere, anytime with any device. Powerful, powerful stuff, as workforces become more nimble, mobile and spread out. WiFi, 3G, 4G, smartphones and tablets connect workers to their work – and each other – like never before. And virtualization is letting it happen.

As IT infrastructure and datacenter strategy moves toward this new reality ­­­– and we believe it is a reality that’s here to stay – more and more companies will rely on vendors who have the virtualization experience and understanding needed to support their long-term business goals.

We’re so sure this is one of the main avenues business IT is heading down, Hyland regularly updates its virtualization support statement to underscore our commitment to making OnBase run seamlessly on our customers’ virtual infrastructure. And it’s why we find maintaining our VMware ready and Citrix ready certifications so important.

And it’s not just talk. 

Hyland’s own Software as a Service solution, OnBase OnLine, runs almost entirely on virtualized servers hosted by VMware ESX Server.  Many of our customers also host their OnBase solution on virtualized servers. 

One customer runs 30 physical VMware ESX Servers which host ample virtualized servers, providing a server environment that can sustain some 22,000 users. 

So there you have it. Virtualization is the future. And the future is already here.

Investing for the long term: Putting the “E” in ECM

// September 15th, 2010 // 1 Comment » // Document Management, Enterprise content management, Healthcare, Insurance // Kaitlin McCready

Have you heard the buzz around electronic health records? It’s all about the need to put the oftentimes paper patient records and data into electronic format.

That’s all well and good, but what about the rest of the healthcare organization? Much like most businesses, there are administrative functions like HR and AP that also have plenty of processes and content that needs to be managed.

While the media is only talking about the patient record side of things, I was relieved today when talking with a large healthcare delivery network. The woman I chatted with said that while they’re starting with ECM on the clinical side, one of their major requirements was choosing an ECM solution with the ability to extend to the rest of the organization.

In other words, a departmental document management system simply didn’t offer enough value for the long term to justify the investment.

This just isn’t in healthcare though. Check out the video I took from today’s general session:

 The gentleman in the video works in the IT department of an insurance company. Much like the healthcare provider starting out with ECM on the clinical side, he was first using ECM with the underwriting process. But even from the get-go, he acknowledged that any good ECM solution should have the ability to go beyond one or two departments.

Check out other updates that didn’t make the blog from @HylandSoftware on Twitter with the #OTTC hashtag.

Best of Breed is the Best Approach for Insurance Document Management

// May 7th, 2010 // No Comments » // Insurance // Eric Willis

How many of you have purchased a new policy administration or claims management system from a vendor that said, “Oh, you don’t need an ECM system, we have built-in document management…”

Now I’m not going to say that they’re lying, but there’s a HUGE difference between just manually attaching an electronic image to a policy detail screen or an activity record and truly managing the content across your enterprise. So, here’s a quick top 10 of questions to ask your vendor when they say you don’t need an ECM system:

1. Can I scan my inbound mail directly into your system?
2. Will I have the ability to automatically connect new documents to a policy or claim?
3. How do I know if I am missing any documentation for a transaction?
4. Can I implement my records management strategy into your system?
5. Where do I store all of my accounts payable or human resources documents?
6. If I want to see claims documents from my policy screen, do I have to make copies?
7. When exceptions occur what do I do – is that now a manual process?
8. How do I provide access to documentation if legal doesn’t have rights to the claims system?
9. Is there a way to search for images if I’m not on a specific record?
10. Can you automatically notify our agents when they don’t send all the required documents?

Trust me – they shouldn’t be able to answer many of these questions very well, because that’s not what their system is designed to do.

This week I was actually down at the inaugural Duck Creek Insurance Forum in Charleston, SC and finally talked with another ISV that gets it – you can’t solve your customer’s problem when your technology’s not designed to solve their problem.

They understand that their core competency is to deliver a state-of-the-art policy administration system – not document management. Yes, Duck Creek has a document management component, but they know in order to provide a best of breed approach for their customers – they need to partner with other ISVs.

Hopefully this trend will continue with other policy administration and claims management vendors, but remember to keep the questions above in mind…

Core Values of ECM Meet Top Insurance Software Issues

// April 19th, 2010 // No Comments » // Insurance // Eric Willis

Last week Insurance Networking News published a news story regarding the release of new research from the firm, Strategy Meets Action (SMA). The research comes from over 100 hours of interviews with insurance executives and focuses on the top 10 issues facing insurers in 2010.

I was excited to see the results from SMA because several of the top 10 fit right into the core values ECM brings to insurance organizations – several of which we have already discussed through this blog. Three of the issues that hit closest to home are:
    
     #6 – Apply smarts to underwriting
     #8 – Holistically link customer communication
     #9 – Benefit from business optimization

Apply Smarts to Underwriting
One of the guiding fundamentals of ECM for insurance companies is the ability to enforce your underwriting guidelines and business rules throughout your process. Now, I’m not saying that an ECM system is going to replace your policy admin. system or your rating engine. On the contrary, ECM is a complementary technology that allows you to book new business faster and more accurately than your competition – without sacrificing risk tolerance.

Holistically Link Customer Communication
From the outside the differences between Customer Correspondence Management (CCM) and ECM can be hard to see; however, ECM applications bring value on two fronts. Many ECM applications provide the ability to generate and store customer communication, but more importantly they provide the ability to link communications with all other content related to a policyholder (correspondence, applications, declaration pages, notices of loss, estimates, interviews, etc.). This really gives policyholder services the ability to have a true holistic view of a customer.

Benefit From Business Optimization
Ever insurer wants to do more with less and ECM is one of the technologies that allows them to do that. I continually hear from prospects, “we need to figure out how to reduce our cycle times and take advantage of the economic recovery.” The key to doing this is to optimize your business processes. People think of ECM as just document management or imaging – but I’m here to tell you it does much more. ECM can be used to not just store content related to the transaction, but to process the transaction and even to manage the process itself.

I hope you can see that ECM can be one technology that can make an impact across multiple areas. Thanks to Deb Smallwood and her team of researchers – I look forward to your next report…