Imaging: Changing the way we do business

Digital storage reduces paperwork and increases customer service productivity

Imaging is radically transforming the way we do business today. By definition, "imaging" is the process of scanning documents and storing them in digital format. It makes information immediately available, which saves us time and allows us to focus more on our core mission: customer service and communication.

At a time when most agencies are drowning in extra paperwork, our agency, Hotchkiss Insurance Agency, Inc., is benefiting from the use of imaging-a development that has reduced the time needed to get an account out to market by at least 75%! And that is not a manager's estimation; it is the consensus of the people actually doing the work. According to Diane Thompson, director of marketing for Hotchkiss: "The use of imaging has cut the time needed to get a submission out to multiple markets from sometimes days to just a few minutes. We can scan underwriting information such as loss runs, experience modifier worksheets, and any other items needed, then fax or e-mail them with our applications and narratives to numerous carriers from our desktop with just a few clicks. This means that we no longer have to stand over fax machines all day fighting paper jams, resending faxes when all the pages don't get sent, and trying to figure out which faxes went through and which did not."

The imaging journey

Our imaging journey at Hotchkiss began with the desire to improve staff efficiency in order to provide better customer service and communication. It continued with the transition from the traditional paper filing system to transactional or t-filing. The next progression went from t-filing to imaging and e-filing. While we like to think that we utilize Applied System's TAM product more than most agencies (we have to, since our customer base is comprised mostly of "high touch" contractors), we are never satisfied with our progress and are always looking for ways to take our operation to the next level.

We've read and been told over the years that every time someone gets up from a desk, whether to get a file, send or receive faxes, or even to get a cup of coffee, that person loses an average of seven minutes of productivity. I believe that. In fact, I think that number is low. Whatever the number, a few minutes here and there may not seem like a big deal. But multiple trips by multiple people for any length of time do add up to a lot of lost time, as much as a part-time or even full-time employee for most offices. To get a feel for why people were away from their desks, we simply took notice of the heavier traffic areas in the office-places where pretty much every time we walked by, people were present.

I doubt that anyone who has spent much time in an agency would be surprised to find that the top two traffic areas were the fax machines and the filing cabinets. Since we weren't yet ready to go paperless and eliminate the filing cabinets, we focused on the faxes.

Every person in our office has the capability to fax from his or her desktop through Applied Systems' Fax@vantage program. So why were people still using the fax machines to send submissions to carriers? Because they had to send more than just the applications and narratives to the carriers, they were printing out these items, and then adding the loss runs, company-specific applications, and any other supporting documentation before faxing them to the various carriers.

The desktop faxing helped only if everything they were faxing was already in their computer. So, how could we get those other pieces of information into their computers, allowing them to fax everything without having to walk over to a fax machine?

Personal scanners to the rescue

After talking to other agencies about scanning, we decided to purchase Visioneer sheet-fed scanners for every account manager. At a cost of $250 each, they did not seem cheap at the time, but they have paid for themselves over and over again. The staff took to them right away, competing with each other to see who could get more submissions out faster and finding other ways to be more efficient using this new tool. Those little personal scanners were a great entry into imaging for us, but after time, we realized we needed to do more.

Since we had not integrated the sheet-fed scanners with TAM, the images were not attached to the clients' files. Instead, they were kept only on each user's local computer. After a year or so, our staff asked us for additional imaging capabilities. Namely, they grew to want those images attached to the clients within TAM so that they could be retrieved instantly from any desk in the office, just as they could with any other part of a client's file.

After months of research, we finally settled on the eTfile program by Apres Systems. This program integrates with TAM via barcodes that are printed by the staff as they work the paper. Each department has an imaging file into which they place that day's work. It is collected at the end of the day by the person responsible for scanning, who then feeds the items into a high-speed, duplex scanner the next day. By lunch, the previous day's images are available through the Images button in TAM.

There is even an OCR (Optical Character Recognition) feature in eTfile, enabling us to search all stored images by policy number, VIN, or even just a customer name. This is very helpful in case an item is attached to the wrong customer. In addition to our daily imaging, we brought in two temporary employees to scan our transactional files from the last two years, saving our agency tens of thousands of dollars over the course of our lease when we move to a new location later this year.

How CSRs benefit

So far, not one item attached to a client via imaging has had to be retrieved from the paper file. And the staff likes it more every day. Margot Garcia, an account manager in our homebuilder department, explains: "Coming from an agency that did not scan, I think imaging is a big help because the information we need is right at our fingertips. We save a lot of time by not having to get up to find the information. Plus, we don't have stacks of files and paper on and around our desk because everything we need is in the computer."

Cheryl Goeser, who has handled our reports desk consisting of over 800 monthly builders risk reports, says that "for reporting forms, imaging really makes life easier since we can pull up the actual report signed by the insured. In the past, we would enter the information from the customers' reports into a spreadsheet attached to the client file in TAM. Any discrepancy resulted in our having to pull the original paper report. Now, we can answer the customers' and carriers' questions right at our desk."

Imaging has also meant that we no longer have to make copies of each client's monthly report for submission to the carrier. It is simply invoiced and imaged. Then all reports for a given carrier for a given month are e-mailed directly to the report desk at the carrier. And, if they want a copy of a previous month's report, it can easily be faxed or e-mailed to them directly from the image in the customer's computer file.

In addition to the ease of retrieving information, we are also finding productivity gains by no longer entering some information into our database. Instead, we can rely on the images themselves for that data. Claims Manager Sherri Sanders has discovered that imaging has been a tremendous help in the claims department. "Imaging has eliminated time-consuming data entry when processing mail and reporting new losses. We no longer have to duplicate specific types of information in the claim detail screens because the suits, repair estimates, written statements, etc., are right at our fingertips should we ever have to refer back to them," she explains.

Sharon McLaughlin, senior account manager, sums up best what imaging has meant to our agency. "I think it is really the culmination of what we have been trying to accomplish here in regard to making the computer our first and primary source of information. Transactional filing helped us as an agency to get away from having two files for each customer-the paper file and the computer file. Now that we can view 100% of all client information on our desktops, more of us are viewing the computer as what it should be: our assistant that helps us get away from paper and puts our focus where it belongs, on our customers."

How everyone benefits

Imaging has been an operational initiative that is a win-win-win equation. Management is pleased with numerous operational efficiencies, including increased productivity and the need for less office space. The staff is happier (as much as they can be in a hard market!) because the imaging process is easy to use, helps them solve problems and answer questions faster, and gives them a sense of pride in being part of such a "high-tech" operation. Finally, and most important, our customers should be happier because our staff is able to not only answer more questions right away, but because they have more time to devote to those core duties that keep our doors open-service and communication. These, by the way, are the agency cornerstones that we plan to take to a higher level in 2003.

The author Robert E. "Robby" Dunn III, CIC, is vice president and agency manager with Hotchkiss Insurance Agency, Inc., in Houston, Texas. He is a faculty member for

The National Alliance for Insurance Education & Research, and the author of the 1998 Academy monograph, Transactional Filing, An Integrated Approach. Contributing authors to this column are employees, faculty members or participants with the National Alliance. For more information on The National Alliance programs, call (800) 633-2165, or go to www.scic.com.

Copyright Rough Notes Co., Inc. Mar 2003
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