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"Document Solution Helps Insurer Reach
Clients via the Web"
by Darry Stansbury
BF&M Insurance Group is an insurance company
based in Hamilton, Bermuda, that provides both personal
and business lines of insurance to customers in Bermuda.
BF&M has plans that cover insuring your Bermuda
bicycle to hurricane insurance and health insurance.
Given these varied lines of business, BF&M found
itself having to manage 14 different form types in 47
different printer drawers.
Additionally, BF&M management decided that a most
important strategic initiative for 2002 was to improve
its customer service via electronic communications. This
was because of the company's awareness of the statistic,
confirmed by Bermuda's government, that 67 percent of
Bermuda households had access to the Internet in 2002
and that percentage was expected to increase to near 80
percent by 2005. BF&M realized it was important to
distribute communications electronically through its Web
site and e-mail in order to reach its potential customer
base most effectively.
BF&M's Web site runs on an iSeries model 270 with
backend communication to a production iSeries model 820
that offers Web applications for policy quote, purchase,
and renewal services to customers. BF&M developed
its front-end Web applications using Computer
Associates' (CA's) Advantage/Plex and the backend
systems using CA's Advantage/2E (formerly Synon).
To respond to its perceived market needs, BF&M
launched a project in February 2003 designed to address
several document management issues, including an
increased level of service to external customers via
e-mail, fax, and print as well as reductions in
management, preprinted form, and printer costs.
"Our short-term objective was to improve
efficiencies in our current output strategies while, at
the same time, aiding our long-term e-business and
electronic objectives for the BF&M web site,"
recalls Nick Faries, BF&M's vice president of
e-business and technology solutions.
BF&M sent project requirements to a number of
print management software vendors. The project committee
evaluated alternatives ranging from tight integration
with iSeries output without application modifications to
archiving all print documents to Lotus Notes databases.
After considering several solutions, BF&M selected
Elite Document Solutions' eliteForm because of its tight
iSeries integration, ease of use, and Elite's
willingness to work with BF&M on long-term
objectives and costs.
The first phase of the project was to replace
preprinted forms and standardize document output to a
single printer model that could use plain paper.
BF&M implemented this phase gradually when it
depleted supplies of preprinted forms and deployed new
printers. After about six months, nearly all output at
BF&M was running through Elite's solutions.
Once that was completed, the project moved to a
second phase of addressing distribution of output via
e-mail. The project team, composed mainly of business
unit personnel, evaluated each standard company form for
e-mail distribution. As the team approved forms for
e-mail distribution, each form was converted and rolled
out.
Coincident with the e-mail distribution project
phase, BF&M undertook a telecommunications effort to
collect e-mail addresses from as many of its customers
as possible. The object was to realize print cost
savings by e-mailing documents to customers instead of
printing them for distribution by regular mail. A
BF&M cost/benefit analysis estimates annual savings
of more than $175,000 per year on this initiative alone.
An aggressive objective to communicate nonconfidential
documentation to 40 percent of BF&M's customers via
e-mail drives this project. Currently, BF&M has
collected e-mail addresses for nearly 20 percent of its
customers with personal lines of insurance.
When a customer receives a statement, the document
arrives via e-mail in Adobe Portable Document Format
(PDF) that's readable with Adobe Acrobat. EliteForm lets
BF&M link a graphic in the PDF form to the company's
login page URL. The graphic invites the customer to
"click here" to pay online at the Web site.
The objective is to improve customer service while at
the same time reducing costs in postage and mail staff
time.
"Our goal is to e-mail statements to our
customers so they can simply click on the e-mail message
and go directly to our Web site and pay for their
insurance. Many customers now manage their accounts on
the Internet and this will give us an opportunity to
better serve them," notes Kristina Soares,
application support and quality control specialist.
Using eliteForm's PC Designer tool, users can scan
and modify existing forms to the new standards for
output. For example, Figure
1 shows an original preprinted form and Figure
2 shows the same form as re-created via PC Designer.
BF&M's output standard requires that printed,
e-mailed, and archived documents all have the same look.
By using eliteForm, users can process a single spooled
file to determine whether the customer prefers a printed
copy or an e-mailed copy of a particular document. After
making this determination, the user can archive the
spooled file to Lotus Notes databases using APIs
integrated into eliteForm by Computer Configuration
Solutions, Inc., of Irvine, California.
The new solution lets BF&M customer service
representatives have access to the archive database to
reprint a document, directly e-mail it from Lotus Notes,
or fax the document using Captaris' RightFax when
customers request additional copies. Additionally,
internal documents that can't be re-created (e.g.,
month- and year-end reports) can be archived for future
reference.
"As we move forward with our E-Business
strategies, we want to ensure that BF&M maintains a
technology leadership role in Bermuda while addressing
the needs of our customers. Elite's tools are helping us
accomplish those goals," concludes Faries.
Darry Stansbury is president of Spanish
Peaks Computer Services of Trinidad, Colorado. Darry has
been providing integration and technical services for
IBM midrange customers since 1984. He can be reached by
phone at (719) 846-2068 or by e-mail at darry@starband.net.
About Elite Document Solutions, Inc.
Elite Document Solutions, Inc. (formerly FORMation
mg) provides e-document management solutions for the
iSeries enterprise. The company's solutions integrate
with enterprise applications to enhance the seamless
delivery of business-critical documents via laser
printer, e-mail, fax and web presentation. In addition
to its line of award-winning software solutions, Elite
Document Solutions, Inc. provides professional services
for e-document integration & product training,
printer consumables and Annual Software Maintenance
contracts.
For additional information, please contact:
Elite
Document Solutions, Inc.
23675 Birtcher Drive, Lake Forest, CA 92630
800-442-4027 Tel
949-951-4468 Fax
sales@elitedocuments.com
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