There are dozens of ways to contact the people we work withsomejust work more effectively than others. You can shout to someone inthe next cube, but that doesnt work well for someone in a differentoffice. You can send that person e-mail, but if he only checks hisinbox once a day, you might be waiting 24 hours for a reply. Youcould call him, but some people dont want to be bothered by thephone, and let all calls go to voice mail. You can fax someone andhope theres paper in the tray on the other end of the line (andthat the printout gets delivered). You can place your trust in theU.S. Postal Service or any number of overnight delivery services,and have to choose between speed and cost.

We could list all the things that could possibly go wrong whenyoure trying to communicate with your employees, partners, orcustomers, but you probably already know the limitations of thesecommunication tools. Depending on your business (and some luck),some work and some dont. And what works well for some companies maybe a disaster for another. Finding something that works is whatmakes a company successful.

No carrier is an island. More than ever, its important toconnect to your employees (both in and out of the office),customers, agents and brokers, and the ever-growing number ofbusiness partnersthird-party providers of software and services.And that means more than exchanging messages. Sometimes it meansgiving these outsiders access to your corporate data; a billingprovider needs to know who to bill, for instance. The result is ajuggling act: You can make access simple, fast, or safepick anytwo.

Mail Call

Bill Kenney is CIO of Colony Insurance Group, a member of theArgonaut Groupan E&S insurer working with MGAs, half of whichhave binding authority. Like most insurers, Colony needed to find away to send copies of its policies to the MGAs, and to keep them upto date on loss runs and claims. Colonys solution was to use itsWeb site, to give the MGAs access to the important data they need.Policies are now sent by e-mail to the MGAs offices. They love it,Kenney said, although he added, Except for a few who still like toprint everything out. They come back to us and say, Why dont youjust send us a print copy?

Those people are living in the past. One of the reasons is thatinsurance agents, TPAs, and the carriers are savvier than they usedto beand less willing to wait for things. The whole industry isgetting more sophisticated, Kenney agreed.

Colony likes the electronic version of its policies. It used tosend out four or five copies of a 45-page policy to the MGAs viathe U.S. Mail. You send out 20 or 30 of those a day, and thepostage expense piles up, Kenney said. The company doesnt haveabsolute faith in the e-mail system, though. For each policy fileit sends out, it also sends a fax to the broker to make sure thee-mail came through. Convoluted? Maybe. But still faster and lessexpensive than the old way. It doesnt make much sense to sendanother e-mail asking them if they got the previous e-mail, Kenneysaid. The dollar savings on postage are obvious, but the otherbenefits will likely add up to more for Colony. The biggest key isthe service aspect, Kenney said. The MGA gets the policy the sameday we issue it.

Colony takes certain steps to address issues of security. Wedont send out any e-mail that is unauthorized, Kenny explained. Wedont attach more than one policy per e-mail, either, even if wehave several policies going to the same MGA that day. Each messageis sent via a password-protected .ZIP file. While there areconcerns about e-mail security, Kenney said that the current systemseems to work OK. (Most built-in password systems are notoriouslyeasy to crack with software like Passware at www.lostpassword.com.) Colony iscurrently testing PGP and its Outlook plug-in as a significantlymore secure alternative.

Kenney knows better than to be completely satisfied with anycommunication tool. Hes working on a secure site for each MGA onthe Colony Web site. There are pluses and minuses to this, though.Instead of us dragging it out to [the MGAs], they have to come toour site to get the information, he said. Not surprisingly, Kenneyfeels this would be easier for his staff, while the MGAs he dealswith think that is one more task for them that the carrier shouldsupply.

Agents who go to the site can find their monthly sales figuresin a private folder. (Colony intends to put loss runs in thosefolders as well, but thats in the beta testing phase.) They cankeep track of their customers claims, a process that used torequire a phone call. Kenney said the company used to receive phonecalls on claims all day long, so it decided to abandon thatpractice. We dont take any phone calls on claims now, he said. Sucha drastic change caused some hard feelings among the MGAs, butColony is happy with the results.

Share and Share Alike

Ron Young is general manager of software vendor Siebel, comingto the company after 20 years with Nationwide. Siebel was lookingto develop applications for specific industries and its sales forceautomation tool was a key component.

Young knows from his days with Nationwide that not all insurerscommunicate the same way with their agents. Nationwide employs acaptive force, while others use independent agents. The differenceis critical when a company decides how much data to provide thoseagents. Captive agents, selling only one companys products, willnaturally get more access to the database to track leads and tofind more cross- or up-selling opportunities. Independent agents,on the other hand, need to be kept more at arms length,data-wisetheyre less likely to get the type of sales tips that thecaptive agent would receive.

Of course this goes both ways as well: The independents dontprovide as much information to the carrier, either, Young said. Forexample, they rarely provide a detailed profile of the customer,information for tracking the household, or data for a needsanalysis. An independent agent would pretty much keep that tohimself, Young said.

From Youngs perspective, its the carriers that benefit most fromsharing data. Until the data are gathered, all an insurance companyreally knows about its customers are their names, addresses, andpolicy numbers. The agent becomes the source of customer-centricdata, he said. [Agents] know what a customer is interested in andwhat hes not interested in. Carriers just dont have thatinformation.

Where should a carrier start? First off, dont just give a pileof technology to an agent and expect smooth sailing. You need toimplement a solution over time, he said. The worst thing to do isto drop all that technology into their laps.

The key is to make the exchange of information comfortable. Youwant to enrich their job with technology, not make it harder, Youngsaid. Give them something of value, he saidleads, businessanalysis, campaigns within the agency, products to cross-sell.

Ron Young believes most of the concerns about the security ofdata come from the agent side. And they arent worried abouthackers. They worry that another agent may glean that information,he said. Carriers have to work hard to make sure that doesnthappen.

Security is important in sharing claims data as well,particularly with an independent agent who may have more loyalty tothe customer than the carrier. Agents dont need all the informationthat goes into a claims file, he said. Access to the status ofclaims is important from a customer service aspect, but knowing,for example, how much a carrier is willing to pay for a claim canbe tempting to an agent who often serves as an advisor to theclient.

As for the claims staff, Young believes carriers need to focuson tools that can make their jobs easier and less harried. Thatmight include automated follow-up correspondence or a system thatallows claims reps to enter and make payments. If it doesnt havevalue for the users, it will get less acceptance, he said.

Communication Skills

Paul Young (no relation) said the value in communication is allabout getting information to the agent. As strategic initiativesmanager for service industries with SAP, hes heard plenty of horrorstories about lapses in communication. Many of those come when thecustomer communicates with the carrier via a call center or theInternet, but the agent is left out of the loop. Customers makechanges in their coverage and the agent doesnt even know about it,he explained.

Carriers reap the benefits of good communication in two areas,Young said: agents and claims. With agents, you have to make iteasy to do business with them, Young said. Many of the insuranceproducts have become commoditized, so its not about costs, butmaking agents want to work with your company.

Agents dont need to know every detail about every customer, butPaul said that agents do need to communicate with the carrier aboutthe data they would like to receive on specific customers. That isthe message we hear, he said. Things happen to the customer andtheir agent isnt aware of them. Young agrees that the communicationbetween independent agents and carriers is limited by the carriersdesire to hold back a little data for themselves. They want toshare, but not over share, he said.

As for the claims corps, unless theyre mobile-enabled, they needto return to the office to find out what other departments aredoing with the claims theyve submitted. Customers will be askingthem. They need information that will allow them to respond toneeds quickly, Young said. He pointed to a study done last year byForrester Research that reported the average length of anautomobile claim was 22 daysand that 14 of those days werevirtually wasted with nothing being done. The ability tocommunicate among all sides can cut that number of days downdrastically, he said. One way to do that is by giving claims repsthe ability to connect to the home office when theyre on the road,either with or without wires. If the claim is only on the desktop,you cant achieve all thats needed, Young said.

Helping Them Adjust

Mitchell International is an industry leader in the area ofclaims technology, so its not surprising that Steve Ramirez, thecompanys senior director of market planning for e-business,describes the handling of claims as a very complex process. Ascosts are rising, companies are constantly looking for ways toreduce expenses; claims is obviously the place to go.

A look at the old fashioned way claims were handled (or, in somecases, are still being handled) illustrates the inefficiencies thatmobile communications can solve:

A claims rep would drive to her office, pick up her assignments,drive to the sites, do what she needed to do, and return to theoffice. The process seems almost quaint in 2002. According toRamirez, wireless applications allow an agent to get herassignments before leaving home, drive to the site, and enterappraisal and any documentation into an application that send theinformation (wirelessly) to the claims folder on the system at thehome office. Once one assignment is done, she can look for her nextone without wasting time in the car.

Wireless connections allow appraisers to up their productivityby an average of one to one-and-a-half appraisals per day,according to Ramirez. Thats significant when theyre daily count isfour or fiveits an increase of 20 to 25 percent. That differencecan mean a huge savings in labor over the course of a year. AsRamirez put it, the elimination of a single appraiser position canamount to $85,000 to $90,000 a year when you factor in salary,taxes, benefits, and expenses. Even disregarding the labor issue,Real time access to a claims status just makes good businesssense.

Connecting to external users is not a problem that allindustries face, but is certainly the backbone of insurance. Howwell data are exchanged between agents and carriers, claimsadjusters and carriers, and whoever else is out there looking tocommunicate with you is the difference between success and failure.Some carriers do it better than others. Youll know who they are bythe improvements youll see in their annual reports and by thenumber of agents and adjusters looking to do business withthem.

Inspire: www.nspr.com

Mitchell International: www.mitchell.com

SAP: www.mysap.com

Siebel: www.siebel.com