In today's challenging market, insurance companies are seeking creative ways to reduce costs without compromising all-important customer service levels. As part of such efforts, many are taking a hard look at their information technology infrastructure and focusing on system consolidation across the enterprise–including their document production systems.

In many insurance companies, it is not uncommon to find more than 20 document production systems spread across the enterprise, often doing very similar work.

For example, a company's personal auto department may use one system to create identification cards, another to create policy pages, a third system to create bills and still another to produce business marketing materials.

Further complicating the picture, the company's individual life, group life and commercial property departments may have their own sets of document automation systems. This scattered approach drives up IT costs and complexity, and makes it difficult to maintain a consistent look and feel for materials produced across the organization.

Several factors have contributed to the creation of these complicated environments.

In most insurance companies, individual business units historically have selected their own IT systems independent of a centralized strategy. This approach may have allowed the business units to meet their own individual needs but has driven up costs across the enterprise.

Merger and acquisition activity in the insurance industry in recent years also has caused siloed systems to proliferate.

Consolidating multiple legacy document automation systems onto a single document production platform offers several important business benefits for insurance companies, including:

o Reducing IT complexity and costs:

The point-system approach to document automation increases IT complexity and drives up costs associated with licensing and maintaining numerous systems across the enterprise. With a single, centralized platform, carriers can greatly reduce the time and money previously spent on maintenance for multiple systems.

By reducing the time IT staff must spend on routine maintenance tasks, carriers can redeploy these internal resources to more strategic, value-adding activities.

o Facilitating regulatory compliance:

Insurance is a highly regulated industry, as are the documents that support insurance products and marketing practices. Multiple point systems across an enterprise make it difficult to ensure the accuracy of information throughout the various platforms and increase an insurer's vulnerability to compliance violations.

By consolidating onto a single document production platform, insurers can reduce their risk by minimizing the number of touch points required when responding to regulatory requirements.

o Optimizing customer communication:

Insurers that rely on disparate point systems often struggle to ensure a consistent look and feel for documents produced across the enterprise. With a single, centralized document production platform, insurers can communicate their brand and message in a consistent manner, both internally and externally.

In addition, an integrated platform provides the flexibility to leverage new channels of customer interaction–such as text messages or e-mail. This allows insurers to provide customers with information via their preferred communication modes and helps promote improved service satisfaction.

After making the decision to migrate to a consolidated document production system, insurers should consider the following priorities and requirements to maximize business benefits, ensure consistent support across all types of output and maintain the flexibility required to adjust to new requirements.

o Lead with business considerations.

It is important for insurers to let the business drivers help guide the selection process for an integrated document publishing platform. This approach involves collaboration between IT and the operating units to ensure that technology selections support the business needs of each division, as well as align with the company's overall IT strategy.

Insurers should look for systems that deliver the widest breadth of functionality–business users should never have to compromise their requirements for the good of IT.

A consolidated platform should promote efficiency while providing the flexibility needed to tailor user interfaces and functionality to the particular needs of each department or line of business.

Recent analyst research has identified three distinct types of output required for full breadth of functionality–structured, interactive and on-demand. Insurers should look for solutions that deliver strong results across all three areas.

o Support tomorrow's business today.

It is important to consider a document automation system that can support the business today and tomorrow. Insurers need to keep in mind where the business is going, to ensure that the system has the scalability to support the volume anticipated after the initial implementation is complete, as well as future company growth or possible expansion into new lines of business.

In addition, one of the keys in selecting a new solution is that it needs to be easier and faster for customers to put products into production.

o Employ an open and service-oriented architecture approach.

From an architecture perspective, insurers will be well-served to pursue an open and service-oriented approach when selecting a consolidated document publishing platform.

By employing an open architecture, insurers can maintain the flexibility to add, remove or extend system components and reuse services efficiently. This allows insurers to easily expand and adjust functionality as the business changes.

Insurers can also loosely integrate document management with other enterprise systems–such as policy administration and customer relationship management–to further increase operational efficiency and minimize data entry efforts.

o Deliver comprehensive, industry-specific support.

To ensure optimal benefits, a consolidated document automation system must pair comprehensive functionality with industry-specific workflows. Insurers require a consolidated platform that can support the business' current and anticipated document needs.

An industry-specific solution will provide insurers with familiar workflows to support user adoption across the enterprise–a critical component to maximizing potential efficiencies and cost savings.

Another such critical component is the ability to migrate easily from the legacy platforms most commonly found within the insurance enterprise, and the ability to be run from the widest possible array of data sources.

REAL-WORLD RESULTS

Industry-leading organizations are beginning to realize the benefits of consolidating document production operations across the enterprise.

Recently, a top-five global insurance company decided to pursue a consolidated approach to document management to reduce costs and promote business growth.

Plagued by the expenses of returned mail and excess print collateral as a result of inaccurate and outdated data, the insurer decided to streamline its document management functions. By consolidating onto an enterprisewide platform, the carrier is:

o Creating a centralized output function and standardized, enterprisewide processes.

o Reducing print document volumes.

o Converting select document types to electronic format.

o Reducing mail return rates with access to accurate, up-to-date information.

As a result of its consolidation efforts, the company anticipates an 18 percent reduction in document output costs this year.

Implementing an integrated document production platform is a first step for insurers to set their business on the path to optimizing cost efficiency.

To ensure that the business will reap the potential rewards, business and IT leaders must work together to design and provide training that empowers business users with the necessary knowledge to understand and utilize the new system within their respective lines of business.

Armed with the confidence and ability to leverage the full capabilities of the system, insurers will be well on their way to realizing the cost savings and improved customer service benefits afforded by a consolidated approach to document production.

Karin Jessop (karin.jessop@oracle.com) is senior product manager for Oracle Insurance in Atlanta, and Jill Davidson (jill.davidson@oracle.com) is senior industry strategist for Oracle in Toronto, Canada.

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