P&C insurance companies today are in a highly competitivesituation as customers have more options and purchasing power thanever.

Consumers have access to an enormous amount of informationthrough online research and social mediarecommendations, and can obtain quotes and buy policies withoutever talking to an agent. In fact, Deloitte surveyed small-businessconsumers and found that one in five would be very likely to buyinsurance direct from carriers over the Web if given thatopportunity.

Increased competition and policy shopping online have decreasedcustomer loyalty, making customer communications and engagementmore important than ever. Also, consumers now demand real-time,personalized customer service and support. To embrace thisevolution, P&C insurers are increasing efforts to digitize andautomate customer-related business processes.

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When agents have access to the latest customer data at theirfingertips, they can guide a more informed conversation with aclient about recent claims and account status, and offerappropriate proactive services. By improving access to customerdata for agents, P&C insurers are finding that they can notonly improve customer satisfaction but also underwritingprofitability.   

Cyber and data security

As insurers digitize customer information, cyber and datasecurity concerns come into question. Safeguarding data is becomingmore and more essential to operations since insurers collect, storeand transmit personal information. Concern over data breaches couldlead to loss of trust by consumers, partners and otherstakeholders, as well as considerable legal and financialliabilities.

Overall, there are a number of trends and challenges insurancecompanies are facing. According to a 2014 PricewaterhouseCoopersurvey, 86% of insurance CEOs believe technology will transformbusiness in the next five years; therefore embracing and utilizingtechnology is a necessity to not only survive, but thrive.

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Enterprise content management

Enterprise content management (ECM) platforms help organizationssolve these types of business problems by digitizing, processingand enabling sharing of content in a secure system. Benefits ofcontent management and workflow technology includes:

• Customer knowledge: Document technology notonly helps organizations digitize and optimize their procedures, itallows them to sort, mine and manage data for valuable insights andpatterns to solve customer issues and predict futurebehaviors.
• Digitization: ECM platforms give insurancecompanies the ability to streamline manual, paper-intensive claimsmanagement activities. Digitizing documents will let agents accessinformation at any time to optimize everyday procedures for bettercustomer service. In fact, Harvard Business Review foundthat with a well-designed digitization program insurers can reduceturnaround times by 90% on key insurance processes.
• Cost savings: Along with automation anddigitization comes a significant cost savings. In the same study,Harvard Business Review discovered that digitization canreduce operational costs by 65%, a very important aspect forinsurance companies who are continually looking for ways to drivecosts down.
• Automation: According to Cognizant,underwriters spend at least 15% of their time simply validating andpreparing data to be submitted. By streamlining manual, paper-basedprocesses and finding ways to automatically route customer requestsand transactions to the correct departments, insurers can increasethe efficiency and accuracy of every transaction. This gives agentsa chance to focus on what matters most — thecustomer. 
• Security: According to an Accenture reportthat surveyed more than 450 senior risk-management executives inthe banking, capital markets and insurance industries, roughlytwo-thirds (65%) said that cyber and IT-related risks would have anincreased impact on their business through 2015, with 25% callingthat increase "significant." ECM technology can increase document,device and network security to protect customers' vital personalinformation. With security breaches in the headlines every day,it's important for companies to develop a plan, and communicatetheir protection activities to ease concerns.
• Compliance: Monitoring agent activities toensure activity is compliant to industry regulations is a timeconsuming process. Increasingly, regulations require a higherdegree of automation and scalability, and investments in ECMtechnology can help insurers develop content management rules basedon governance policies for improved lifecycle management, and audittrail reporting to successfully meet today's growingregulations.

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Deploying innovative technology

Understanding the benefits of technology is a crucial startingpoint, but success relies on proper implementation. Workplacechanges can cause anxiety for agents, therefore it's important todevelop an execution and change management plan to ensure agentsunderstand the importance of the technology and can use thefeatures correctly so it is beneficial to everyone.

Here are few important steps to keep in mind when using newtechnology in the P&C industry:

• Step 1: Analyze internal processes to see whatcan be optimized.
• Step 2: Include agents in the changemanagement process from start to finish. They are the ones usingthe technology and their insight is invaluable. Including themthroughout the process — from research to implementation— will make them invested in the solution and they will bedetermined to make it work.
• Step 3: Find software that is agile andflexible. Every company's workflow is different, thereforecustomization is important. Investing in a content managementplatform that can be easily configured and personalized to meetagents' needs will help departments realize benefits immediately.The user interface should also be adapted based on daily processesand easy to manage to ensure agents are able to make changeswithout the support of IT.
• Step 4: Don't bite off more than you can chew.It's important to take a phased approach when deploying newtechnology so the transformation is more attainable and employeesdon't get overwhelmed and give up. Once you successfully automate acertain process, it's easy to use the lessons learned to develop aplan for other procedures or departments.

It's an exciting time for P&C insurers, thanks to technologyadvancements, and now is the time to identify how agents canbenefit from content management solutions that streamlineprocesses, increase security and improve customer satisfaction.Forgoing innovation and staying stagnant will impact agents,customers and ultimately profitability.

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Andy Jones is part of the Large Enterprise Operations GlobalSenior Leadership Team for Norwalk, Conn.-based business servicesand document managment company Xerox.