When a customer has a claim pending and wants to know its status, where does he turn? Does he call the carrier, hoping to find someone with a friendly voice who can find an answer without leaving him on hold for 25 minutes? Or does he want to call his agent-the guy who lives two blocks over and has been selling him policies for years? Not a tough question.

But the carriers might prefer you do the former, even as they know the real answer is the latter. Premier Insurance Co. of Massachusetts figured this out and decided to do something that would help its independent agents keep their customers up to date with the claims process.

Desiree Darch, Internet manager for Premier, said her company needed a real-time solution to allow agents to answer routine claims questions from its insureds.

Premier is owned by Travelers Insurance (www.travelers.com) and offers auto and homeowners coverage in Massachusetts. It uses a sales force of approximately 425 independent agents to sell its policies.
Premier looked at five software providers to provide a solution it decided to commit to Intelligent Environments and its iE Integrator product.

"IE came to us with a comprehensive proposal," Darch said. "Rather than simply offering us a product, it was interested in working with us to solve our problems. It learned our claims system, assisted in creating a vision for the future, and built a prototype."

The builders from iE worked closely with Premier's staff to achieve the best solutions to the carrier's problems. "They met with our people in claims and other departments to find out what the agents were looking for," said Darch. "They also invited agents in to review their plans and offer some suggestions."

Those suggestions proved to be fruitful. "They suggested that we put instructions online for the agents," Darch said. "The more they understood the system, the easier it would be to use."

Another suggestion was for what Darch called "hover helps." She explained: "If the program brought up an claims term, a pop-up box would appear to explain the term."

Once the prototype was ready, the installation went smoothly, Darch said. "Other than one minor configuration conflict that was solved when building the prototype, we didn't have any serious issues," she said. "It is interesting to note that when implementing an application like this you sometimes find little-known transactions with your own source system." As an example, she said the claims department had a 'transient' status. During telephone conversations, the claims rep could accommodate for this, but not over the Internet.

The installation took about a month, including time to test the system and simulate high-volume usage. There was basically no training, Darch said. An announcement was sent to agents about what to look for and pointing them to the instructions on the Web page. There have been no problems either with the agents or the system.

The company is getting almost 100 hits a day with claims inquiries while telephone inquiries have decreased significantly. "The agents now have a tool in their hands to improve customer service. We are very pleased with the results," Darch said.

The iE Integrator application is a part of the Intelligent Environments NetFinance program which the company says can help insurers improve their entire e-commerce agenda. Premier hasn't committed to any further use of the NetFinance solution, but Darch said other applications are "under review."

THE COMPANY: PREMIER INSURANCE CO. OF MASSACHUSETTS
NET WRITTEN PREMIUM: $275 MILLION
WEB SITE: www.premierins.com

THE PRODUCT: iE INTEGRATOR FROM INTELLIGENT ENVIRONMENTS
WEB SITE: www.ie.com

Special Reports /

Premier Insurance Co. of Massachusetts/ Intelligent Environments

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