As connectivity becomes less of a problem throughout the UnitedStates, more insurers may be turning to wireless devices,particularly for claims adjusters, to speed up the claims cycle andimprove customer service. And with new uses and capabilities beingdeveloped, it might not be long before a sought- after wirelesskiller app makes land lines pass.

by Robert Regis Hyle

When insurance carriers close their eyes and look into thefuture, they see employees armed with laptops, able to reach outand communicate with others, free of any land lines that tie themto a desk. Thats hardly a dream for some insurers, particularly inthe property/casualty field, as more carriers are equipping theirclaims adjusters with wireless connections. While many companiesstill prefer to do their adjusting the old-fashioned way, theseold-school insurers may become viewed as industry ostriches, withheads firmly imbedded in the sand.
Connectivity is the key, and networks such as Verizon and Sprintare making that possible, not just in the major metropolitan areas,but throughout this big country. Dallas Oney, technical operationsengineer with Ohio Casualty Group, believes along with the steadilyimproving geographical coverage since Ohio Casualty began using itswireless system for claims adjusters, improvements have been seenin the speed of the network and utilization of IP-basedapplications. From my experience, the so-called killer app for 3Gnetworks is the everyday application that requires remote accessvia IP connectivity, he says.

Country Insurance & Financial Ser-vices has been usingwireless for five years, certainly a long time for any insurancecarrier. All of Countrys auto estimators in the field have wirelesslaptops, according to Greg Koester, manager, customer serviceoperations. We probably have 85 percent network coverage across thecountry, he points out.

Once you get the convergence of bigger networks, a relativelycost-effective price point, and these mobile VPNs, I think you aregoing to see almost universal adoption, says Peter Urbain, anexecutive consultant for mobility solutions with IBM. Id be hardpressed to see a claims handler without it by the middle of nextyear.

Todd Eyler, vice president in the insurance area for theconsultancy META Group, believes most insurers have more pressingproblems to deal with before worrying about a wireless system. Alot of the focus [with insurance IT budgets] is on stopping thebleeding, and then theyll look at big investments such asrenovating the core infrastructure, he says. Once [insurers] have awell-architected set of systems to add new kinds of interfaces,theyll be in a much better position, whether it means going with abrowser or a wireless application. Many carriers dont have theright systems environment to use wireless in the way they mightwant to use it.

Hook Them Up

Country first issued laptops to its appraisers in 1998 and ayear later went wireless, retrofitting the laptops with anintegrated wireless radio. The appraisers work out of an officesetting, checking in each morning to get their new assignments.Typically, they are assigned three to six claims cases a day.
When they reach their first assignment, the Country adjusters usean automated estimating program to begin the report, pull out adigital camera to get an image of the damage, and attach the imageto the estimate. When the first assignment is done, they can checkto see whether the next assignment has changed in the interim.

Country currently is operating with a slow network system,according to Koester, who explains it means uploading reportswirelessly can be time-consuming. If it is a total loss situationor something that is really urgent, they can upload the estimate tothe home office wirelessly, says Koester of his claims staff. Forless pressing claims, the appraisers dont upload until they returnto the office. When we move to our next generation of laptops laterthis year, well be looking at some high-speed networks to allow[the adjusters] full connectivityupload, download, estimates,photos, and surfing the Internet. However, he adds, regarding thecurrent setup, Its very stable and reliable for 99 percent of whatwe do. It suits the purpose perfectly well.
Ohio Casualty is ranked 45th among U.S. property/casualty insurancegroups based on net written premiums. Most of the carriersmultiline adjusters work out of their homes. The wirelessconnection keeps them in constant contact. They can writeestimates, submit pictures and attachments, and essentially stay incontact with people, says Phil Horst, home office auto physicaldamage claims manager.

The Cycle

Ohio Casualtys intent in using wireless technology, Horst says,was to shrink the cycle time for claimstargeting the time frame ofwhen the carrier learns of the claim and gets the estimatesubmitted and the repairs under way. It took us as long as a weekto 10 days to get all these things transmitted by paper to and fromthe adjuster, out to the person who has to look at the car, get thepictures developed, and attach them to the paper file, says Horst.In the meantime, the customer is very inconvenienced.

Ohio Casualty turned to the e-Mitchell Web site from MitchellInternational. We send everything through e-Mitchell, says Horst.We can not only send assignments, but we can receive theinformation back [from the field] wirelesslymany times within a fewhours.

Mark Lund, national sales manager for insurance and financialservices for Panasonic, agrees cycle time is lowered thanks to thewireless dispatching of new claims. Cycle time is going from daysto hours, he says. Insurers are improving productivity and accuracyby doing [appraisals] at the bumper as opposed to writing it on asheet of paper and then going back to the office. You open yourselfup to the possibility of issuing a supplement, which increasescosts all around.

Cycle time is just one of several selling points, according toLund. He cites efficiency, customer satisfaction, positioning ofthe customer, and cost as other benefits. By going wireless, maybeyou dont need as many independent appraisers, he says. By going outand writing the estimate and sending it back wirelessly, you cutdown by a day or two the time it takes to cut a check, whichpleases customers. If you can get one more estimate done per day,that in itself can justify the expense for mobile computing orwireless.

Having wireless technology in the past enhanced the image of aninsurer to its customers and competitors, but it was never really arequirement. Now, people are seeing you can communicate morefrequently with wireless, Lund says. With the speeds starting toincrease, we are starting to see a high level of interest in thetechnology.

Eyler believes that first notice of loss and the claims processare the only killer applications in place for insurers goingwireless. Carriers that have stayed on the sidelines now arestarting to look, he adds, but not necessarily buy. We are gettinga lot of inquiries from our largest life insurance clients aboutthe ability for their agents or advisers to sync up with the homeoffice, he says. Theyre not really spending a great deal of moneydoing that; theyre just evaluating it this year.

Anyone Else?

The claims side is the most obvious user of the wirelesstechnology, Urbain says, but he believes there are other uses thatwill make it a valuable tool in the future. One such use is dealingwith catastrophe situations. Carriers are utilizing satellitelinks, often attached to vans or buses, which create what he callsa wireless bubble in proximity to the satellite feed, allowing theclaims people to operate their laptops in a wireless LANenvironment within about a football field radius of the device.Still, more uses will be discovered soon, he adds. The realbusiness need probably is not yet seen on the horizon because mostcompanies havent delved deeply enough into their business processesto understand how it truly can impact their workflow, saysUrbain.

Using wireless in claims is fairly simple, he points out, butthere still is more that can be done, citing location-basedawareness as the next generation of wireless capability. By usingGPS technology, an insurer could know the ZIP Code where a claim isgenerated and can deploy a claims handler who already is there.Using that type of location-based awareness, you can route thehandler to the assignment in a more efficient way, says Urbain.When you begin to overlay location-based awareness to a handlersday and map both current and existing claims, handlers could domore in the course of their day. That type of dynamic workfloweventually will enable greater efficiency in the claims side, butits really not there yet in the marketplace.
Still another wireless capability in-volves the use of telematics,similar to the OnStar technology in certain vehicles. Cars can beequipped with sensors that are triggered when an event occurs. Atelematics airbag deployment could trigger a first notice of lossto an insurance company, if you had an agreement with your insurer,says Urbain. That creates a whole different series of efficienciesbecause now the insurance company knows about the accident thesecond it happens. If you could deploy your claims handler out tothe site of the accident, what would that do to reduce yoursubrogation costs because you know who is at fault as fast asanyone does? Urbain believes there will be some development of thistechnology but concedes that critical mass will be the biggestchallenge to telematics.

Tom McChesney, segment director for insurance and finance withSprint, asserts there is more of an acceptance of wirelesstechnology on the sales side as agents are doing work remotely.Were also seeing some interest in [insurance] industryapplications, he says. The underwriters are being asked to do moreand more. If they can be out adding value in nontraditional ways,such as seeing customers, they have the ability to be moreproductive by being able to hook up remotely.

Still Early

Wireless technology is still in the early stages of itsdevelopment cycle, McChesney notes. There have been someapplications written and equipment set up for mobile claims, butits getting all the pieces together in a package that will be seenas truly providing the package that is going to make it a killerapp, he says.

The technology needs to work in the back office, as well. If youwirelessly enable an application, you have to have the back-officesystems to be able to work with it, says McChesney. The insuranceindustry is typically conservative in doing some of the systemsupgrades that will be needed.

Country has been piloting a couple of network cards andmachines, Koester says, and some of the insurers service partnersare developing Web-based applications so the Country claimsadjusters can hook up to the Internet when they are out in thefield, ready to cut a check. A holdup to this has been scrubbingthe claimants name through the OFAC list. They either have to callin or scrub the name before they go out for the day, he says.

The e-Mitchell system is a great asset for Ohio Casualtys claimspeople, Horst asserts. When an assignment is made to the field, itcomes through the e-Mitchell site via e-mail. It also populates theestimating system with information on the policyholder so theadjuster doesnt have to rekey the information onto theappraisal.

We create assignments in the e-Mitchell Web site, and theappraiser resubmits the form from the laptop in a Web-based filefolder, says Horst. We also can do an audit process in thatuploading so we can check for accuracy on the estimates and makesure they are being written properly.

Leading Edge

Between one-third and one-half of P&C insurers are embracingwireless in a claims environment, Urbain estimates. Theleading-edge companies are using it on a more progressive basis, hesays. Were also just now beginning to get enough high-speednetworks to make it really palatable.
Another issue is the use of the VPNs that can show the contrastbetween wireless and mobile computing. Some of the VPNs aredesigned to enable users to dial up from a location and thendisconnect from that location, whereas some of the mobile VPNs thatexist enable people to go across locations, says Urbain. As morecustomers begin using the technology, you are going to see moreadoption ofthe mobile VPNs, which will enhance further usersability to operate in a mobile environment.

Mobile/Wireless and Sales Force Automation Tech Guide
Actek, Inc.
Birmingham, Ala.
205-403-0506
www.acteksoft.com

Allen Bailey & Associates
Austin, Texas
512-502-8800
www.allenbailey.com

Atlatl, Inc.
Durham, N.C.
800-768-0907
www.accu-rater.com

BlackBerry
Waterloo, Ontario
519-888-7465
www.blackberry.net

Centive
Bedford, Mass.
781-778-8000
www.centive.com

COSS Development Corp.
Milwaukee, Wis.
262-241-8989
www.cossdev.com

Database Systems Corp.
Phoenix, Ariz.
602-265-5968
www.databasesystemscorp.com

Data Life Associates
Verona, N.J.
860-267-4903
www.datalife.com

Document Sciences Corp.
Carlsbad, Calif.
760-602-1400
www.docscience.com

eAgency Systems
Newport Beach, Calif.
949-253-9131
www.eagency.com

EW Group
East Granby, Conn.
860-653-1719
www.ewgroup.com

E-Z Data
Pasadena, Calif.
800-777-9188
www.ez-data.com

Fiserv
Cedar Rapids, Iowa
800-322-4220
www.fiserv.com

Fitiri, Inc.
Houston, Texas
713-981-3821
www.fitiri.com

Focus Solutions, Inc.
Fort Washington, Pa.
215-643-9300
www.focus-inc.com

Genelco Software Solutions
St. Louis, Mo.
800-983-8114
www.genelco.com

IBM
White Plains, N.Y.
800-426-4968
www.ibm.com

Iconixx
Houston, Texas
713-934-0200
www.iconixx.com

INSTEC
Naperville, Ill.
630-955-9200
www.instec-corp.com

Insurance Technologies
Colorado Springs, Col.
719-442-6400
www.insurancetechnologies.com

InSystems
Markham, Ont.
888-467-9783
www.insystems.com

InterlinkONE, Inc.
Wilmington, Mass.
978-694-9992
www.interlinkone.com

Itronix Corp.
Spokane, Wash.
509-624-6600
www.itronix.com

Leadbot.Com
Tempe, Ariz.
480-394-0998
www.leadbot.com

LIDP Consulting Services
Woodridge, Ill.
630-960-0133
www.lidp.com

LifeLink
Park City, Utah
435-649-5300
www.lifelinkcorp.com

LogicPlus
Eagan, Minn.
651-452-8277
www.lplus.com

MFXchange Holdings, Inc.
Toronto, Ont.
866-639-6399
www.mfxfairfax.com

Mobitor Corp.
San Ramon, Calif.
925-552-8230
www.mobitor.com

Motion Computing
Austin, Texas
888-682-2538
www.motioncomputing.com

NaviSys
Edison, N.J.
800-775-3592
www.navisys.com

Novinsoft
Port Perry, Ont.
905-985-8546
www.novinsoft.com

Panasonic
972-596-7770
www.panasonic.com

Philbert Software Group
Roswell, Ga.
800-969-7741
www.philbert.com

PrinterOn Corp.
Kitchener, Ont.
519-748-2848
www.printeron.net

pTeraDac Corp.
Eagan, Minn.
800-400-4561
www.pteradac.com

Siebel Systems
San Mateo, Calif.
650-295-5000
www.siebel.com

SOLCORP
Mississauga, Ont.
630-960-4604
www.solcorp.com

SpeedBuilder Systems
Columbia, S.C.
803-647-9532
www.speedbuildersystems.com

Sprint
Overland Park, Kan.
800-829-0965
www.sprint.com

Steel Card
Santa Barbara, Calif.
805-560-8364
www.steelcard.com

SunGard Insurance Systems
Miami, Fla.
800-337-2677
www.sungard.com

Systems Engineering Group, LLC
Glastonbury, Conn.
860-368-3983
www.segllc.com

Touchtone Corp.
Costa Mesa, Calif.
800-786-8663
www.wintouch.com

Verizon Wireless
Alpharetta, Ga.
404-273-9707
www.verizonwireless.com

Xerox Global Services
Rochester, N.Y.
770-569-5668
www.xerox.com