When Panhandle Farmers Mutual Insurance determined there had tobe a more efficient way of doing business, Art Meadows felt thatcould be accomplished only by turning the carrier into a paperlessenterprise.

Meadows, president and CEO of Panhandle, knew going paperlessmeant more than simply an imaging solution, however. "I spoke withother insurers and discovered even though some had gone paperless,they had not transformed their business processes," he says. "Theyhad paperless files but weren't moving toward a paperlessenvironment."

To become a truly electronic company, Meadows believed Panhandlehad to make its Web site available for agents and policy-holders toconduct business, whether the users were buying policies, payingpremiums, changing policy information, or processing claims.

"We still get some paper, but today approximately 80 percent ofour [policy] changes come to the office paperless; the majority ofour claims are being reported to us that way; and 65 percent of ourapplications are electronic," says Meadows. "We've tried to takethe initiative if we are going to go paperless, let's do it; notjust paperless files."

Finding a vendor to service a company as small as Panhandlewasn't easy. Before signing up for DocFinity, Meadows checked withtwo other providers. One of them didn't appear to have a fullydeveloped solution, and the other acted disinterested and didn'tbother to visit Panhandle's West Virginia headquarters. "The fitwith DocFinity seemed to be much better," says Meadows. "It didn'tcare we were small. We were a client, and up to this point, we'vebeen treated like a large client. [DocFinity] provides our needsand service when we need it."

Meadows began the search for a solution in the late summer of2005 and had DocFinity on site in November of that year. "We wereready to make a move and signed the contract a few weeks later," hesays. "We went live in January 2006. It moved along promptly."

A major issue Panhandle had to overcome was what to do with thepaper it had accumulated over the years. The carrier recruitedcollege students to prep the files so they could be scanned. By thetime the carrier went live, all the files were prepared. "We didactive files and one year of lapsed files," says Meadows. "Wemaintained the older [paper] files, but we didn't put them in thesystem."

The system worked well almost from the beginning, explainsMeadows. "The first two weeks the learning curve probably was thetoughest part, but once we got beyond that portion of it, thingsgot smoother as each day passed," he says. "Within two months, itwas second nature to us." Today, Meadows describes havingelectronic files as "a huge burden lifted from us."

Panhandle has achieved some tremendous benefits. Based on theestimated savings, Meadows reports the carrier is close to breakingeven on the cost of implementing the system.

Cutting expenses was foremost on Meadows' mind when the projectwas initiated, but controlling the number of employees and becominga more efficient operation also were part of the business strategy."Due to the technology we've advanced and normal attrition, we aredown to five employees [from eight], and we anticipate we can growby 30 percent and not add any staff," he says.

It's more difficult for a company the size of Panhandle to movein the paperless direction the carrier has chosen, Meadowscontends. "Larger companies have more resources," he says. "Butwith all we've accomplished we've done really well considering oursize."

Meadows has no regrets and doesn't think he would changeanything the carrier has accomplished. "We had to make adjustmentsas we moved through, but we moved forward," he says. "We trulydon't have an IT person. Being small, we need to create goodpartnerships [with vendors] that can provide us the service almostas if we have someone in-house to do it."