Life in the Fast Lane
Producing documents quickly, in a uniform manner, and available to agents and policyholders in an electronic fashion can make a life carrier easier to do business with.
Like many carriers, Ameritas Life Insurance was plagued with some old technology, particularly in the area of document production. Not content to stay in place, Ameritas went looking for a product that would help satisfy multiple needs.
We wanted to move into a more current technology, but what really was driving [the implementation] was the electronic distribution of documents, says Kirk Dietrich, document composition analyst for Ameritas. We wanted to be able to create PDFs so we could get some of our agents and some of our end customers to come into our Web site to get their documents [electronically].
Another factor in Ameritas search was cost reduction. Being mainframe generated, we wanted a better quality report than what we were getting, says Dietrich. It was a combination of different thingselectronic distribution, better quality, reduced costs, and distribution efficiencies.
Dietrich was pleased to find several good options in the market. The more we looked and the more we talked, we found companies with good composition tools, he notes. As the choices narrowed, though, Ameritas felt the Dia-logue product from Exstream Software was the best fit for what the carrier wanted to do. Its one of those things where you look at the other products and think, Yeah, that might do it, but we were impressed with Exstream and what it was doing, says Dietrich. [Dia-logue] was a new product, which in some ways is scary, but in other ways, [Exstream] built it from the ground up instead of taking some old product and patching it up.
Members of Ameritas publishing services team initiated the product search in early 2002, but once the carrier reached a certain point in the hunt, representatives from some of the lines of business were brought in to look at what the product could do for the company.
One of Dialogues best features is the speed at which it can generate documents, Dietrich asserts. The old system just wasnt fast enough to handle the volumes we wanted to do, he says.
Ameritas avoided the integration issue of getting data from its various administration systems by having the business units compile the data and then send it to the publishing services team, according to Dietrich. Its almost letting data people do what they do bestgather information for usand well generate the documents for them, he says. Ameritas did integrate
Dialogue into the carriers image system. Were generating the images in PDF format and then generating the index file into our homegrown image system so that it can handle those files, he explains. That was one of the big things we were looking for. We needed that electronic distribution.
Standardizing the look and feel of the carriers documents was important. This has given us a chance to funnel everything through a piece of software so we can control the standardizationthe logo is in the same spot, we use the same wording, says Dietrich. We have a much better branding process going on.
When Ameritas first got the product three years ago, it was fairly new. There were some bugs in it, and we had to do some work around it, reports Dietrich. It wasnt anything that caused us to not use it; it was more of a work-around thing. Since weve upgraded the product, it has solved those problems. The current version were working with hasnt had any problems at all. Im not sure we really were ready to handle something like this [at the time]. We were so focused on what the product was going to do; once you get it in, you realize you have to build an environment around it to support it, feed it, and get the output out of it. Most of our problems were on our end rather than with the software.
The implementation has helped relations with independent agents by giving the agent options, Dietrich believes. Were not trying to force people to get [the electronic] version, he contends. Were trying to offer an option where maybe they see it sooner, get it faster, print it themselves, or save it on their own computer.
ROBERT REGIS HYLE
Case File
THE PROBLEM
Life insurer wanted better control and faster production of its documents, along with electronic distribution.
THE COMPANY
Ameritas Life Insurance
Web Site: www.ameritas.com
Statutory Premiums: $826 million
THE SOLUTION
Dialogue from Exstream Software
Web Site: www.exstream.com
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