Empty Nest

The question being asked in the insurance industry, notes Travers, is how much time should be invested in trying to create a standardized way of disseminating data to off-site audiences, or should a carrier opt for one-off projects to serve the individual user? "I think there is a fascination with standards, and it's the right mindset," he says. "But the practical application of data transaction standards–things such as ACORD XML–to address these different types of audiences is going to take a long time. It's the right thing to make an investment in and pay attention to, but when it will become practical in terms of all these different kinds of trading partners and data users, I can't say. It's not [at the point] where you walk into a carrier and it says it is fully exchanging data by using XML transaction standards and pushing the data out to a PDA or an agent's laptop in standard formats. It's a long way from that."

UNDERWRITERS IN THE FIELD

Southern Farm Bureau Casualty Insurance Company (SFBCIC) falls into the second level of Travers' work force mobility. The carrier undertook a mobile technology project called Remote Risk Assessment and Management System, which was designed to better understand the underwriting risks and exposures to loss regarding business produced by the agency force. "We wanted a workflow solution with a mobility component," says Joey Brown, software development manager for SFBCIC.

The carrier uses both office underwriters and field underwriters. The office underwriters make the ultimate decisions, while the field underwriters evaluate and price certain exposures and are the eyes and the ears of the office underwriters. Office underwriters choose the properties for the field staff to visit in person, and requests are sent electronically into the field underwriters' queue, he adds.

The field staff members use the mobile application with the .NET compact framework that allows them to run through a questionnaire divided into various sections to collect information in the field, explains Brown. Different questionnaires are used for homeowners' policies, farm and ranch policies, and other coverages.

COLLECTING DATA

When the SFBCIC field underwriter downloads the survey, the file includes everything the carrier knows about the policy that is contained within the carrier's legacy system. The underwriter then has two jobs, continues Brown: One is to verify the information pulled down from the legacy system, and the second is to collect risk information. "The way the survey is designed, if certain risks don't exist, you don't open that section," he says. "If the risk does exist, you answer the questions."

The field underwriters collect the information and then drive to the next property. When they are finished for the day, Brown relates, the field underwriters sync the data back into the server via their PC. Although the data currently is not uploaded from the location, Brown expects that to happen one day in the future as connectivity issues are solved in the rural areas SFBCIC serves.

Once the information is uploaded, the office underwriters flesh out the survey, reports Brown. SFBCIC has a relationship with Marshall & Swift/Boeckh and passes along a minimum of six pieces of property data collected by the underwriters to MS/B before getting replacement values in return. "The office underwriter takes all that information and decides whether the risk is one we want to get on, stay on, or if it is appropriately priced," says Brown.

With many insurers not uploading data from the field as yet, Hersh contends, in general today's wireless technology is outpacing the needs of the industry. He remarks he has a local broadband card, and with his laptop, he can send data up and down faster than DHL connections. "In terms of the amount of data that needs to go back and forth, I don't think that's a factor anymore," he says. "A typical carrier's need for data is not [so] intensive in the field in the grand scheme of things. You can send large photos with a lot of mega pixels up and down the stream with a wireless modem without a real performance issue. The mobile industry is trying to address issues that are far more complex than what the insurance industry has. As with most technologies, the [insurance] industry let the technology get ahead of the need and then figures out a way to use it."

PADS AND PENCILS

Prior to the Microsoft mobile solution, SFBCIC would send its field force out with a pad and pencil or rudimentary forms to take notes, recalls Brown. "Depending on the experience of the field underwriter, you'd get either a complete assessment or a sketchy assessment," he says. "We've cut way down on the training curve and still have the field guys do as complete and thorough an evaluation as a more seasoned field underwriter."

When underwriting manager George Pink approached Brown's team about creating a better solution, the best forms were collecting about 30 pieces of information. The new system collects approximately 100 pieces of information in about the same amount of time plus verifies the data.

Better decisions also are being made with that data. "The old surveys went into the file, but there was no aggregating the data into a database for analysis," adds Brown. "Everything was stuck in paper files, policy by policy. Now, the data goes into a database, and we have the ability to analyze the data for trend analysis."

SFBCIC uses HP hand-held Windows Mobile Devices. Brown claims the carrier began with the notion of putting this system on a laptop, but after spending time with the field auditors, the carrier learned many of the activities involved in the underwriting process would be too difficult if the underwriters had to carry around a laptop. "Most laptops don't have screens that are designed for outdoor use," he says. "Battery life was a big issue. So, we chose a Windows mobile platform, and in choosing that, it was consistent with a .NET skill set we already had in-house."

LIFE MATTERS

The Hartford has reached the connected mobile capabilities Travers described above with an implementation directed toward the carrier's point-of-sale account executives to interact with brokers and retail clients for the sale of life insurance.

In September 2006, The Hartford rolled out BlackBerry devices to approximately 250 account executives across the country. The underlying principle, according to Mark Larose, director of sales and marketing in The Hartford's individual life area, was while the carrier wanted its proprietary sales force to get into a mobile technology environment, it did not want to roll out the devices with the sole expectation they would provide access to e-mail. "We wanted more than that," says Larose. "We didn't feel the ROI was worthwhile with just out-of-the-box BlackBerry functionality."

The Hartford incorporated an integration of middleware offered by Pyxis Mobile to make the connection between the BlackBerry devices and the carrier's contact management software from SalesLogix.

"As these people are on the road, rather than firing up their laptop to pull down their calendar to see where their next appointment is or update information relative to the contact or prospect they are going to be meeting with, it is much easier for us to offer up to them the ability to get that same type of information directly through their BlackBerry in a more mobile way," says Larose.

This type of mobile CRM is becoming increasingly popular with sales forces, Hersh believes. "Anything and everything for contact management, for appointments, for sales tracking," he says. "The easiest way to keep your people up-to-date is to make it pervasive in their daily lives. Mobile is fantastic for that."

SECOND STEP

The Hartford's second iteration, using the same Pyxis middleware, is an extension of what the carrier refers to as application status. As the account executives are submitting business either directly or are tracking business submitted by a broker they are working with, The Hartford offers them the ability to pull up all the applications in the pipeline for the area they cover. "If I'm about to meet with a broker and want to be able to see all the business the broker submitted that is sitting in the underwriting area, I can go into application status, pull it up, see whether the business has been approved or issued, and be able to manage the pipeline of activity," says Larose.

Rather than logging on a laptop and digging into specific searches, Larose points out, The Hartford offers more flexibility and utility to be able to present that same information in a BlackBerry-friendly manner so the account executives can, within minutes of their next appointment, pull up the information on the screen.

One example of where this already was beneficial, Larose relates, happened when an account executive was competing with another carrier for a specific sale. The account executive was able to demonstrate how much support he could offer the broker by the mere fact the account executive was able to pull up the access to exactly where that case stood with The Hartford's underwriting group. "[The account executive] felt that was the saving grace to recognize our service capabilities by being able to offer a prompt indication of where that client's business stood in the pipeline," says Larose.

STILL TO COME

The third stage of The Hartford's project now in development will package literature fulfillment requests along with some other marketing initiatives, according to Larose. "Account execs always have literature fulfillment needs for the brokers they are interacting with, including product information and marketing materials," he says.

Account executives currently have to go into a Web site and initiate their requests. The new feature will allow them to initiate those requests through their BlackBerry. "The neat part about this is it is all interwoven," says Larose. "When [account executives] are pulling up a contact record for a broker, they can go in, indicate the meeting was held, and note the broker specifically asked for product kits. From the same page, they are able to initiate their fulfillment request."

The system will capture that activity, and once the fulfillment order has been sent out from the literature vendor, another message will come back indicating the literature has been sent to the broker with the date and time, explains Larose. "You are capturing all the activity happening with that contact record and initiating your request," he says.

The Hartford is looking to make its account executives as efficient as possible as they execute their point-of-sale support activities, contends Larose. "We're also trying to give them more opportunity to see more brokers," he says. "Since they are more efficient, they have more time to spend with additional brokers. We see it as a service and distribution expansion play in terms of what we are expecting to evolve through distributing these tools to our account executives."

NEW USES

The Hartford seeks the input of its account executives through an advisory council and national sales meetings to look for more ways to use the software. One recent request was to offer a quick-quote capability, particularly on term insurance. "Rather than firing up their laptop for a full-blown illustration, we certainly see some quick-quoting capabilities we want to push out from our base illustration engine," says Larose.

The carrier also is looking at forms. "It wouldn't be just access to forms, but one of the things we want to plug in is to go out to our broker Web site, get into the site, answer a few questions about the product, and send a bunch of different forms," says Larose. "The part we're looking to integrate, and we're in the early stages of this, is off our repository of forms we want to create an iterative scripting to get the account executive to the specific form for the specific sales situation. By answering specific questions available on the BlackBerry, the account executive would get a package of forms based on the specific identified sales situation, and the account executive then could e-mail them off to the broker."

Life agents are working to make business as easy as possible for their customers and are taking greater advantage of the ability to carry their laptop with them and do illustrations on site rather than getting back to the customer later, observes Travers. "The ability to connect back to whatever resources the carrier might provide to make it a richer experience for the policyholder, or potential policyholder, will bring growth for the life industry," he says. "Agent enablement might be the killer app for the life industry."

PDAs are good for the sales force, Hersh believes, but not for filling out an insurance application. Wireless cards, though, give the mobile user an office-type experience. "You attach them to a laptop, and it is a more sensible approach toward making sure you actually are getting benefits right out of the gate," he says. "Using a PDA to take an application from somebody is hard, but if you do it from a laptop, it's like the person is in the office. Sending the office out into the world is the big change now."

Of course, wireless cards have been around for a while, but Hersh explains, what has changed is they are now more practical. "They weren't very fast, and the coverage was limited," he says. "But now, for $59 a month, you can get unlimited broadband coverage nationwide. That's a much more appetizing proposition. A lot of agents are getting these for their personal use, and suddenly it doesn't seem like too bad a deal to have access to their stuff 24 hours a day, seven days a week. It's like cell phones. Carriers never wanted to pay for cell phones, but they sure liked getting in touch with agents any time they wanted."

NICE TO HAVE

There's an interesting trend developing in the field, Travers believes. "These things we are talking about were kind of nice to have, and now they are an essential element of certain kinds of service delivery or conduct of business," he says.

One example is the investments larger carriers have made in catastrophe infrastructure. "When a catastrophe occurs, they have all this equipment designed not only to work wirelessly but to provide wireless connectivity to people in that vicinity," he says. They are setting up command stations that set up wireless technology beyond the mobile station. That's an essential thing for the big carriers that people are expecting."

It is a bit of an issue for small and midsize carriers that can't afford to do likewise, Travers adds, yet they must compete. "It's most visible in a catastrophe situation but also in an anywhere, any time kind of service delivery that pretty much anybody expects now," concludes Travers. TD