ECM Solutions Could Benefit Firms, But Awareness Lacking

The survey taken by enChoice found more than 50 percent of industry members polled did not have an ECM system.

Mr. Trembly moderated a virtual roundtable discussion on ECM titled, "Economy and Technology Will Alter Underwriting."

During the roundtable, Wally Bitaut, executive vice president, Software Division of enChoice, an ECM specialist that implements and administers IBM's ECM solution, said ECM can make businesses work better.

They can manage content and automate processes more effectively, turn information around to customers and business partners faster, guard against internal fraud, and have necessary information ready and organized in the event of a lawsuit or for regulatory compliance purposes, he explained.

Built on the IBM ECM suite of products, enChoice provides the KwikWork BPF 4Underwriting solution.

ECM, Mr. Bitaut said, can help companies realize savings through process automation, as activities around paper-based systems are eliminated.

Additionally, he said, companies can leverage their existing full-time work force so organizations can grow and increase revenue without corresponding growth in employees.

The idea, Mr. Bitaut said in an interview with National Underwriter, is to get to a point of "straight-through processing" (STP)–for example, moving a new business application through the underwriting process as quickly as possible with little to no human interaction.

Straight-through processing allows a company to turn around quotes faster, and get from the beginning of the process to the end as quickly as possible, Mr. Bitaut explained.

For a new business application, Mr. Bitaut said business rule decisions can be developed around a New Business Application form (e-form or other) based on certain parameters such as the geographic location (state) or other underwriting requirements. This would allow the submission to move through much of the application process without any human interaction, saving time and resources.

Before process automation can begin, though, Mr. Bitaut said during the roundtable that the initial step of ECM is to centralize content contained in paper silos, in digital form on file share and elsewhere.

Once the information is centralized, content can be activated, and automated processes can be launched around it, he explained.

Speaking to the implementation of ECM at a company, Jay Cavanna, chief solutions architect at enChoice, told National Underwriter a company can store all of its information on a repository on premises, leveraging company hardware. When information comes into the company–be it digital information or information that is scanned–it is then indexed so it can be accessed easily.

As the ECM specialist, Mr. Cavanna said, enChoice provides direction and informs the buyer how to use and configure the system to meet the business requirements of the company.

For smaller companies that may not have large IT departments, or that want to use the solution without storing the content and associated hardware on site, enChoice can also host the entire solution.

Before the roundtable discussion, enChoice conducted a survey of 653 agents, brokers, insurance company executives, underwriters, risk managers and others about their experiences with ECM.

Out of the 490 respondents that answered a question regarding work processing problems currently being experienced, 47.1 percent cited accessing information from multiple systems. Compliance issues (33.9 percent), information silos (30.4 percent) and manual paper-driven processing (35.3) were also popular answers. Respondents were told to check all factors that applied.

Answering a question regarding which type of return on investment (ROI) is most important when justifying technology investments such as ECM, 67.9 percent of those polled cited processing more with less people.

Forty-three point three percent said compliance was the most import justification. Another 46.9 percent listed accountability, or knowing who did what when, which can protect against internal fraud. System accessibility and uptime was listed by 40.2 percent.

But despite respondents citing these priorities and concerns, 51.3 percent of 651 respondents said they do not currently have an ECM solution. An additional 29.5 percent said they did not know if they had such a solution.

Just 12.6 percent said they already leverage ECM within their underwriting department, and an additional 6.6 percent said they leverage ECM within the organization, but not within underwriting.

Mr. Bitaut said his goal is to increase awareness and make companies think about process automation to become more efficient and to get companies to understand that technology is a way to do that.

But Mr. Bitaut noted that when the economy weakens, fraud and risk increases. Companies that have all content stored within a central repository can manage, secure and protect company assets against fraud, he noted.

Additionally, when the content is activated, companies can make "better decisions faster," Mr. Bitaut said, cutting down on risk and allowing the company to do more with fewer physical resources.