People, Processes And Technology Come Together In Wake Of Ala. Tornado

One year ago, virtually everything Alfa did involved paper. And a storm such as April's would have meant ferrying documents to the home office for processing. 

"Everything was paper based—writing out code sheets and notes and assembling files," says Eileen Senn, vice president of claims operations for Alfa Insurance, which is based in Montgomery.

But in 2010, Alfa purchased the Image-Right solution from Vertafore as its enterprise content-management and workflow system for its claims operation. 

The April tornado presented a big test of how the new system—and the personnel using it—would hold up.

"We had used it for smaller incidents, but this was by far the largest," says Senn. "We'd had [the solution] long enough that everyone was familiar with it and trained. The timing came at a good time as far as our preparation. We had done a lot of testing and training. We were ready."

So how did the system perform in the wake of this devastating storm? Senn believes the paperless approach made possible by the Vertafore system is the reason Alfa was able to quickly handle the 22,000 claims related to this single storm.

From the time a claim is reported, all the information related to it is entered into the ImageRight system. When a claim is first created, for example, the adjuster immediately gets an email and can then access a folder with first notice of loss and the other information needed to get to work.

"The best thing about ImageRight is if someone calls and asks about the claim, we can put a note in the file and the person in the field sees it immediately, whether they are in the bus or their car or in the hotel at night," says Senn. 

Prior to ImageRight, if someone called Alfa with a question, the customer-service rep would take a message and then go and find the file. 

Adjusters also can make notes in the file, deal with financial payments and import estimates—and everything is immediately viewable by anyone with access to the software.

"This way, anyone with access can look at the file to know what's going on and make additional comments," Senn says. "It's given us the ability to have real-time access to the information as we need it. It really has been tremendous for our customer service."

Prior to its Vertafore purchase, Alfa did have a back-office imaging system and imaged files when they closed. "But now we start at the beginning, and it's a living, breathing file that we can add to and work with."

In The Field: RV RESPONSE

While Alabama may not be thought of as a primary tornado state, it is, of course, accustomed to disasters of a different stripe: hurricanes.

"Weather events are always in the back of our minds," Senn says. "Being so close to the Gulf Coast, we are always doing tests and preparing for catastrophes with our mind more on hurricanes." 

And as part of its emergency-preparation plans, Alfa purchased two mobile-response units about five years ago—to aid a workforce already quite mobile: Each of Alfa's 125 adjusters carry all the essential tools in their cars, including laptops, cellphones, digital cameras and printers.

On the outside, these emergency-response vehicles look like typical RVs. But on the inside, each unit is a self-contained office with a generator, satellite dish and wireless connectivity. The units can handle up to nine work stations and contain scanners, printers and laptops—everything Alfa needs to set up an emergency office. 

Having the mobile units gave Alfa a jump on the mammoth number of claims.

"The mobile units enabled us to get close to the areas where we needed to see people, to go where we were needed," says Senn.

The insurer has offices in each of Alabama's 67 counties, so local personnel were already available once the storm ended. But most of the affected areas were without power, crippling efforts to reopen offices in those areas.

"In some cases we didn't have the broadband because lines were down," says Senn. "As the power came on and we were able to go back to work in our physical facilities, we were then able to drive the mobile units somewhere else." 

Alfa has the ability to connect to satellites from the mobile units, but that is used as a last resort, according to Senn. And one break that Alfa got in response to the storm was that cellular service through Alfa's cellular carrier, Verizon, held up.