Continuous and effective exchange of information is a key success factor in developing a competitive, cost-efficient insurance company. This is especially true for companies pursuing geographical expansion — to ensure a new regional branch and achieve desired sales results, an effective informational infrastructure is needed apart from many other prerequisites. Insurance companies expanding their business through mergers and acquisitions are no exception to this rule, with the only difference that their new subsidiaries already have legacy information systems and business practices which are probably different to the ones of the head company.

As a single entity, an insurance company must:

• create and maintain corporate databases, client database & client history;
• ensure database information is unique and error free;
• provide its personnel with access to corporate IT systems (all company personnel uses the same tools for work).

Choosing corporate IT systems might turn out to be a hard task — when it is impossible to use a single IS, an integration solution is needed to consolidate information stored in multiple applications. Microsoft Excel might be an option, and it is the first choice of many — as a result, specialists at headquarters spend considerable time compiling and analyzing business data from all regions. Is this tedious and time-consuming work necessary?

A corporate portal, for example one powered by Microsoft Office Sharepoint Server, is an advanced tool allowing a company to create a single knowledge base, e.g. insurance legislation or knowledge base by importing data from multiple external sources. Also, the portal can provide a single access point to corporate applications, enable electronic document management and business process automation, and help perform other business tasks that a geographically distributed insurance company can face.

Our experience shows that deployment of a portal to integrate 10 applications costs the same as a new interface to integrate them and many times less than switching to a single system covering all business processes. So, other things being equal, why not select an up-to-date and scalable solution?

Integration of Applications

Every morning an insurance specialist, either at headquarters or local branch, single-clicks to open an Intranet portal and sees its uniform GUI. If it was not for the portal, the specialist would have to set up ISs he\she needs for work individually:

• Unicus, Master Insurance applications, in-house software modules, others;
• CRM (if it is used);
• Document management system (if it is used);
• Accounting systems.

This requires efforts both on the part of the specialist and those who grants him\her access to the ISs and information — IT personnel, information security and others. Apart from this, simultaneous access to multiple systems increases hardware workload, and causes inconvenience to the users who have to navigate from one window to the other to switch between applications. This problem becomes more pronounced as new sales points are being opened, company workforce grows, but time and effort to arrange new workplaces must be kept to the minimum.
A corporate portal enables each company worker to set up an individual interface (so called ‘thin client’) and directly reach those software modules he/she needs on a daily basis. All software modules can be accessed from the same window of the corporate portal.

Document Management

With a corporate portal, an insurance company can improve its document management — contract negotiation & approval, claims processing etc. Contract negotiation, which is usually a lengthy process, becomes even more complicated when a contract received from a regional branch must be approved in the headquarters, but its initiator cannot visit the approver in person to speed up the process. In this case, the portal reduces time and effort to manage documents, which means reduction of transactional costs.

When special terms for a VIP customer are being negotiated, the speed of decision making is critical. When such customer asks for special terms, the request is approved by the general manager of the branch, and then passed to several departments in the headquarters. From the local branch, the initiator usually tries to call the responsible persons to speed up the process, but they are not available constantly. Negotiation of such contract can take up to several days or even weeks, but is the customer willing to wait for such a long time?

With the portal, each newly created document is assigned its negotiation & approval route, and flows automatically from one responsible person to another. Time to review or approve a document is pre-set and limited, and approval progress is monitored by the supervisor. The author of the document can access it at any time, see its status and reviewers’ comments and make necessary amendments. Such practices help to greatly strengthen the discipline within the company.

Business Process Automation

The portal also provides capabilities to streamline core business processes:

• maintaining customer details & history, creating contracts (all relevant documents i.e. vehicle inspection statement, photos, certificates are attached to the customer’s electronic card on the portal)
• underwriting
• loss calculation and adjustment
• reinsurance and others.

Apart from key business processes directly related to insurance business, the portal can address auxiliary processes. Benefits of the latter are not obvious from the first glance, but optimizing every minor business process in the company can reduce workload on its personnel and cut down company expenses.
Auxiliary processes can be business-related (creating new insurance products and programs, monitoring execution of decisions) or supplementary (Service Desk requests, business trip requests, requests for consumables). For example, creation of a new insurance product usually lasts over a month. First, the initiator (insurance product developer of a business line) creates a concept of the product — this requires considerable time and effort to research and consolidate relevant data:

• explore existing customer base, identify their preferences and trace customer relationships history
• carry out marketing research (market & competitors analysis)
• accumulate information on effective terms for customers
• gather results of questionnaires submitted by local branches, provide them with target figures
• investigate available IT resources

Having spent about two weeks on building up this data, the product developer analyses it, creates the concept of the product and negotiates it with involved business units. If necessary, workgroups can be created. As a result, versions of the same documents appear, each version approved by different departments. When a final version is approved, the product developer encounters another problem — all new product-related tasks must be monitored (from preparation of relevant product documents to supervising achieved sales figures). Often, actual sales figures are not tracked, and company management cannot assess results and timely remove the product from the market to prevent loss in case of failure. All the above steps can be automated with the portal — starting with prompt collection of comprehensive data and finishing with plan – fact analysis of the product sales.

Business Analysis and Reporting

All the above suggests another use of the portal — integration of information and applications. The portal serves as an umbrella consolidating data from various ISs (both corporate and external) and providing tools to analyze it and present it in an easy-to-understand way. These capabilities cannot be undervalued when report building is required, which is the case for every insurance specialist who needs well-structured data on a regular basis. Sales managers want to be aware of achieved figures compared to target ones, and broken down by product. Their line managers want the same information, but broken down by products, sales points and sales managers. Company executives need plan – fact analysis to make strategic decisions. Apart from planned and actual figures, the portal can build reports on effectiveness of sales channels (direct sales, sales via agents or partners, cross-sales and others) or package sales etc.

Today, report building in many insurance companies includes the following steps: an initiator creates a request for information and passes it to information provider(s), the information provider fills in a report form (which often change) and passes it to the initiator. Typically, the initiator has to prompt the provider by calls and visits. Sometimes information is provided in a wrong format, or needs verification. Only after all data is provided and verified, is can be processed and presented to supervisors. Many persons are involved in this process and much effort is needed for a seemingly simple task.

In-company communications

Employees want to be aware of company events, whether it’s a colleague’s birthday, new appointment or strategic company-level event. Although word of mouth remains extremely powerful media which cannot be dismissed, a single, reliable source of news will be appreciated at any organisation. Often, regional managers who receive information with delay feel alienated from the headquarters, and the portal can improve their awareness and make them feel more valuable team members. Company contests, questionnaires, forums, ‘best workers’ and ‘my office neighbours’ services provided on the portal are non-monetary incentives allowing to motivate company personnel.

Corporate Training

With the corporate portal, a company can address more effectively another aspect of its life — corporate learning, by providing remote training session to its geographically distributed personnel who cannot attend sessions held at the headquarters in person. For this, Microsoft developed the eLearning Portal tool that enables its users to create repositories of educational content, provides audio / video conferencing capabilities and webinars for employees, test learning progress and analyze achievements.

Another convenient learning tool is OCS, Office Communication Service. By default, OCS encrypts audio and video streams to ensure a high security level, which excludes any leaks of confidential information contained in training materials. This functionality helps specialists in local branches improve their skills without travelling to the headquarters, which considerably saves company resources in terms of work time and business trip expenses.

Implementation Stages and Cost

Typically, when design and development of the portal is completed, it is deployed at a department at the headquarters and integrated with corporate applications. 5 or 6 members of the personnel are trained to use it, and then trial operation of the portal takes place for about a week or two. If business users and IT department are happy with the portal, it is deployed in all departments of the headquarters. At this stage, it is time to set up report builder, create documents (user’s and administrator’s guides, servicing guidelines for IT department etc.), and integrate extra applications into the portal. Having ensured the portal’s correct operation, the company can replicate the portal to its regional branches, and then, as finishing touches, enhance appearance of the portal to match company style and brand book. If, for some reasons, the portal cannot be deployed at all branches, the company can carry out pilot trial operation in selected regions, and plan rollout of the software in other sales points, in a suitable manner.

Users of the portal can start reaping its benefits almost immediately, within a month upon the rollout of the basic functionality. Even if initially the personnel turns to the portal simply to look up telephone numbers of their colleagues or retrieve the latest versions of regulatory documents, this will aid them in their work to a certain extent. Once the portal’s functionality and content expands, its value for workers will increase and finally it will turn into a tool to effectively accomplish business tasks. The cost of basic portal functionality starts from 16,000 Euros, and if the portal is integrated with business-specific ISs the default cost shifts up to  30,000 Euros. Usually, investments in portals are recovered within 12 months.

Anna Pavlova, Financial Project Manager, Digital Design