Customer experience

Insurance companies have a unique set of challenges to overcome in creating efficient operations. Because of increased competition, insurers are being forced to narrow their focus to the core competencies at which they excel. At the same time, carriers must offer greater product and service offerings and faster distribution to meet increasing customer demands.And, because service industries such as insurance are so dependent on information, the increasing digitization of data is forcing these companies to redefine how they operate. Therefore, to be successful-and to prosper-in this digital environment, organizations must reshape their business models.

Understanding how and when consumers want to receive financial advice is an important aspect in gaining the upper hand in the competitive field of financial planning.By implementing automated systems to expand advice delivery channels, life and annuity insurers can remain competitive with other financial services institutions.

Since buying Acordia Inc. in 2001 and creating the nation's largest bank-owned insurance agency, Wells Fargo & Co. has not been a big player on the agency acquisition scene-but that should change, thanks to the deal-minded focus of the agency's new head.Acordia intends to further tie itself to its San Francisco bank parent through continued cross-selling and acquisitions in the bank's West Coast stronghold, according to the agency's new chief executive officer, Kevin W. Conboy.

In the insurance industry, a great deal of emphasis is placed on customer relationship management, and rightly so. But as Matthew Piroch, chief information officer for Highmark Life & Casualty Co. sees it, CRM would be difficult to achieve without ERM-employee relationship management.Pittsburgh-based Highmark Life & Casualty is a provider of life, workers' compensation, stop-loss and disability insurance to 2.2 million individuals through group policies. The company was established in 1990, with Piroch coming on board in 1998 as manager of relationship management. He was appointed CIO last May.

When Blue Cross Blue Shield of South Carolina wanted to streamline its call center operations to improve productivity, it did not re-invent the technological wheel. Instead, the Columbia, South Carolina-based insurer implemented state-of-the-art software to leverage its existing IT systems.The intuitive, single browser-based interface simplifies data gathering and interpretation for its more than 350 customer service representatives.

It seems that everyone is jumping on the wireless bandwagon. From cell phones to PDAs to wireless pagers, both professionals and consumers are seeking new, more efficient means of communication. The fast-paced growth of wireless technology in other industries hints at the tremendous potential benefits these solutions may hold for insurance.With wireless technology, agents can have a continuous connection to their information resources, management staff can monitor business from any location, or instantly respond to time-sensitive communications, and clients can look forward to faster response times. That means support issues that once took 24 hours and two or three phone calls can now be resolved in a matter of minutes via wireless e-mail.

Recent outsourcing deals have caused a resounding buzz within the executive suites of many insurers. Prominent vendors are proposing seductive deals with no up-front cost, immediate and dramatic savings, and most recently, computing on demand. Some executives see it as a silver bullet that will drive substantial and sustainable cost reduction along with measurable improvements in performance.Far from a new idea, this is a rocky road that many companies have been traveling down for decades. History has shown that for every raging success, there is a bone-crushing failure and most deals fall in between these extremes.

As banking companies from coast to coast buy agencies to get into the property/casualty insurance business, Fifth Third Bancorp, for one, is getting out.In late December, the Cincinnati-based regional banking company announced it agreed to sell its property/casualty insurance operation to Hub International Ltd., an insurance agency based in Chicago, for an undisclosed amount of cash.

Back in the prehistoric 1990s, The Hartford Financial Services Group applied technology the old-fashioned way. It used a vertically oriented approach to solve problems in discreet business silos.Today, the $15-billion investment and insurance company is taking an enterprisewide viewpoint when it applies information technology. This new approach ties together disparate information technology offerings, simplifies some of the complexity of e-business and makes it easier for distributors to sell and service The Hartford's insurance products.

Over the past year, The Hartford Financial Services Group has launched several technology initiatives aimed at making life easier for distributors. Those efforts will continue this year as new features and functionality are added to The Hartford's eService and eSales programs.Last year, the company introduced the industry's first premium audit search tool available to agents through the Internet. This online tool augments the company's policy, billing and claims service capabilities available to agents through its Electronic Business Center (EBC), a secure Web extranet built exclusively for independent agents that represent The Hartford. Using this tool, agents can use the Internet to quickly determine the outcome of a commercial customer's audit and the reasons for any premium adjustment.