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REALSOLUTIONS
INSURANCE
R&R INSURANCE SERVICES, INC.
Agency Places High Valuation on
Document Management
In a market where consumers are bombarded
with ads for the lowest insurance rates
with a single call or by going to a Web site,
personalized service and expertise are the
differentiators for insurance agents. “Because
of all the different carriers we work with, we
use a comparative rater package for quoting
personal lines insurance,” says Carl Rynders,
system administrator at R&R Insurance
Services, Inc. in Waukesha, WI. “This allows us
to enter policy holder information once and run
the rates for all of the carriers. Like the carriers
that advertise on TV, we can come back to the
customer with the top ﬁve rates, but it’s the
little things we know about each carrier that
make the difference. We ask more questions
to match the insured with a carrier that best
suits their needs, which isn’t always dependent
on price, and our agents are available when
the insured has questions about coverage or
claims.”
In order to provide the highest levels of
customer service cost effectively and maintain
its reputation as “The Knowledge Brokers™,”
R&R has invested in ECM (enterprise content
management) technology such as document
imaging. Besides making it easier to manage
and access customer ﬁles, ECM technology
increases operational efﬁciency and improves
productivity. “Commissions are dropping and
wages and overhead are increasing,” notes
Rynders. “That means we need to write more
business with the same number of people
and continue to offer better service than
our competitors without creating intolerable
working conditions for our employees.”
One of the largest insurance agencies in the
Midwest, R&R employs 125 people at 3 locations
and generates more than $140 million in
premiums annually. It offers life and health,
personal lines, and commercial lines for
large, medium and smaller sized businesses.
After working with a consultant to obtain an
understanding of best practices, R&R selected
OnBase®, an integrated suite of enterprise
content management software solutions
including core capabilities in document
imaging and workﬂow, COLD/ERM and records
management. R&R’s OnBase solution was
designed and implemented by authorized
OnBase solution provider MTM, Inc.
“One of the things we like about OnBase is the
ﬂexibility,” states Rynders. “There are options
for different user interfaces, scan stations,
workstations and licensing. We can do our own
conﬁguration work with document groups and
document types. OnBase is not like everyone
else’s solution because you can change things
like document auto-name strings on the ﬂy.
We knew we could never think of everything
prior to implementation. Knowing we could
change things down the road if necessary was
an essential part of our decision.”
Support Premium Service for
Commercial and Personal Policy
Holders
R&R began its OnBase implementation in the
department that handles personal insurance
and service. Once a policy has been approved,
all documents become part of the searchable
OnBase repository. Using a text ﬁle pulled from
R&R’s AfW agency management system from
AMS Services, indexing values are automatically
populated. “Retrieving documents effectively
requires completely accurate data and precise
ﬁle names. The last thing we wanted to do
was make employees enter data by hand,”
points out Rynders. “Automated indexing
prevents typos and human errors. Users
select the document type, key in the unique
ID and OnBase does the rest.” In the future,
R&R is considering implementing the OnBase
Application Enabler™ module, which would
allow index values to be “scraped” from an
agency management system screen as well as
provide document retrieval directly from the
agency management system.
Because customer retention is crucial to an
agency, R&R’s business model is based on
long-term customer relationships. As a result,
the number of documents in a ﬁle and the
sources from which they are obtained are quite
varied. Individual users can package large
batches of documents for scanning at one of
(continued)
AT A GLANCE
One of the largest insurance agencies in
the Midwest, R & R Insurance Services, Inc.
uses document management to increase
operational efﬁciency, providing tools and
resources for market-differentiating service
to policy holders and carriers.
BENEFITS
• A consolidated repository of policyholder
documents results in faster responses to
policyholders and makes it easier for agents
to provide recommendation
• Documents available to multiple authorized
users regardless of location
• Supports disaster recovery/business
continuity initiatives
• Eliminates labor associated with ﬁling,
retrieving, copying and storing paper
documents
• Accommodates documents from multiple
sources, including scanned images, e-mails,
and third-party applications
APPLICATION
• Personal Lines
• Commercial Lines
• Human Resources
• Accounting
ONBASE SOFTWARE
• Production Document Imaging
• DVD Authoring
• Outlook® Integration
• Virtual Print Driver
COMPLEMENTARY PRODUCT INTEGRATIONS
• AfW agency management system from AMS
Services
• Fujitsu Computer Products of America
M4097D document scanner
• Canon U.S.A. DR-9080 document scanner
REALSOLUTIONS
INSURANCE
the two production scanning stations. After
the documents are scanned using scanners
from Fujitsu Computer Products of America
and Canon U.S.A., the images are placed in a
scan queue assigned to the user who requested
the service. While this practically assures that
a document will be reviewed and imported by
the person with the most knowledge about it,
other users have access to each other’s queues
and can assist when necessary.
Previous to using OnBase, documents would be
noted in the main database and then t-ﬁled
(ﬁled based on transaction date). If there
was an inquiry, the user would have to check
the database to see what documents existed
and when they were received. Using OnBase,
whatever information exists is available simply
by entering a keyword(s), such as the insured’s
name or policy number, in the retrieval dialog
window.
replaced by this technology, but we also didn’t
have to hire an extra person when there was
a retirement. OnBase offers the potential for
employees such as ﬁle clerks to be promoted
and have positions that pay better. I don’t
know that we will ever be entirely paperless,
but once our employees grasped how OnBase
could help them, everyone including the staff
that delivers mail had suggestions for how we
could put even more work into the system.”
The policyholder’s ﬁle can be supplemented
with documents from a number of sources.
For example, if someone sends e-mail
correspondence, that document can be imported
directly into OnBase using the OnBase Outlook®
Integration module, which allows a user to drag
and drop an e-mail and/or attachment into
the policyholder’s folder right in the Outlook
interface.
The complexity of Commercial Lines ﬁles made
even t-ﬁling impractical. “The average ﬁle in
Personal Lines might be a quarter of an inch
thick,” estimates Rynders. “A Commercial Line
ﬁle might be as much as 15 inches; four or ﬁve
inches is the norm.” When a policy renews,
the agent must review the ﬁle to propose
coverage options for the coming year. The
entire ﬁle, which can cover product liability,
environmental concerns, coverage for the
actions of ofﬁcers and executives and much
more depending on the needs of the client,
is generally taken to the customer site for
annual review. Using laptop computers and
broadband Internet access, agents essentially
have their entire workstations with them and
can access the electronic policy ﬁle stored
in OnBase while working with a customer or
working remotely. This eliminates the need to
carry the cumbersome, thick paper ﬁles to a
customer’s ofﬁce.
In less than two years of full operation, R&R
already has more than a million documents in
its OnBase repository, which is administered by
its two-person IT staff. As the agency grows,
it now has the capacity to collect more of the
documentation necessary for underwriting,
improving responsiveness to the carrier and
increasing the quality of its book of business.
Better business sent to the carrier combined
with the potential for higher retention rates
because of improved service make it more
likely that R&R will be able to collect available
loss ratio and retention bonuses sometimes
offered by carriers.
Though OnBase has the functionality required
by the insurance industry and is supported
by dedicated employees who specialize in
insurance processes, it is also ideal for a
wide range of “horizontal” applications.
For example, using a Canon U.S.A. scanner,
the Accounting Department has started to
maintain electronic records, including checks,
bonus agreements, contracts and commission
schedules. The Human Resources Department is
also using OnBase to maintain employee ﬁles.
In both cases, the security features of OnBase
are critical to prevent unauthorized viewing
of documents.
“As an independent agency, all we have to
differentiate ourselves is service,” contends
Rynders. “So when a customer calls, we have
to give them the best possible service and
be prepared to take information in whatever
form they want to provide it. We also have to
be able to honor carriers’ requests that they
receive information in a certain way. Having
one system to deal with all that is awesome.
I haven’t found anything we wanted that
OnBase couldn’t do, and we have been able
to start small and work our way up to more
and more functionality. Right now the sky’s
the limit.”
To increase the percentage of profitable
business the agency is sending to carriers and
receive better compensation packages from
the carriers, R&R is performing some of the
initial underwriting tasks, such as gathering
MVRs. In addition, many cost-conscious carriers
are also requiring agencies to retrieve policy
information online. Once accessed, users can
save these and any other type of printable
ﬁle (such as a spreadsheet, word processing
document, etc.) directly to OnBase by using
the OnBase Virtual Print Driver. When an MVR
is accessed from a Web site, for instance, the
user can simply choose the “print” function
and choose OnBase instead of an actual printer.
Documents can also be dragged from the
desktop onto the OnBase interface.
By having immediate access to nearly everything
about a policy holder -- application, policy,
underwriting materials, correspondence and
more – requests can be answered more quickly
and agents have all the information they need
to make coverage recommendations. “If a
policy holder is sitting down to reﬁnance and
discovers a document or information about a
policy is missing, for example, they need an
answer right then and there,” says Rynders.
“We can fax or e-mail whatever they need
immediately right out of OnBase. In the past,
we would have to hang up the phone to pull a
ﬁle to fulﬁll a customer request and call back.
Now policy holders usually get what they need
with one call instead of two or three, and, if
their agent or rep isn’t available, that service
can be offered by anyone from anywhere on
our network.”
Insuring Business Continuity
“The initial concern from users was that they
thought we were going to replace them with
technology,” recalls Rynders. “We explained
that it would allow them to give better service
and increase revenue per employee to ensure
we will all be here longer. In fact, our owner
is committed to protecting their jobs and the
viability of the business. To survive, we have
to be more efﬁcient. Not one person has been
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Not only can service be provided more quickly
from any location, electronic files also
support disaster recovery/business continuity
initiatives. The highly redundant database
server is backed up nightly and copies of data
are stored on tape and CD.