Cincom In-depth Analysis and Review

Policy Generation Made Easy!

The Benefits of Dynamic Document Automation in theInsurance Product Lifecycle

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SIMPLIF ICATION THROUGH INNOVATION ®

Table of Contents

Abstract . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1

Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2

Dynamic Document Automation for Successful PolicyGeneration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3

What Is Dynamic Document Automation? . . . . . . . . . . . . 4

Automating Policy Generation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5

Design Policies that Are Customized and Personalized . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5

Deploy Policy Generation throughout the Enterprise, Seamlessly . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6

Deliver Timely, Persuasive Policy Documents . . . . . . . 7

Manage All Your Policies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7

Cincom Has the Solution for Perfect Documents Made Easy! . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8

Benefits Realized . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8

Case Study: MTL Insurance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9

Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9

About Cincom Document Solutions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10

About Cincom . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10

Cincom In-depth Analysis and Review

Policy Generation MadeEasy!The Benefits of Dynamic DocumentAutomation in the Insurance ProductLifecycle

WHITE PAPER

1

Abstract

The contemporary business environment has undergonesignificant changes over the past few years. The increaseduse of one-to-one communications has pushedorganizations to modify the way they interact with theircustomers and focus on building customer loyalty. Theonly companies that will thrive are those that are able todevelop and maintain relationships with their customers.

The main driver of customer relationships is personalizedcommunication. Statistics show that 90% of organizationsface the dilemma of communicating efficiently with theircustomers without compromising the quality ofpersonalized contact. This is where dynamic documentautomation applications come into play.

Dynamic document automation allows organizations toefficiently produce documents in large volumes whilesimultaneously personalizing content for each individualdocument and automatically store and index thosedocuments for later retrieval. More than just databasemanipulation, dynamic document automation applicationshelp organizations improve customer acquisition, reducecustomer churn, and increase cross-selling opportunities –all while providing the kind of personalization customerscrave.

While technologies for accumulating content areimportant, the place to start is with the applications thatactually deliver content to customers. This is the domainof dynamic document-automation systems.

Retention

Exte

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Acquisition

Full Customized Care Lifecycle

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Introduction

“Spending on document production,distribution, storage, retrieval, anddocument/content repurposing consumes1% to 5% of an enterprise’s annualrevenues.”– IDC

Insurance is about information, and much of thatinformation enters, leaves, and lives in the insurancelifecycle as printed documents. A typical insurancecompany interacts with customers through a wide range ofcommunications, including proposals, illustrations,contracts, policies, claims correspondence, letters, andother paper-based documentation that underpin theindustry. With multiple handoffs and touch points involvedin every interaction, this paper-intensive environment canbe a drag on the transactions that move through it and, asa result, take longer to effect those transactions.

As documents continue to overwhelm the insuranceindustry, so do the technological solutions designed tohelp it deal with those documents. With a plethora ofinformation about enterprise content management (ECM),information lifecycle management (ILM), documentcomposition, and document management, many insurersare still unsure of where to focus their attention and whichsolutions are relevant for them.

It is critical to adopt a solution that meets all of the diverseneeds of documents in each phase of the insurancelifecycle. Understanding how dynamic documentautomation supports and benefits the Insurance ProductLifecycle will help insurers make some of these criticaldecisions.

This paper examines how dynamic document automationsupports policy generation in the retention phase of theinsurance product lifecycle.

Distribution / Proposal Policy Issuance / Billing Service / Claims

Insurance Product Lifecycle

• Assemble proposal components including illustrations, quotes, etc., by individual state, by specifics of individual situation• Print and mail• Archive

Process Steps:1. Sales/marketing completes application forms2. Application forms are sent to underwriting for rating/quoting3. Underwriting sends guidance/decision back to sales/marketing4. Proposal assembled5. Proposal printed6. Proposal mailed/presented to customer7. Proposal archived

• Handle incoming communications from policyholders; make changes, request information, challenge claims denials, etc.• Resolve issue, generate and send reply• Archive

Process Steps:1. Receive mail, or handle inbound call2. Image or record receipt3. Route to service personnel4. Service personnel consults other internal sources if necessary to resolve issue or gather additional information5. Service personnel composes reply; templated responses as much as possible6. Reply printed7. Reply mailed8. Reply archived

• Assemble policy components including all necessary riders, etc., by individual state, by specifics of individual policy• Print and mail• Archive

Process Steps:1. Policy details entered into policy administration system2. Policy administration system generates policy document (Word, PDF, or print- stream)3. Policy printed4. Policy mailed5. Policy archived

Claims ManagementPolicy AdministrationProposal Administration

Acquisition Retention / Extension

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Dynamic Document Automationfor Successful Policy Generation

In an ever-changing economy, customer retention is adaunting task. A continually widening variety of productsand providers increase customers’ sensitivity to price andservice, weakening their loyalty. One way to strengthenthat loyalty is by delivering superior customer service.

The level of care you give your customers is often moreimportant than the product or service you provide to thatcustomer. The key to delivering superior customer care isresponding faster to inquiries and delivering a morepersonalized customer experience. Your customer-facingemployees must be able to solve problems and getanswers to your customers quickly and accurately. Fromthe customer’s perspective, the experience should beeasy, fast, and thorough – in short, simple to use.

Dynamic documents provide up-to-date information foryour customers, logically arranged according to pre-setbusiness rules, all presented with a professional look thatenhances the customer’s confidence in your organization.From claims processing and inquiry response to policygeneration, dynamic document composition helpsstreamline your customer contacts while delivering thepersonalization and accuracy your customers demand.

4

What Is Dynamic DocumentAutomation?

In general, insurers’ document needs fall into twocategories: document composition and documentmanagement. Together these solutions provide thestructure for a complete document-automation solution.

Document composition is the authoring or automatedgeneration of documents used to communicate withinternal or external parties. As the first phase of thedocument-automation process, document compositionencompasses the design, deployment, and delivery ofhigh-volume and interactive personalized communications(i.e., proposals, illustrations, policies, and claimscorrespondence).

Design personalized content: Document compositionallows you to easily design sophisticated documentmodels with complex business logic that can bedynamically applied to all of your documentcommunications. Everything from claims letters to highlypersonalized proposals – complete with bar codes,logos, charts, and variable data from any source withinyour enterprise – can be generated in a variety offormats.

Deploy timely communications: New document-automation solutions are being engineered as singlesolutions that can be deployed across your enterprisevia a service-oriented architecture (SOA). Thiscommitment to open standards optimizes your legacy ITinvestments while providing efficient, rapid integrations,multiple delivery channels, and outputs in severalformats (e.g., PDF, AFP, Postscript, and XML).

Deliver compelling documents: Document compositionsolutions combine the scalability to produce structureddocument communications in high-volume batch withthe flexibility to generate highly personalized, free-formdocuments on demand. This allows you to interact withcustomers in real time, and deliver documents in theform that each customer prefers – print, fax, e-mail, orweb.

Document management includes routing, storing,indexing, archiving, and retrieving documents that containinformation needed to underwrite policies, process claims,and communicate with customers. Documentmanagement solutions enable companies to achieve thefollowing results:

• Gain visibility into their business.

• Acquire and retain customers.

• Reduce costs.

• Increase productivity.

These results can be achieved by implementing a solutionthat automatically captures content and provides anarchive with powerful indexing technology.

Document automation incorporates both dynamicdocument composition and document-managementsolutions. This allows you to eliminate manual processes,thus speeding production time, lowering production costs,and improving document accuracy.

Document issues continue to plague insurers. Fortunately,there are now document-automation solutions that areeasy to use, easy to integrate, and easy to maintain. Thesesolutions will help insurers reduce costs and still meet theircustomers’ needs and expectations.

DESIGNDocument Automation

DEPLOY DELIVER MANAGE

Data

RulesLogic

Format/Schema

Interactive

Print Email

Web

Batch

Fax

Archive

Index

Search

Retrieval

MODEL

Automating Policy Generation

If you are in the insurance industry, you know the pain ofpolicy generation. Compliance, versioning, archiving, anddrawing data from several disparate systems are just a fewof the challenges involved in creating new policies.Dynamic document composition can simplify your process – saving production time, ensuring regulatorycompliance, and improving the look of all of your policies.

An efficient document-composition solution can drawtogether disparate systems, providing a single interfacethat accesses all needed data directly from the desktop.The end result is a stable, secure system that can generateall of the documents necessary for a policy in a fraction ofthe time.

5

Variable placeholders arepredefined with XMLschema.

Product branding andcorporate identity elementsare automatically merged toensure proper usage.

Variable information isincluded in the documentincluding: address blockcomponents and effectivedate.

Transaction-driven tablesand personalized charts ofall types are built fordynamic incorporation intodocuments.

Personalized chartscommunicate one-to-onedata in an easy-to-understandmanner.

6

Design Policies that Are Customized andPersonalized The policy generation process can be a painfully slow onefor many insurers. Policies require compliant language,long approval processes, and time-consuming interactionsbetween agents and underwriters. This often results inmanual processes that lead to high risk, error-pronepolicies and dissatisfied customers. Creating complex,customized policies with both dynamic and static contentthat complies with regulatory requirements can be asignificant challenge for insurers. Automating compliancesupport, approval workflow, and other capabilities helpsinsurers streamline the policy process, and allows for thefollowing benefits:

• Personalization: Drive deeper personalization withinpolicy documents by embedding sophisticated logic andreal-time, customer-specific data from any source orformat, including mainframe. Rules-based logic providessophisticated functionality within policy documentmodels, including data-driven logos, regulatory language,paragraph dependencies, and signature inclusions.

• Time-to-Market: Dramatically shorten the time it takesto move policy documents into production throughcomprehensive testing and preview capabilities builtdirectly in the design environment. Easily move fromdocument design to production without manualintervention or complex programming from IT.

• Quality: Automated data acquisition, version control,and reusable content components provide the simplestand easiest pathway to document quality and near-error-free performance.

• Compliance: Significantly reduce the burden and costsassociated with regulatory compliance throughcentralized management and monitoring of contentcomponents, as well as comprehensive audit facilities.

Deploy Policy Generation throughout theEnterprise, SeamlesslyDocument composition is making insurance a faster, moreflexible, and more customer-focused industry. With oneproduct, companies are able to design, deploy, deliver,and manage the full gamut of policyholdercommunications, including letters, quotes, policies, andrenewals – and easily modify them to meet changingrequirements, while leveraging all the data within theorganization. Document composition achieves this in thefollowing ways:

• Single Solution: Simplify the IT infrastructure through asingle, comprehensive solution for batch automationand interactive document generation.

• Rapid Integration: Provide efficient, rapid integrations,support multiple delivery channels, and streamlineworkflows with consistent, progressive, and flexible rulesimplementation through a solution architected entirelyon published, open standards and utilizing a 100% XMLcore.

• Extensibility: Extend the value of investments in coreapplications and technologies with adherence topublished, open standards and a services-orientedarchitecture (SOA) that promotes agility and flexibility.

• Enterprise-Wide Access: Provide business-line userswith easy access to document model repositories fromanywhere across the enterprise.

• Multiple Support: Simplify the management andmaintenance of document repositories by utilizingpublished, open XML-based technologies that minimizethe number of templates required to support multipledelivery channels, outputs, jurisdictions, and languages.

7

Deliver Timely, Persuasive PolicyDocuments Customizing the communication method for eachpolicyholder with multi-channel delivery options, includingmail, fax, e-mail, the web or all of the above, is now easierthan ever. Document-composition solutions lead the wayin transitioning from a paper-driven, labor-intensiveprocess to electronic document delivery by utilizing thesefeatures:

• Interactivity: Dynamically assemble, generate, anddeliver highly personalized documents with varyingdegrees of complexity while interacting with customersin real time.

• Ease of Use: A thin-client interface, point-and-clickaccess to documents, and guided workflows provide ahighly intuitive environment that significantly reducestraining burden across the enterprise.

• Timely Response: Improve customer responsivenesswith point-and-click access to a multitude of documentsand document packs that provide single customerdelivery of multiple documents.

• Multiple Delivery Channels: Automatically adjustdocument characteristics to the respective deliverychannel, providing turn-key, point-and-click support formultiple delivery channels.

• Output Management: Simplify output managementstrategies while significantly reducing post-processingcosts by combining grouping and sorting capabilitieswith open and published native Microsoft XML schemas.

Manage All Your PoliciesDocument-management offerings support the high-volume capture, management, indexing, archiving, andpresentation associated with policy generation. Fullyautomated archiving and retrieval of policy documentseasily facilitates the mining of target information fromacross the enterprise. And when it comes to compliance,document-management offerings can provide completedocument lifecycle management to ensure that policiesare timely and accurate, and that schedules are strictlyenforced. The right document-management solutionprovides organizations with a content-centric foundationto deliver application-specific solutions that solve businessproblems with two critical features:

• Indexing: Answering customer questions, spotting salestrends, or performing analytical research is much easierwhen you have a common data-mining user interface fordeveloping powerful queries. Robust data-miningcapabilities allow users to mine target information fromall content types across the entire enterprise, regardlessof where it is located.

• Archiving: A document management solution providesfully automated archiving and retrieval of all data storedin its repository. The archive process is triggeredautomatically, based on migration parametersestablished to leverage hardware and networkresources. The restore process automatically locates thedocument from any storage media and presents theuser with the data upon request. Users are no longerrequired to focus on the increasingly complex burden oflocating information, and are able to focus on analyzingthe information itself.

Dynamic document automation offers a way forenterprise-level organizations to meet contemporarycustomer care challenges in an efficient, effective, andprofitable manner. By streamlining the process by whichpolicies are designed, deployed throughout theenterprise, delivered to customers, and managed,organizations can strengthen and expand their customerrelationships, as well as gain significant savings inproduction cost and time.

Benefits Realized

Global insurance clients like Prudential Life Insurance, MTLInsurance, Anthem Blue Cross Blue Shield, MolinaHealthcare, and Wisconsin Physicians Service Insurancehave achieved the following benefits:

• Acquired, strengthened and expanded customerrelationships by dynamically personalizing documentcontent and presentation to each individual customercommunication

• Accelerated time-to-market for new products andcommunications by as much as 90% by movingdocument design and generation out of the ITdepartment and onto the desktops of non-technical,business-line professionals via a highly intuitive interface

• Realized cost savings equivalent to 1%-5% of revenuesby streamlining document processes, while exploitingand extending legacy investments

• Reduced document errors to near-zero by automatingthe entry of data and inclusion/exclusion of contentbased upon embedded rules logic

• Reduced compliance risk by centralizing themanagement and monitoring of all document models,content components, and generated documents

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Cincom Has the Solution forPerfect Documents Made Easy!

Cincom Document Solutions is unique in the industry forthe way it engages with prospective clients. Cincom learnsyour business, analyzes your needs, and builds a solutiontailored to your specific requirements. Cincom’s solutionsadapt to – not radically alter – your existing, mission-critical document communications processes.

Cincom Eloquence, the most intuitive, dynamic document-composition offering in the industry, helps globalinsurance companies enhance and strengthen customerrelationships, minimize compliance and regulatory risks,and reduce operating costs by simplifying themanagement of business-critical, document-automationprocesses.

Cincom Eloquence helps you optimize enterprise-widelegacy investments by effortlessly integrating with corebusiness applications, databases, and information-technology infrastructures. This ease of integration ismade possible by Eloquence’s open, J2EE/XML service-oriented architecture (SOA), which utilizes IBM®’s industry-leading WebSphere® technology.

Cincom Eloquence’s easy-to-use interface was co-developed with Human Factors International, globalexperts in the area of user-centered design. The interfaceleverages the features, content editing, and formattingcapabilities of Microsoft Word, including WordML(Microsoft’s published, open XML schema). This enablesyou to move document design and generation out of theIT department and onto the desktops of non-technical,line-of-business professionals for more timely, accurate,and relevant document communications.

Cincom Eloquence™

Data

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Case Study: MTL Insurance

MTL Insurance, a life insurance and annuity company,found that a more uniform, more consistent, better-looking policy resulted from using Cincom DocumentSolutions, and the resulting documents made a morecredible impression on its customers.

Before acquiring the system, MTL required a week ormore to develop just a few of the documents neededto produce a policy for a new product. Now, adeveloper can create 30-40 documents within aneight-hour day. Furthermore, the time and resourcesneeded to modify existing documents have beendecreased significantly. If a customer requests achange, it can be completed immediately.

The company now has the ability to provide newproducts to its customers, with an enhancedpresentation, faster than ever before. The reduction incost to the company ultimately results in an increase individends for its policy owners, which is a great way toretain customers.

“With Cincom, we have the ability toprovide new products to our customers,with an enhanced presentation, fasterthan ever before. The reduction in cost tous ultimately results in an increase individends for our policy owners.”– Kathleen Biwer, Manager, Internal Projects

Initiatives, MTL Insurance Company

Conclusion

The insurance industry needs fast, cost-effective documentcomposition and document management across systemsand processes; the flexibility to support traditional paperand electronic communication channels; and the ability tooffer choices to their customers, not just in terms ofproducts and services, but also in how those products andservices are delivered.

Document-automation solutions streamline the process bywhich documents are designed, deployed throughout theenterprise, and delivered to customers and managed overtheir lifecycle. This can lead to significant production-costand time savings. In some cases, companies have:

• Reduced production costs by up to 80 percent

• Improved production time by nearly 90 percent

• Virtually eliminated document errors

From acquisition and retention to extension, dynamicdocument automation offers a way for you to meetcontemporary customer-care challenges in an efficient,effective, profitable manner. Organizations utilize dynamicdocument automation to drive greater personalization,respond to customer inquiries more quickly, and achievegreater response rates from extension campaigns.

Dynamic document automation makes it simpler for youto keep customers satisfied, increase growth, enhancecustomer loyalty, and decrease defections to yourcompetitors – all while reducing costs.

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About Cincom DocumentSolutions

Cincom Document Solutions delivers the most intuitive,dynamic document automation solutions in the industry,designed to simplify the management of business-criticalprocesses from document automation through documentmanagement. By streamlining the design, deployment,delivery, and management of high-volume, highlypersonalized document communications, CincomDocument Solutions has helped hundreds of businessesworldwide acquire, strengthen, and expand customerrelationships, minimize compliance/regulatory risks,reduce operating costs, and accelerate time-to-market forall their document communications. With over twodecades of experience, Cincom Document Solutions leadsthe industry in providing dynamic document solutions thatare easy to integrate, easy to use, and deliver a rapid andcontinuous return on investment.

Cincom, the Quadrant Logo, Cincom Eloquence, and Simplification ThroughInnovation are registered trademarks of Cincom Systems, Inc.

IBM and WebSphere are registered trademarks of International BusinessMachines Corporation.

All other trademarks belong to their respective companies.

© 2007, 2008 Cincom Systems, Inc.FORM DS070308-1 05/08/08Printed in U.S.A.All Rights Reserved

World Headquarters • Cincinnati, OH USA • US 1-800-2CINCOM Fax 1-513-612-2000 • International 1-513-612-2769E-mail info@cincom.com • http://www.cincom.com

About Cincom

Cincom delivers and supports innovative software andservices that simplify complex business processes. Cincomspecializes in the areas of business where simplificationbrings the greatest value for companies that want to growrevenue, control cost, minimize risk, and achieve rapid ROIbetter than their competitors. For nearly 40 years, Cincomhas helped thousands of clients worldwide simplify themanagement of complex business processes. Cincom servesclients around the world, including Barclay’s Bank, PrudentialLife Insurance, Christian Children’s Fund, MTL Insurance,Anthem Blue Cross Blue Shield, Wisconsin Physicians ServiceInsurance, and the U.S. Social Security Administration. Formore information about Cincom's products and services,contact Cincom at 1-800-2CINCOM (USA only), send an e-mail to info@cincom.com, or visit the company’s website atwww.cincom.com.