The Road to a Paper-Free Environment Goes Beyond Technology

Paperless Agencies Create Better Workflows, Enhance Service, Security and Save Money, Too

On the side of a Utah highway, the client had been pulled over by a state trooper at a traffic stop. It was a frustrating experience, made even more so when the officer politely asked: “Why was there no insurance card in the car? It’s required by law, you know…”

The client, in a pinch, called his agent — Don Taylor, of Bennion Taylor, a 6-person agency in Murray, Utah — and explained the situation. Within seconds, Taylor used his paperless agency management system to pull up proof of insurance. He quickly e-mailed it to the client’s BlackBerry. Satisfied, the officer let the client go without a hitch.

“The cop started laughing when I sent it over there,” said Taylor, recounting the story from his insured. “He couldn’t believe we actually did that.”

For years, tech advocates and early adopters have clamored over the advantages of paperless technology in insurance agencies — and with good reason. Paperless offices carry numerous, quantifiable benefits. There’s an added layer of security, such as the elimination of the risk of floods and fires destroying the agency’s paperwork, as well as identity theft. There’s also elimination of storage space, and the lost time of employees who could be servicing clients instead of putting away — or searching in vain — for files.

And thanks to advances in technology, from software to scanning, paperless offices are easier to run than ever. Not to mention that they can also save money.

But it’s real-life anecdotes such as the Utah highway incident that underscore the real power of a paperless office, says Gytis Barzdukas, vice president of product management and marketing for AMS, which makes software systems used by 27,000 people in 2,100 agencies across the nation. “Obviously, there are some great customer service elements when you go paperless,” he said.

Yet paperless offices remain something of an anomaly at insurance agencies. Barzdukas estimates that roughly 10 percent of AMS users run some manner of a paperless office. The biggest obstacle? Foot-dragging. “This is an industry that moves relatively slowly,” he said. “It would be a huge shift to move from where we were 25 years ago to where most offices are paperless. As an industry, we have gone a long way but still have a long way to go.”

David Winkler, executive vice president of Innosource, another maker of document management software, agreed. “The biggest thing is not competitive pressure,” he said. “It’s indecision on the part of businesses. They have been doing things one way for so long, it’s hard to change their ways. It’s change management.”

Considering Work Flow

Those who have gone down the road to paperless offices realize the most important step has little to do with picking out scanners, software, monitors or other technology. It’s figuring out the agency’s work flow.

“We wanted efficiencies and accessibility and built our system around that,” said Brian Bartosh of Top O’ Michigan Insurance, which has 30 employees and 10 branches — mostly sales offices — spread across 130 miles of Northern Michigan. With so much ground to cover, and little space to keep everything, Top O’ Michigan opted to create a system where all information — be it files, messages or anything else — would be readily accessible by any employee, anywhere.

It works through a single person, the communications coordinator, whose job it is to scan every paper item coming into the agency before it gets to anyone’s desk, and then route it to the appropriate person. Once inside Top O’ Michigan’s database — which runs on an agency management software from Applied Systems — files are easily searchable on any of the multiple monitors sitting on employees’ desks.

It’s not just paper — voicemail messages, pictures or any other file type can also be stored in the paperless office, Bartosh said. “We looked at it as document management,” he said.

“When we talk about ‘paperless’ it means we eliminated any storage of paper. Any documents that are coming in from clients, or through the mail or fax, are handled in a consistent work-through.”

Ann Latham, a Western Massachusetts-based consultant who specializes in helping companies boost efficiency, said before going paperless, any business must first consider the golden rule of service: whether doing so will improve customer satisfaction.

“It’s not that being paperless or having less paper is bad,” she said. “It’s that you should be motivated by what serves the customer best. If you are trying to make things easier and quicker and as a result it ends up reducing paper, that’s great. But if you just strive to be paperless just to be paperless, it may not be a good thing.”

In the case of Top O’ Michigan, for instance, the agency built its marketing and service operations around the idea that it was available 24 hours a day, seven days a week, Bartosh said. To meet that goal, eliminating paper was the best route.

There’s also a value to having files be easily accessible, said Dan Weedin, a Seattle-based insurance consultant.

“There is a growing need to keep documents longer. I’ve had clients asked to show records going back over 30 years due to asbestos liability. Now, with the increased technology, paperless documents are easier to save and store forever,” Weedin said.

But for Edgar Higgins, principal of both Thousand Islands Agency in Clayton, N.Y., and The MacIlvennie Agency in Adams, N.Y., which began the transition to a paperless office back in 1997, customer service was the most important reason for making the jump.

Doing so, Higgins said, allows more face to face time with clients — the things that ultimately boost business and improve retention.

“It’s about customer service — they want things quicker and faster. The benefit of being paperless is it allows you to achieve a better workflow model, and there’s more time for value-added services for clients,” Higgins said.

“I have difficulty understanding why the whole world isn’t doing this,” he said. “Your whole inventory is in files; why not make it accessible?”

For those that do make the transition, the benefits cannot be understated, added Taylor, the agent in the case of the Utah motorist.

“I have never been so excited about something in all of my life as I am about the paperless office,” he said. “To go from where we were in 2006 before we installed it to and be where we are now — up with big boys — it’s just amazing.”

Topics Agencies Tech Michigan