Legal & General Insurance

Legal & General perfect paperless insurance claims with Pacsol

The paperless office is now a virtual reality at Legal & General Insurance! Claim forms have already ceased to exist and thanks to the latest document management and CaseView tracking and workflow software, all insurance claims can now be sorted, online, in one ‘hit’.

The story begins in January ’98 when Legal & General decided to consolidate all its claims activities into a single call centre operation in Birmingham. The decision was taken then to implement the Insure/90 Insurance Application, running on an IBM iSeries (AS/400), and to find compatible imaging and workflow systems to once and for all dispense with the need for paper.

Legal & General found any number of imaging systems that could have met their scanning and document management requirements, but only one product, CaseView from Pacific Solutions, came close to meeting their need for a workflow system to track and control their proposed claims handling solution.

“CaseView not only provided the framework for recording, progressing and monitoring each claim, but it could also perform all our back office functions such as issuing confirmations, instructions to loss adjustors or solicitors, and invoices,” explains L&G’s Claims Centre Manager.
“All it lacked at the time was the ability to automatically create the right electronic form to match both our various insurance products and the different formats required by our customers – be they individuals or intermediaries.”

FormView – A Joint Development

To resolve this problem, PacSol’s R&D team joined forces with L&G’s systems engineers to develop FormView – a unique add-on module that allows simple configuration of a set of nested forms or integrated templates that may be called into play in instant response to the customers’ first answer – such as claim type or policy number.

FormView also incorporates all the front-end interfaces required to link CaseView to the local I/90 system and to the various remote systems employed by L&G’s principle intermediaries – such as Birmingham Midshires and Britannia building societies.

Case Control

Now, when any customer calls the L&G claims centre, any one of the 140 operators can, on typing in the appropriate policy or reference number, call the correct form to the screen and, with all the prompts provided by FormView, handle the claim over the phone.
The CaseView software simultaneously logs and times the claim and creates all the required actions, instructions and invoices, as well as escalation alerts in the event of any of these actions not being performed within pre-set time limits.

CaseView is, in turn, linked to ImageView, PacSol’s AS/400 based document management system, which creates a customer claim folio in which all the details and resultant correspondence are stored together, and from which any operator can recall the entire file to their PC instantly.
Likewise, all incoming letters or faxes are scanned and added to the ImageView folio along with email correspondence.

PacSol has developed and implemented a VRPG based GUI version of CaseView, to complement the e-form version of FormView developed for L&G. Also thanks to L&G, CaseView has been enhanced to cater for the specific requirements of call centres and help desk CRM applications running on AS/400s.

The Java/Browser Benefits

“The Java/Web Browser combination revolutionises AS/400 connectivity. No longer do AS/400 clients have to be pre-configured or pre-selected and Java takes the AS/400 beyond terminal emulation enabling it to function as an application server over the Internet,” says Mike Coulthard.
“Not only does this solve the GUI problem which has bedevilled the AS/400 (and IBM) since the advent of Windows, but it ratifies the case for the AS/400 as the ideal (as well as the most robust and reliable) platform for all CRM applications - be they Web and/or call centre based.”

Future Steps

L&G has recently implemented this graphical interface for the entire system. The intention is to Web-enable the external interface to allow its intermediaries and, in turn, individual customers to speed the process, initially through initial claims logging, and later there will be the facility to interrogate existing claims via the L&G Website Armed with CaseView, PacSol/GTOS are now working with other IBM Accredited Business Partners - to provide total, integrated front and back office CRM and call centre solutions on the AS/400 and other platforms. This should prove particularly useful for L&G as they expand their relationship with intermediaries – who already account for 70% of their insurance business.
PacSol and GTOS are sister companies with offices in Hampshire and Worcestershire respectively. Both companies provide the same products and services.