From decision to paperless in less than 90 days, with 40% improvement.

Organized in 1917 by a small church group that wanted insurance for fire and storm losses, Brotherhood Mutual Insurance Company has grown into one of the nation's leading insurers of churches and related ministries.

Based in Fort Wayne, Indiana, the company provides commercial property and liability, vehicle, workers' compensation, group accident and health, and personal lines coverage.

The company has a solid reputation for service, integrity, and financial responsibility that goes hand in hand with its commitment to provide superior insurance products and services to its customers.

During the recent IASA Conference held in Denver, Scott Figgins, CPCU, and vice president of claims for Brotherhood Mutual, had an opportunity to address conference attendees about their imaging/document management efforts, vendor selection and relationship.

"We began evaluating imaging and document management in 2001 to improve our claims process, reduce cost and enhance customer service."

Insurance Spoken Here

"We chose ImageRight as our document management partner in April of 2001. One of the big selling points of ImageRight was that they understood our business needs. They are an insurance--only vendor working with insurance companies and agents. The ImageRight product is designed solely for insurance people. As a case in point, we had been doing some other work in redesigning some of our internal systems, and we have had other vendors come in and help us. They were not insurance-specific vendors and you spend a significant amount of time explaining to them what reserves and claim file are, and the types of things we do. With ImageRight, we did not have to do that. They understand claims, and they understand underwriting. They understand finance as it relates to insurance, because that is all they do."

Imaging Strategy

"We did not want to pave the cow path with imaging. Our initial objective was to evaluate our claims operations, determine how we could streamline the processes and then lay imaging on top of the new process. ImageRight suggested we not change two things at once: our process and electronic images for adjusters. They recommended implementing document management and workflow using our current process, thereby impacting only the adjuster working from an electronic image without paper. Then, once we were comfortable with the imaging, we could change and enhance the workflow processes. What we found was that we obtained a 40 percent improvement just by implementing this way."

Implementation Strategy

"We began program installation during the week of July 9, 2001. ImageRight installed all the hardware, software and PCs. Training began July 16 and on July 19 we went live. So, in four days we went from being totally paper to being totally paperless. This can be a culture shock to employees, but in reality the system is very intuitive and very easy to use. You have to be able to say, 'We did it with paper before, we're going to electronic.' You don't want people printing out electronic files. We did not give them the option."

"To date, we have scanned more than 50,000 claim files and approximately 1.1 million images."

Cost Benefit

"I no longer have people chasing files around the office. Before, I had 17,000 claims a year and spent $8,000 to $9,000 a year on file folders. People are no longer getting up from their chairs and hunting for files. In productivity alone, we will not have any problem justifying the system when we are done. We are very confident in that."

"We will be implementing ImageRight in underwriting later this year, and then finance and marketing will follow."

ImageRight as Business Partner

"We are very, very happy with ImageRight because they have been very responsive to our needs. They have 24--hour support. ImageRight is a partner."

Designed for the Industry by the Industry.

ImageRight's Integrated Workflow and Document Management solution is designed specifically for the insurance industry. Many of its features are direct responses to the insurance industry's requests. ImageRight has several implementation models to choose from, depending on your operation's size, the complexity of your worldflows and the procedures you are most accustomed to using internally. Whatever implementation model you choose, ImageRight guarantees it!

The Document Management & Workflow Solution that Insurance Built!