Claims servicing solution for the insurance industry

Optimizing processes to increase efficiencies

Finding ways to improve claims servicing is vitally important for insurance companies. Claims are often a source of high operational costs for insurers and a point of direct interaction with customers. In fact, insurance companies have learned that a customer's likelihood of remaining with a carrier largely depends on his or her last claims experience.

That being said, insurance companies often struggle with a nontransparent, disconnected claims process. They often have cumbersome systems that make it difficult to keep customers informed of the status of their claims, difficult to notify them of when to expect the adjuster, and difficult to explain the company's reasoning for the payment amount. Customers are not the only people frustrated with the claims process. Often, lack of collaboration means the claims servicing workflow is inefficient and requires a lot of manual data entry.

Insurance companies need a flexible workflow that optimizes their processes and allows all involved parties to support the steps necessary for the claim.

Small efforts-such as integrating the claims agent and body shop calendars or securing file transfer between a claims adjuster and a law firm-can pay enormous dividends in improved customer satisfaction and claims efficiency.

Vision/Outcome	Claims servicing that is as efficient for the carrier as it is positive for the customer.
Benefits	Improve the claims workflow by optimizing existing processes and providing access to all the information necessary to service the claim.
Differentiator	Improve collaboration and communication across all of the people involved in the claims process for faster, more accurate, and more efficient claims servicing, from first notice of loss to settlement.

Microsoft Solution Attributes

• Efficiency: Insurance companies can achieve greater efficiency throughout the claims process with Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 (MOSS), Office Communications Server, Office Business Applications, and BizTalk Server. MOSS can help insurance employees access and collaborate around all necessary claims information, while also improving and speeding workflow. Office Communications Server can help claims adjusters and case managers better manage real-time communication for more efficient claims servicing and better customer experiences. Microsoft Office Business Applications offer the ability to access business applications and processes through the familiar Office user interface, which requires minimal training and enables broad adoption. BizTalk Server helps insurance companies efficiently and effectively integrate systems, employees, and third-party claims processing participants through a framework for automating and orchestrating manageable business processes, transactions, and interactions.

• Workflow Improvement: Solutions from Microsoft and its partners can help insurance companies improve their claims workflow within existing processes. MOSS helps with content management and business processes. BizTalk Server can be used to manage more complicated workflow requirements. Insurance agencies also benefit from Microsoft SQL Server for transaction processing. By using SQL Server for data management, insurance organizations can manage information reliably within the claims workflow without requiring employees to adjust their existing process.

• Collaboration: Microsoft's vision is that every insurance worker should have direct access to contextual, unified communications and collaboration capabilities, making it easy to find and share information, communicate with the right people at the right time, and take full advantage of the power of mobile devices, the Internet, and the Microsoft Office 2007 system। By implementing solutions built on Microsoft Unified Communications and MOSS, insurance organizations can help agents and carriers communicate and collaborate productively with all parties involved in claims servicing-from the mobile van and adjuster to the body shop, agent, and customer-using secure collaboration portals based on MOSS or Microsoft Silverlight. Silverlight provides the ability to develop Web 2.0 portals across a wide range of systems, devices, and platforms. With Windows Mobile, insurance companies can provide all parties in the claims process with rich enterprise computing using mobile devices and smartphones.

• Microsoft