Brokers Boost Customer Service through Technology

Local insurance brokers say they are ramping up their use of new software technology and Web-based systems to save time and money for their customers and themselves. Woodland Hills-based Poms & Associates Insurance Brokers Inc. and Van Nuys-based Momentous Insurance Brokerage Inc. are some of the firms in the local region using client-based systems that industry experts acknowledge as being ahead of the curve. The systems help customers receive and organize information digitally, allowing them to reduce paper use, receive documents and reports faster, and use new data-organizing functions. During the past few years, some brokerage companies have started to more aggressively implement technology, said Timothy Manaka, Jr., president of Insurance Brokers & Agents of the West. Still, he and other industry experts say most brokerage firms still are slow to adopt more advanced systems. “The majority of them are behind in the game of technology,” Manaka said. “They have to (use technology) in order to stay competitive, in order to have the value-added service.” Online database Poms & Associates says it has already experienced some of the benefits of using its recently launched Poms Risk Organizer (PRO) system, an online database for reports produced by the company’s risk management division. Companies that have strong risk management systems in place have the potential to have lower insurance premiums, company officials said. Before January, risk reports were largely given to customers as hard-copies, which can be hundreds of pages long, Poms administrators said. Clients using the new system, including school districts, businesses, and public entities, now can better organize their reports. They can research their workplace risk results by categories, such as employee training needs and compliance costs. “Years ago, we had a client who took a stack of binders and had some people create manual Excel sheets (of risks),” said Phillip Combest, senior manager of risk services for Poms & Associates. That kind of work took hours to compile. Now, he said, the same client is able to work through an online database program that supports him in accomplishing the task more efficiently. With the PRO system, clients also receive their risk management reports faster. “We have the ability to do absolute real-time delivery, so the moment that a work product is complete, we can send a notification to a client so that they can log in and view their information,” Combest said. Printing, mailing and packaging used to make the delivery process take several days, he said. Poms launched the PRO system for clients in January, but the company has used it in-house since early 2010. Using the new system has allowed the company’s risk division to increase its productivity by about 11 percent and shrink paper costs by just under 10 percent, Combest said. Training time for new consultants has also decreased by nearly 40 percent. Poms contracted with a developer for the PRO technology about four years ago because it recognized that to be relevant the company needed to modernize, said Tim Karcz, director of risk services for the insurance brokerage firm. “We had clients that had 60 (to) 70 facilities, and when we would provide a safety audit for them, they would get 60 to 70 binders,” Karcz said. “That’s pretty cumbersome to walk into your office one day and have that on your desk.” Direct upload Van Nuys-based Momentous Insurance also has invested in software for its clients. The company employs two programmers who develop the tools, including its automatic document upload system which was launched in 2008, said Michelle Boyer, director of marketing for the company. The system allows clients, mainly accounting and business management companies, to have insurance forms directly and automatically uploaded to their own office systems. Instead of receiving the forms via e-mail, they receive notices that insurance policy forms, invoices, certificates and other documents now are in their systems and ready for use. “The documents can be very large files, so sending it by e-mail is not even always possible,” Boyer said. “It can also bog down their inboxes and their servers.” Boyer said the system provides better efficiency for both Momentous and its clients. “There’s paper costs, ink costs, time delay for mail, man hours to sort and deliver more mail, man hours to upload and scan it into the system,” Boyer said. “The whole business community was looking for more cost-effective ways to do business.”