Customer and/or End User
Our client is an NYSE listed, "A" rated, specialty insurance company which develops, underwrites and manages primary casualty insurance in the alternative insurance market.
The Challenge
The processing of policies, correspondence and pre-printed credit slips, invoices and checks is an essential part of their daily business process, in which accuracy and speed are key factors. Business documentation, furthermore, needs to meet regulatory compliance requirements, which gives this function added importance. The company wished to implement the GENIUS package, a standard document management solution, to be integrated with existing centralized mainframe information storing systems. The documents generated within different departments had different processing needs-the claims department wanted interactive documents which could be easily amended, while the underwriting department wanted locked down version of policy documents so as to avoid any tampering. From a business viewpoint, the paramount need was for a process to merge data and generate documents at increased velocity, without manual interference, thus avoiding errors and the risk of serious financial and legal consequences.
The Solution
After studying the required functionality and technical characteristics, we decided to go with the ITP Document platform from AIA Software to build the documentation solution. Our client's business knowledge, PMAM's mature development process and the ITP document platform combined to create a most attractive and innovative arrangement allowing customer to cut IT costs substantially without compromising quality and effectiveness. The ITP document management solution provided us with a good development environment and the ability to integrate with the GENIUS main frame system from which the data could be merged automatically to generate both standard letters and customized documents. The solution mass produced complex, tailored documents for individual recipients at high speed. The system created each document by inserting the data from the corporate mainframe, retrieved through a direct connection between the ITP document platform and an AS/400 DB2 database running on IBM iSeries hardware. The generated documents attained a uniform professional look due to the native use of Microsoft Word, with full utilization of all the lay-out options available today. Tables, company styles, logos, letterheads and signatures were embedded dynamically based on conditional rules. Some very important documents, such as invoices and checks were designed and developed for printing on secure printers, accessible to authorized personnel only. The check document was developed with an MICR font and printed with special magnetic ink to utilize the company's in house check printing authorization from Bank of America. A particular accomplishment, we were informed by the Bank, was that unlike all other clients' checks, our checks met the Bank's standards in the very first sample itself.
Technology
Intelligent Text Processing 2.1 (ITP) for document model compilation and execution Advanced features of Microsoft office word 2000. AS400 database: DB2. Connectivity between ITP document development environment and AS400 Genius system through Microsoft Virtual Private Network and IBM iSeries. Configuring and setting up the ITP document triggering mechanism within Genius System. IBM Emulator version V5R2 for AS400.
Resulting Benefits
The solution enabled the quick and flawless generation of all documentation with just a couple of keystrokes-including policy documents like the complex DECLARATION Page, Quotes, Binder, reminders, follow-up letters, claims documents, and checks. The solution produces 90% of all outbound documents, over 100 documents per week The cycle of Define, Design, Develop and Deploy was completed within 4 months for the Environmental Product line, which involved 30 document templates and 600 ISO wordings being attached to the declaration page Standardization and consistency up to 90% was achieved in the documents, far higher than the previous manual process Check issuance, printing and dispatching volume increased by 20% resulted in more on time disbursements Policy issuance document generation and dispatch was accelerated from a few days to a few minutes All the documents are stored at a central location, thus simplifying maintenance. As all the users see the same version of the document, thus reducing the incidence of discrepancies Both standard and custom letters-with a far more elaborate look than before-are produced by a single operation Cost savings resulted from printing documents on normal paper (avoiding costly pre-printed stationary and letterheads) Customers benefited from the resulting transfer of operations from central administration to business units, and from the improved speed and polished document production