Improving businesses processes with Internet file management.

Simple File Management for Common Processing Procedures
Although most insurance providers have used enterprise content management systems for years, these applications have typically been available to just a fraction of employees due to their high cost and complexity. For underwriters, customer service representatives and agents desiring secure file sharing across any network configuration, can help provide an ideal solution. We can help you develop a system where each participant can access files from their desktop application or browser making adding new files to the system as simple as selecting "File, Save". The physical transport and storage of the many documents related to property and casualty and life insurance transactions can typically be eliminated altogether, without requiring expanded licenses for higher cost ECM software.

Automatic Integration with Existing Software Applications
A key success factor to reducing the costs related to underwriting and processing insurance claims is the ability of new electronic solutions to be quickly understood and used by all process participants, otherwise paper-based forms and procedures will not easily be disposed of. The solution already supports transparent document access from within today’s most popular desktop applications (even non Internet-aware legacy applications) allowing the inter-department and cross-organization sharing of underwriting documents to occur directly from within an insurer’s current desktop applications. Deployment time and cost is dramatically reduced and the organization is not forced into premature and costly desktop operating system or application upgrades in order to achieve the benefits of more efficient policy underwriting or claims processing.

Support Multi-National Collaboration
Recent insurance industry consolidation has produced a collection of multinational providers more dependent than ever upon Internet based technologies that can help them bridge the distance and time between participants in their business processes. The WebFile Server was developed from the beginning to support multiple languages with its multi-byte code base permitting a single instance of a document to be represented in multiple languages at the same time. Changes made by file collaborators can also be represented in each participant’s local date and time format ensuring that even a global underwriting process still has everyone on the "same page". Coupled with today’s high speed networks, multinational insurers can now truly create a global document store that connects all participants, eliminates document redundancy, and improves access to and re-use of core business content saving countless hours of employee effort.

Reduce Storage Management Costs
According to industry experts, network server consolidation remains one of the top cost saving objectives of leading insurance provider IT departments. Consolidation of server based file information not only reduces hardware and maintenance costs, but it also frees valuable technical talent to work on higher value-added projects that can improve organization effectiveness. Insurers have already put the WebFile Server to work helping to consolidate commercial property and casualty documents stored all over network servers and even in mainframe databases. Typically, file consolidation of business process documents, such as those related to commercial underwriting yields a high percentage of duplicate files. Once these files have been migrated to the WFS, only a single instance of each file needs to be maintained, no matter how many unique customer folders it may reside in. This reduces network storage costs and maximizes file utility and value.

Facilitate Secure eCommerce
Today’s insurance industry can be characterized by a high level of interdependency between insurers, brokerage networks, underwriters and related financial service providers. More and more, these organizations are seeking secure and cost efficient means to leverage their relationships via the Internet in order to accelerate the business process and improve competitiveness. Today, solutions enable secure exchange of file information between insurers and re-insurers using SSL encrypted connections to protect transmissions between process participants. Document access is protected via username and password validation against each participants own directory service ensuring that only approved participants gain access. In addition, access permissions are employed to limit read, write, and share permissions based upon each participant’s role, reducing even further the opportunity for error and waste.