Every once in a while, we come across a product or a vendor that just impresses the heck out of us. Maybe its the wow factor when we see a demonstration. Maybe its the usefulness and clarity of the companys vision. Or maybe its how simple, obvious, and necessary the product is.

Over the years, weve written about these products as weve come across them (one, WrExpert, is even in this issuesee Case in Point, page 17), but this month we decided to do something more.

Of the better products weve seen, a good number of them are simply lacking the mindshare we think they deserve. Some are made by smaller companies, or companies playing in narrow niche markets. Others are made by bigger corporations, but havent blipped on the radar screens of the insurance industry.

So we took this opportunity to pick five companies and five products we think are worth a few minutes of your time. These arent by any means the only ones that impressed us; there are plenty of those, from large and small vendors alike. But there are only so many pages in each issue, and these five stood out as being a little differenta little cooler if you will. And, perhaps more importantly, these five arent as well known as we think they should be.

DWL Customer

DWLToronto, Ontariowww.dwl.com

Come together, right now, over me.The Beatles, Come Together

Youve got to give DWL credit for keeping its flagship products name straight and simple: Customer. Its also an accurate name; Customer is one of the few products that does true CRM, putting a carriers customers at the center of an information universe.

Like all good ideas, the broad description is simple, but the devilor in this case, the beautyis in the details. And although the company balks at any oversimplification, we cant help but do just that because Customer does so much.

So heres the over-simplified description: DWL Customer gives everyone in your organization a single, accurate view of every customers information, no matter which of your databases that information came from. And it keeps that information accurate and consistent across all those databases.

There are some other ways to describe Customer:

Its extremely powerful middleware. Customer sits between your various front ends (call center, billing, etc., even your public Web site) and your back-end processing systems. Thats systems, pluraland thats important.

Its a substitute for a data warehouse. To create a data warehouse, you have to move all the information from your various back-end databases into a single (at least virtually single) location. Customer does effectively the same thing, although you can leave your separate databases separate.

It creates on-the-fly, single-customer data marts. When someone requests information on a customer, the appropriate data are pulled from the appropriate databases and presented as a single view. When changes are made, those changes are sent back to the databases they belong in, keeping information consistent.

When someone requests information, Customer pulls the data from the appropriate back-end system, so users dont have to think about where the correct information is. More importantly, when someone inputs dataa change of address, first notice of loss, or whateverCustomer makes sure that the information is not only entered into a single database, but into all your back-end systems.

Its a CRM system thats true to the definition of CRM: It gives carriers a single view of every customer even when that customers information is kept across multiple databases. As customer-centric becomes the catchphrase of importance to insurers, products like DWL Customer are just what carriers should be thinking about.

NetMap for Claims

NetMap AnalyticsColumbus, Ohiowww.netmap.com

I went to the rock to hide my face; The rock cried out, no hiding place. No Hiding Place Down Here, traditional Gospel

If any product weve ever encountered gets an award for the Wow factor, its NetMap for Claims. In fact, during a demo, we jumped up excitedly to point to something on the projection screen. Herb Jones, company president at the time, remarked, Yeah, that happens a lot.

Its easy to see why. NetMap gives you a graphical representation of all the people, places, and numbers associated with your claims; when the diagrams start appearing, things that dont belong, like the same phone number associated with several claims, stand out immediately. For an SIU thats used to mapping relationships by handusing Post-Its, whiteboards, and index cardsNetMap is a dream come true.

Several factors go into making NetMap for Claims so appealing. First, its easy to describe what it does: It shows you how every person, place, and number involved in a claim links to one another and links to millions of other claims. It can tell you how many times a particular doctor has been involved, for example, or whether several unrelated people used the same phone number, or if the same address has been used in multiple claims.

Second, its easy to get started using it. Once its connected to your claims database, you simply enter a name, phone number, or other information to create any of several kinds of relationship diagram, each of which shows a set of relationships in a different degree of detail or with a different set of connections.

Third, it offers disturbingly detailed information. You can dig and dig, deeper and deeper into the relationships between people involved in your claims. Think of someone using the World Wide Web the first timeyou can find yourself clicking from place to place, almost addicted to the way one piece of information links to another. And that information doesnt just come from your own claims database. Assuming its connected to the Internet, NetMap for Claims will pull in data from ISO, to show claim connections regardless of carrier. Crooks who think that hitting a different insurer each time is safe are in for a nasty shock.

It works like this. Lets say your Spider Sense is tickling you when it comes to a particular claim. You enter a piece of informationa claim number, a person involved, a phone number, or something similar. NetMap searches through your claims database (and ISOs, if youve configured it that way) to show you connections to that claim. So youll see links from that claim to the names of the claimant, witnesses, doctors, and body shops, as well as numbers: phone, Social Security, vehicle ID, street addresses, and so on.

Then the magic starts. For each point of information, NetMap displays any connections it has to other claims. So a doctor or body shop may also have been involved with other claims. So, too, with people; a claimant here might have been a witness here. Its normal for a person to have a couple of connections, but if someone (or someones address or phone number) has a lot of links to it well, thats telling you something. So you click on that person and see how he links to other claims.

Think of it as a game of six degrees of separation, but in this case, if someone is connected to too many other eventsa Kevin Bacon, if you willyou may have found a bad guy. And if a group of people are connected in several different ways, the phrase fraud ring comes to mind. NetMap for Claims makes finding both simple and, dare we say, fun. Almost.

You can also set NetMap to review claims automatically, and trigger an alert if something seems suspicious. And, in keeping with the times, you can purchase it as either an installed product or on an ASP basis.

The NetMap PR people were happy to talk about their productup to a point. They got close-mouthed when we asked about uses outside the industrygovernment, for example. Could NetMap technology be used by the CIA? Polite smiles is all we could get, although, referring to the attacks on September 11, one said, Wasnt it great how quickly the FBI was able to connect all those people, all across the country, who had some relationship with the terrorists?

Well, yes.

Kodak DC-5000 Picture Authentication Cameraand Kodak Picture Authentication Software

KodakRochester, New Yorkwww.kodak.com

Let me take your picture,add it to the mixture,there it is I got you now!Really nothin to it, anyone can do it, its easy and we all know how.Dr. Teeth and the Electric Mayhem, Can You Picture That?

Digital cameras seem like great tools for claims repsimages can go right from the camera into the claims system in electronic form. Theres no scanning required and no film to buy. Unfortunately, in an industry plagued by fraud, digital images present an easy target for anyone with a decent knowledge of Photoshop: Unlike a negative, digital images can be easily altered; few if any people could tell the difference. Watermarking systems like Digimarc can protect copyrights, but arent suited to ensuring the photo isnt altered.

Enter Kodak and its aptly named Picture Authentication Software. Available built into the DC5000 digital camera or as an add-on to the DC280, it neatly solves the problem of image tampering. The software simply adds a digital signature to every image the camera takes. Using a one-way hash function like those used in public-key crypto system, it generates a number thats mathematically related to the image file. Change the file and the number is no longer relatedyou know the image has been altered. (Quick note for non math geeks: Its called a one-way hash function because, although you can calculate the number from the image file, you cant reverse the process and get any information about the image from the authentication figure.)

Besides the software in the camera, the system provides a PC-based product to authenticate the images. It conforms to the NISTs Digital Signature Standard as well, so the process itself cant be called into question. The company hopes that this kind of software will eliminate the need for photographers to testify in court that the image in evidence in the original.

Granted, the Kodak cameras arent necessarily the kind of digital equipment a professional photographer would use; both are two-megapixel units in a four (or more) megapixel world. But carriers and claims adjusters arent professional photographers, and they arent looking to make 11×17 enlargements, and the lower pixel count translates to a lower costthe DC5000 sells for less than $300.

Todays claims and document management solutions aim to do away with a lot of the paper carriers put up with, and that means converting as much as possible to digital format. Kodak adds a crucial piece to the process by making sure that at least the images on your system are tamper proof.

ImageRight

Advanced SolutionsConyers, Georgiawww.imageright.com

For paper now is all the rage,

And nothing else will suit the age.

Howard Paul, “The Age of Paper” (c.1860)

ImageRights marketing materials may not be the heavyweight stock glossy brochures youre used to; the ones it sent us were Kinkos-quality color printouts with plastic spiral binding. But thats okay, because the company is obviously putting its effort into creating the kind of software we like: Clean, standards based, well documented, customizable, and useful. (Beware small companies spending big bucks on marketing materials, we say. Toy giveaways and other dog-and-pony shows dont translate into great products.)

There are two parts to ImageRight: document management and workflow. And, as you might expect, theyre tightly integrated. Put simply, you bring documents into the systemby scanning, via fax, by printing, etc.tell the system what they are, and those documents are routed through the workflow youve established as if they were paper files with routing slips attached.

No one believes that a paperless office will ever happen, and that includes the folks at ImageRight. But taking a big bite out of a paper-intensive process is certainly doable, and thats the nail that ImageRight hits on the head. Most importantly, its entirely standards based.

You enter documents into the system via a scanner, by fax, through the network (TCP/IP or IPX), via e-mail, or from existing documents. The program stores its data on a dedicated server or an existing one, and supports backup to CD, DVD, optical devices, and COLD. And it works within any standard network environment.

ImageRight has the features you expect from just about every document management system. You can drag or drop documents and images where you need them, add annotations, enter details of the file, zoom and rotate images, and so on. Interfaces, as we all know, are in the eye of the beholder, although Advanced Solutions points out several ways it thinks ImageRights is better. Thats your call.

What impressed us about ImageRight and the Advanced Solutions philosophy is the openness and standardization. ImageRight works with DB2, Informix, Oracle, SQL Server, or Sybase databases, using native drivers or ODBC connections. It can integrate with any of your existing applications. It can run on any standard network environment. And the company touts a no secrets approach, meaning it will tell you whatever you want to know about how the system works, all to make installation and integration easier.

Beyond the document imaging and management part of the product is how it handles workflow. Again, the design is clean and intuitive. You set up workflow and routing using a simple graphical interface, dragging and dropping departments, users, instructions, criteria, date and time functions, and so forth, as if you were creating a flowchart. (Forget as if. You are, in fact, creating a flowchart for your documents.)

Workflows can call other workflows, and any workflow you create can include making (or receiving) SQL calls. You can also have a document or transaction take two paths at once, so it isnt held up by one department when another can work on it. That translates to a lot of power for carriers with complex document routing.

The beauty of ImageRight remains in how it strikes a perfect balance between behind-the-scenes power and up-front simplicity. And by maintaining standards and making it easy to link into your existing office systemthe whole thing was envisioned and designed by insurance peopleAdvanced Solutions can offer carriers one of the slickest document management solutions weve seen.

WrExpert

Injury Sciences

(877) 979-7378*

Toe bone connected to your foot bone,Your foot bone connected to your ankle boneJames Weldon Johnson and J. Rosamund Johnson, Dem Dry Bones

It may be the oldest joke in auto insurance: My neck! My neck! Whiplash is the poster child of soft-tissue injuries, but there are plenty of others, and they share a common premise: Theyre hard to prove (or disprove) and theyre easy to collect on.

With fraud a multi-billion-dollar problem for carriers, and with those same carriers looking for effective ways to reduce their loss ratios, finding a way to fight soft-tissue-injury fraud seems like a good place to start.

It seemed that way to us, too.

Contrary to what many laypeople think, there is a science behind the possibility of whiplash. Newtons laws of motion applythe vehicles involved are moving in just such a direction and at just such a speed, and they weigh a certain amount (as do the occupants). Only so much energy is transferred to the neck of the guy in the passenger seat whos screaming for an ambulance (and a lawyer). Whats important is knowing how much energy, and how much it takes to actually injure a human neck. Theres no trick. Engineers and doctors know how the human body works and what stresses bone and muscle can take. The rest is mathematics.

So Injury Sciences took the physics, medical science, and engineering behind soft tissue injuries and codified it, then added a pretty face (what you might call a graphical front end). The result is WrExpert, a standalone piece of software that can tell a claims adjuster whether or not the injury someone claims is really possible under the accidents circumstances.

WrExpert takes into account a lot of variables: the speed and direction of travel of the vehicles, their make and model, the positions of the passengers, and so on. How do the crumple zones on a 2001 Camry affect the 165-pound front-seat passenger in a head-on collision? What happens to a 280-pound man in the rear seat when the 1998 Taurus hes in gets hit from the side by a 2000 Explorer? If the claimant says his head hit the side window, WrExpert can tell you how likely that is.

Is it 100 percent accurate? Of course not; there are too many variables involved. (Students of chaos theory, rejoice.) But its more than good enough to tell an adjuster whether a claimants injury is likely, unlikely, or falls somewhere in between. And its not as if you get a red, yellow, or green light; WrExpert provides a detailed report that might scare away potential scammers, along with those back-of-the-phonebook lawyers expecting an easy settlement.

And lately, Injury Sciences has gone a bit further. WrExperts newest feature may smack of Big Brother, but thats not so bad when you get to play the part. By integrating with the diagnostic equipment in later model carsthe stuff that tells the airbag whether or not to deployWrExpert can get detailed information about the accident, such as speed, braking, engine RPM, and so forth. That makes the softwares determination more accurate.

Injury Sciences worked with Vetronix, the maker of that automotive black box, giving WrExpert access to better information than witnesses are able to deliver. So no longer will someone be able to claim He didnt even slow down! when the black box says the driver was slamming on the brakes.

Like any claims-related product, WrExpert probably isnt going to break any case wide open, or suddenly bring your loss ratio down 10 points. But in an area rife with scammers and opportunists, its a nice weapon to have in your arsenal.

*The companys Web site doesnt contain much information. In the words of president Scott Palmer, A spouting whale gets harpooned.