Once you get the convergence of bigger networks, a relatively cost-effective price point, and these mobile VPNs, I think you are going to see almost universal adoption, says Peter Urbain, an executive consultant for mobility solutions with IBM. Id be hard pressed to see a claims handler without it by the middle of next year.

Todd Eyler, vice president in the insurance area for the consultancy META Group, believes most insurers have more pressing problems to deal with before worrying about a wireless system. A lot of the focus [with insurance IT budgets] is on stopping the bleeding, and then theyll look at big investments such as renovating the core infrastructure, he says. Once [insurers] have a well-architected set of systems to add new kinds of interfaces, theyll be in a much better position, whether it means going with a browser or a wireless application. Many carriers dont have the right systems environment to use wireless in the way they might want to use it.

Hook Them Up

Country first issued laptops to its appraisers in 1998 and a year later went wireless, retrofitting the laptops with an integrated wireless radio. The appraisers work out of an office setting, checking in each morning to get their new assignments. Typically, they are assigned three to six claims cases a day.
When they reach their first assignment, the Country adjusters use an automated estimating program to begin the report, pull out a digital camera to get an image of the damage, and attach the image to the estimate. When the first assignment is done, they can check to see whether the next assignment has changed in the interim.

Country currently is operating with a slow network system, according to Koester, who explains it means uploading reports wirelessly can be time-consuming. If it is a total loss situation or something that is really urgent, they can upload the estimate to the home office wirelessly, says Koester of his claims staff. For less pressing claims, the appraisers dont upload until they return to the office. When we move to our next generation of laptops later this year, well be looking at some high-speed networks to allow [the adjusters] full connectivityupload, download, estimates, photos, and surfing the Internet. However, he adds, regarding the current setup, Its very stable and reliable for 99 percent of what we do. It suits the purpose perfectly well.
Ohio Casualty is ranked 45th among U.S. property/casualty insurance groups based on net written premiums. Most of the carriers multiline adjusters work out of their homes. The wireless connection keeps them in constant contact. They can write estimates, submit pictures and attachments, and essentially stay in contact with people, says Phil Horst, home office auto physical damage claims manager.

The Cycle

Ohio Casualtys intent in using wireless technology, Horst says, was to shrink the cycle time for claimstargeting the time frame of when the carrier learns of the claim and gets the estimate submitted and the repairs under way. It took us as long as a week to 10 days to get all these things transmitted by paper to and from the adjuster, out to the person who has to look at the car, get the pictures developed, and attach them to the paper file, says Horst. In the meantime, the customer is very inconvenienced.

Ohio Casualty turned to the e-Mitchell Web site from Mitchell International. We send everything through e-Mitchell, says Horst. We can not only send assignments, but we can receive the information back [from the field] wirelesslymany times within a few hours.

Mark Lund, national sales manager for insurance and financial services for Panasonic, agrees cycle time is lowered thanks to the wireless dispatching of new claims. Cycle time is going from days to hours, he says. Insurers are improving productivity and accuracy by doing [appraisals] at the bumper as opposed to writing it on a sheet of paper and then going back to the office. You open yourself up to the possibility of issuing a supplement, which increases costs all around.

Cycle time is just one of several selling points, according to Lund. He cites efficiency, customer satisfaction, positioning of the customer, and cost as other benefits. By going wireless, maybe you dont need as many independent appraisers, he says. By going out and writing the estimate and sending it back wirelessly, you cut down by a day or two the time it takes to cut a check, which pleases customers. If you can get one more estimate done per day, that in itself can justify the expense for mobile computing or wireless.

Having wireless technology in the past enhanced the image of an insurer to its customers and competitors, but it was never really a requirement. Now, people are seeing you can communicate more frequently with wireless, Lund says. With the speeds starting to increase, we are starting to see a high level of interest in the technology.

Eyler believes that first notice of loss and the claims process are the only killer applications in place for insurers going wireless. Carriers that have stayed on the sidelines now are starting to look, he adds, but not necessarily buy. We are getting a lot of inquiries from our largest life insurance clients about the ability for their agents or advisers to sync up with the home office, he says. Theyre not really spending a great deal of money doing that; theyre just evaluating it this year.

Anyone Else?

The claims side is the most obvious user of the wireless technology, Urbain says, but he believes there are other uses that will make it a valuable tool in the future. One such use is dealing with catastrophe situations. Carriers are utilizing satellite links, often attached to vans or buses, which create what he calls a wireless bubble in proximity to the satellite feed, allowing the claims people to operate their laptops in a wireless LAN environment within about a football field radius of the device. Still, more uses will be discovered soon, he adds. The real business need probably is not yet seen on the horizon because most companies havent delved deeply enough into their business processes to understand how it truly can impact their workflow, says Urbain.

Using wireless in claims is fairly simple, he points out, but there still is more that can be done, citing location-based awareness as the next generation of wireless capability. By using GPS technology, an insurer could know the ZIP Code where a claim is generated and can deploy a claims handler who already is there. Using that type of location-based awareness, you can route the handler to the assignment in a more efficient way, says Urbain. When you begin to overlay location-based awareness to a handlers day and map both current and existing claims, handlers could do more in the course of their day. That type of dynamic workflow eventually will enable greater efficiency in the claims side, but its really not there yet in the marketplace.
Still another wireless capability in-volves the use of telematics, similar to the OnStar technology in certain vehicles. Cars can be equipped with sensors that are triggered when an event occurs. A telematics airbag deployment could trigger a first notice of loss to an insurance company, if you had an agreement with your insurer, says Urbain. That creates a whole different series of efficiencies because now the insurance company knows about the accident the second it happens. If you could deploy your claims handler out to the site of the accident, what would that do to reduce your subrogation costs because you know who is at fault as fast as anyone does? Urbain believes there will be some development of this technology but concedes that critical mass will be the biggest challenge to telematics.

Tom McChesney, segment director for insurance and finance with Sprint, asserts there is more of an acceptance of wireless technology on the sales side as agents are doing work remotely. Were also seeing some interest in [insurance] industry applications, he says. The underwriters are being asked to do more and more. If they can be out adding value in nontraditional ways, such as seeing customers, they have the ability to be more productive by being able to hook up remotely.

Still Early

Wireless technology is still in the early stages of its development cycle, McChesney notes. There have been some applications written and equipment set up for mobile claims, but its getting all the pieces together in a package that will be seen as truly providing the package that is going to make it a killer app, he says.

The technology needs to work in the back office, as well. If you wirelessly enable an application, you have to have the back-office systems to be able to work with it, says McChesney. The insurance industry is typically conservative in doing some of the systems upgrades that will be needed.

Country has been piloting a couple of network cards and machines, Koester says, and some of the insurers service partners are developing Web-based applications so the Country claims adjusters can hook up to the Internet when they are out in the field, ready to cut a check. A holdup to this has been scrubbing the claimants name through the OFAC list. They either have to call in or scrub the name before they go out for the day, he says.

The e-Mitchell system is a great asset for Ohio Casualtys claims people, Horst asserts. When an assignment is made to the field, it comes through the e-Mitchell site via e-mail. It also populates the estimating system with information on the policyholder so the adjuster doesnt have to rekey the information onto the appraisal.

We create assignments in the e-Mitchell Web site, and the appraiser resubmits the form from the laptop in a Web-based file folder, says Horst. We also can do an audit process in that uploading so we can check for accuracy on the estimates and make sure they are being written properly.

Leading Edge

Between one-third and one-half of P&C insurers are embracing wireless in a claims environment, Urbain estimates. The leading-edge companies are using it on a more progressive basis, he says. Were also just now beginning to get enough high-speed networks to make it really palatable.
Another issue is the use of the VPNs that can show the contrast between wireless and mobile computing. Some of the VPNs are designed to enable users to dial up from a location and then disconnect from that location, whereas some of the mobile VPNs that exist enable people to go across locations, says Urbain. As more customers begin using the technology, you are going to see more adoption ofthe mobile VPNs, which will enhance further users ability to operate in a mobile environment.

Mobile/Wireless and Sales Force Automation Tech Guide
Actek, Inc.
Birmingham, Ala.
205-403-0506
www.acteksoft.com

Allen Bailey & Associates
Austin, Texas
512-502-8800
www.allenbailey.com

Atlatl, Inc.
Durham, N.C.
800-768-0907
www.accu-rater.com

BlackBerry
Waterloo, Ontario
519-888-7465
www.blackberry.net

Centive
Bedford, Mass.
781-778-8000
www.centive.com

COSS Development Corp.
Milwaukee, Wis.
262-241-8989
www.cossdev.com

Database Systems Corp.
Phoenix, Ariz.
602-265-5968
www.databasesystemscorp.com

Data Life Associates
Verona, N.J.
860-267-4903
www.datalife.com

Document Sciences Corp.
Carlsbad, Calif.
760-602-1400
www.docscience.com

eAgency Systems
Newport Beach, Calif.
949-253-9131
www.eagency.com

EW Group
East Granby, Conn.
860-653-1719
www.ewgroup.com

E-Z Data
Pasadena, Calif.
800-777-9188
www.ez-data.com

Fiserv
Cedar Rapids, Iowa
800-322-4220
www.fiserv.com

Fitiri, Inc.
Houston, Texas
713-981-3821
www.fitiri.com

Focus Solutions, Inc.
Fort Washington, Pa.
215-643-9300
www.focus-inc.com

Genelco Software Solutions
St. Louis, Mo.
800-983-8114
www.genelco.com

IBM
White Plains, N.Y.
800-426-4968
www.ibm.com

Iconixx
Houston, Texas
713-934-0200
www.iconixx.com

INSTEC
Naperville, Ill.
630-955-9200
www.instec-corp.com

Insurance Technologies
Colorado Springs, Col.
719-442-6400
www.insurancetechnologies.com

InSystems
Markham, Ont.
888-467-9783
www.insystems.com

InterlinkONE, Inc.
Wilmington, Mass.
978-694-9992
www.interlinkone.com

Itronix Corp.
Spokane, Wash.
509-624-6600
www.itronix.com

Leadbot.Com
Tempe, Ariz.
480-394-0998
www.leadbot.com

LIDP Consulting Services
Woodridge, Ill.
630-960-0133
www.lidp.com

LifeLink
Park City, Utah
435-649-5300
www.lifelinkcorp.com

LogicPlus
Eagan, Minn.
651-452-8277
www.lplus.com

MFXchange Holdings, Inc.
Toronto, Ont.
866-639-6399
www.mfxfairfax.com

Mobitor Corp.
San Ramon, Calif.
925-552-8230
www.mobitor.com

Motion Computing
Austin, Texas
888-682-2538
www.motioncomputing.com

NaviSys
Edison, N.J.
800-775-3592
www.navisys.com

Novinsoft
Port Perry, Ont.
905-985-8546
www.novinsoft.com

Panasonic
972-596-7770
www.panasonic.com

Philbert Software Group
Roswell, Ga.
800-969-7741
www.philbert.com

PrinterOn Corp.
Kitchener, Ont.
519-748-2848
www.printeron.net

pTeraDac Corp.
Eagan, Minn.
800-400-4561
www.pteradac.com

Siebel Systems
San Mateo, Calif.
650-295-5000
www.siebel.com

SOLCORP
Mississauga, Ont.
630-960-4604
www.solcorp.com

SpeedBuilder Systems
Columbia, S.C.
803-647-9532
www.speedbuildersystems.com

Sprint
Overland Park, Kan.
800-829-0965
www.sprint.com

Steel Card
Santa Barbara, Calif.
805-560-8364
www.steelcard.com

SunGard Insurance Systems
Miami, Fla.
800-337-2677
www.sungard.com

Systems Engineering Group, LLC
Glastonbury, Conn.
860-368-3983
www.segllc.com

Touchtone Corp.
Costa Mesa, Calif.
800-786-8663
www.wintouch.com

Verizon Wireless
Alpharetta, Ga.
404-273-9707
www.verizonwireless.com

Xerox Global Services
Rochester, N.Y.
770-569-5668
www.xerox.com