The economy has also been a factor in the adoption of collaborative technologies to augment, or even replace, face-to-face meetings. Swiss Re launched its collaboration platform strategy, Ourspace, at the onset of the global recession in 2008. 

"We started [Ourspace] in the middle of the financial crisis. We couldn't travel any more. We had to cut costs. We had to reorganize and change our strategy," explains Christoph Isenschmid, head of e-communication channels at Swiss Re. 

While targeting reduction in travel costs, Swiss Re looked to achieve three strategic objectives with Ourspace: connect people virtually, nurture a culture of transparent sharing and collaboration, and create an organizational dialog around topics important to the enterprise. 

Swiss Re built the Ourspace sharing platform using Jive's social intranet solution. When it was launched in September 2009, users first focused on sharing documents and putting information into Ourspace that already existed. Within a few months, the company saw the formation of discussion groups and forums. After two years, the company saw a rise in blogging and a broad willingness to share information and collaborate on an ad-hoc and as-needed basis.

Isenschmid explains that Ourspace is now a common way to disseminate news and information within Swiss Re. "Over the course of three years, it has changed into a platform for short-term usage and for communication purposes," rather than a knowledgebase or document repository, he says. 

Employees can subscribe to groups and receive notifications of new documents and discussions. They also use the platform to identify coworkers who have the knowledge to help with specific questions or problems. 

"People look up information about their peers and colleagues—what kind of group memberships they have, what kind of questions they have answered, and so on," Isenschmid explains. "You much more easily find real experts based on what they are actually contributing, rather than relying solely on their job description. With Ourspace, you can find your way from people to content to people to content." 

Initially, Swiss Re had reservations about the collaborative platform, fearing that users would be distracted or that there would be too much private or social usage. Those fears turned out to be unfounded. Nine out of ten collaboration groups are business-relevant; the other one tends to be a social group. "The social groups are the stamp collectors and the bird watchers, but we decided to encourage that as well to build a sense of community," Isenschmid says. 

Swiss Re measures how many people create content, comment on it, jump into discussions, and join groups. "Right now one out of four employees has created a document or blog post. Almost 50 percent have commented on a post. More than 60 percent have joined collaboration groups, and more than 90 percent are reading information. Also, it contributes to reducing international travel," Isenschmid says.

"That's just on the sheer quantitative side," he adds. "On the qualitative side, there has been an improvement in how employees view the transparency of the company. They are also telling us that Ourspace is helping them get their jobs done better. They are telling us that it helps them save time and effort while achieving a better quality result. And it has started changing leadership communication, especially with executives blogging on their personal accounts."

EXTERNAL COLLABORATION

Swiss Re also used the Jive platform to build Risk Connect, a platform for allowing internal staff and external parties to collaborate on Swiss Re initiatives such as product research and development, that is used on a much smaller scale than Ourspace is internally. Across the insurance industry, there are many new tools being utilized to collaborate with customers, agents, and other external stakeholders in various insurance processes. 

"We've been seeing insurers make greater use of collaborative and social technologies in marketing and distribution," says Chad Hersh, partner in the insurance practice at Novarica. "It's not just using Facebook for marketing; it's using collaboration techniques in the marketing arena."

Hersh has observed an increase in engagement techniques, such as "gamification," to encourage stakeholders to choose online platforms for doing business. "One example is a carrier that provides a direct-to-consumer quoting app where customers collect points as they answer questions. They can spend those points on reduced deductibles or increased limits. The idea is that people are using gamification and friendlier interfaces in the selling process to move away from a 'system' paradigm."

Carnahan, who focuses on the claims process in her research, points to several solutions that illustrate insurers' interest in electronic collaboration among stakeholders.

"With Instant Estimator [instantestimator.com], you take a picture of your vehicle and upload it to get a damage estimate. Not only does that give the insured great information and transparency into the process, but it helps the carriers significantly. Symbility Solutions offers an interesting platform to collaborate with contractors. MyContentsClaim.com lets insureds enter inventory online. Claims adjusters review that inventory, and claimants see what's been paid and what hasn't," she says.

The MyContentsClaim platform is being used by one of the largest claims and risk services organization in Australia. Claims handlers create a claim and send a link to both policyholder and suppliers to access a customized MyContentsClaim portal. As the claim progresses, policyholders can see which contents losses have been approved, not approved, and finalized, and what property has been replaced. 

Due to ongoing negotiations, the company declined to be named, but a company spokesperson commented on the impact of the platform to the claim process. 

"It [the platform] gives us three-way collaboration between insured, insurer, and supplier. The loss adjuster can facilitate and control the process without the need for face-to-face contact. The system gives us better quality of both communication and data. It provides efficiency—the adjuster doesn't have to get handwritten notes, retype them, and go back and forth with customers and suppliers. And it allows us to data mine by capturing claim information, allowing us to analyze our claims and negotiate better deals with suppliers," he says.

"Customers have become more advanced and are demanding more transparency with real-time access from their insurer beyond paying their premium, just as they now have in some many other sectors and services," he adds. "For us it's all about improving self-service options in claims with more transparency and better customer service."

PORTAL POWER

Katherine Evans, CFO at Ontario-based Unica Insurance, points out that the typical carrier portal has also been a useful tool for collaboration on business opportunity by reducing or eliminating back-and-forth between agent and insurer.

"Brokers used to struggle with answering questions while the customer was on the phone because they'd have to call the company for information and call the customer back. Now, brokers can get information in seconds," she says. Unica's real-time integration with agency management systems, enabled by iter8's agent portal solution, has advanced that cause. 

"Previously the insurance company was not completely visible to the agent trying to service the customer. Now we can provide access to information so the front line servicing of the client is done well," Evans says. 

Insurers are also continuing to push real-time collaboration capabilities to their portal.

"For collaboration features such as web chat, companies can establish the business case around 'when did you lose the customer' because they became frustrated with the online experience," Beattie says. "By integrating live chat with the portal, it becomes a collaborative tool to help someone who is spending too much time on a question. You can reach out to them and provide the help they are asking for, alternatives, or take them offline."

Specialty insurer Torus introduced its ESCAPE portal in November 2010 for quoting casualty/umbrella, errors and omissions, and healthcare lines of business. ESCAPE uses the policy quoting and administration system from Accenture Duck Creek, querying underwriting rules to notify agents of problems in-process, rather than after applications are entered. A dashboard icon called "Quotie" (shown on left) changes its color and expression from green and a smile to yellow and a frown as agents' entries generate concerns, and to red as    they create referrals. 

Another key feature of the ESCAPE platform is the ability to chat live with an underwriter. Additionally, using a co-browsing capability, a Torus underwriter can remotely view the agent's computer screen. Both of these collaboration plug-ins are powered by LivePerson. 

"We wanted to design something so that once users come, they don't leave. I can't talk revenue but it's been wildly successful—[agents] stay when they come," says Justin Manley, Torus CIO-Americas. Although Manley won't talk dollar amounts, in the first year of deploying the portal the company surpassed premium projections by 180 percent, paying for the investment in the system. He also reports that the insurer has increased its straight-through quote ratio to 87 percent. 

"One of the big complaints in the marketplace is what agents referred to as a 'service black hole.' You don't know when you're going to hear back from somebody. When we created our system, it was important to avoid that black hole—to build a system that was not only intuitive, but also collaborative for when users did run into problems," says Manley. 

MOBILE COLLABORATION AND CHALLENGES 

Collaborative and mobile technologies have met at a natural intersection point, allowing people to connect and communicate anytime, anywhere, and with any device. 

"Mobile is going to be table stakes very soon," Carnahan says. "It's one area where if you're not already investing, you're behind."

Mobility is becoming widespread within the p&c sector. A Gartner study found that approximately 52 percent of property & casualty insurers in North America were investing in consumer-facing mobile applications in 2012. Insurers must be ready for device proliferation and the demand that they support BYOD (bring your own device) for all the stakeholders who desire to collaborate on a particular transaction or process.

"If they have a mobile phone, they want to use the phone. If they have a tablet they want to use the tablet. If they're in the office they want to use the PC," explains Beattie. 

"Companies are being forced to think about how to design portals because those portals are being opened by tablets and smartphones," says Kimberly Harris-Ferrante, vice president and distinguished analyst in Gartner Research. 

Frost & Sullivan forecasts smartphone penetration in North America to surge to 90.5 percent of devices by 2017. According to Forrester Research, more than three-quarters of employees who use smartphones, and 63 percent who use tablets, access their company intranet or portal sites using those mobile devices.

Insurer's deployment of tablets for internal users is also up over 25 percent in 2012, Hersh reports. "The cost to replace a tablet is a fraction of the laptop, the battery lasts longer, you can hold them in your hand, you can do handwritten notes. It's an infinitely better option than a laptop except for heavy data entry," he claims. 

Frost & Sullivan predicts rapid growth in the tablet category, increasing to over 142 million devices in 2016. Also by that date, prices are expected to drop to an average $362 per device. Digital business analytics firm comScore reports that tablets have already reached a "critical mass" in the U.S.

ACUITY has gone the tablet route to enhance mobile collaboration among the staff. The insurer's device of choice is the 4G-equipped iPad. In early 2012, ACUITY outfitted all its mobile staff—claims representatives, damage appraisers, field underwriters, loss control reps, and sales staff—with iPads, replacing the laptop/aircard configuration they had previously, as well as iPhones to maximize platform compatibility. 

In claims, ACUITY managers use Facetime or Skype to connect with adjusters. "Our managers are able to talk with their people, answer questions, or conduct a claim file review. It's better than a phone call because it's one-on-one video conferencing," says Jamie Loiacono, vice-president of claims, ACUITY. 

Employees use iPads to connect with the insurer's mobile-enabled core processing systems. Web-enabling core systems is a prerequisite to mobile collaboration. "Portals are the front end to the source system, so if source systems aren't real time, and unable to support user requirements [for mobility], you're opening yourself up to some real issues," says Harris-Ferrante.

"Along with web-enabling our claims and policy processing systems, we redesigned our screens to make them simpler and make them more of a 'one-stop shop' for adjusters," says Neal Ruffalo, vice president–enterprise technology, ACUITY. "All a field employee needs, whether using an iPad, laptop, or desktop, is a web browser to have full access to everything that a 'wired' home-office system would have." 

In claims, adjusters also use newly deployed apps on the devices to help appraise damage, such as Pictometry, which incorporates satellite imagery to let adjusters measure roof sizes and pitches. The next phase in mobile collaboration for ACUITY will be the use of "sign and send" e-forms on the iPad that can be used for a variety of situations where paper forms and signatures are needed today. 

"Claims adjusters will have all the forms they need that can be filled out and physically signed on the device, then instantly sent to wherever they are needed—a doctor, clinic, repair shop, or to our content management system," says Loiacono.

Loiacono explains that field staff have reported being able to collaborate effectively with agents, claimants, and service providers because the instant-on devices are more portable than laptops. 

"I can't say we've increased our efficiency by X percent, but anecdotally it's allowed our service to be more timely and comprehensive. Transfer of information between adjusters and managers happens quicker. We capture better and more consistent data in the field because the device is there and easy to use," he says. 

Ultimately, ACUITY plans to deploy tablets to all employees, not just field staff.

"We want to move our entire computer platform for the entire company into the next technological arena and to maximize the collaborative potential of that technology," says company president and CEO Ben Salzmann. "It starts with employees in the field, but there's no reason that processors, clerks, and other 'inside' staff can't benefit from mobile devices, social networking, and other collaborative tools. We want to support our employees wherever, whenever, and however they want to work together."

ACUITY's device strategy aligns with what Michael Kim, Cognizant business consulting vice president and insurance lead, sees as the future for collaboration in claims and other core processes involving both internal and external stakeholders. 

"Right now, insurance adjusters take a picture, then synch it to a laptop, then transmit it back to the home office. It's much easier to use a single mobile device to take a picture of a claim, drop it into the claims processing application on that device, and collaborate with a home office person who might have more judgment as to the cause of the damage to let the insured know whether they are covered," he says. 

Kim adds that mobility will play a key role in creating new efficiencies in claims management by empowering customers, claims adjusters and back-office employees through improved connectivity and collaboration that can reduce turnaround time and the overall cost of serving customers. 

COLLABORATION CHALLENGES

Employees, agents, and consumers have more choices for communication and collaboration than ever before. That presents opportunities for stakeholders to connect, but it also generates new challenges for IT.

"When you add mobile, you can't subtract anything," Harris-Ferrante says. "You still need portal capabilities, PC-based systems, and the online channel. Mobile is something else you need to add. So how do you manage an IT budget year after year when you can't cut something out?" 

And no matter what form online collaboration takes in the future, a segment of the user base will still want to "reach out and touch someone" during the process. According to Novarica, more than half of insurers report heavy usage of both the phone and email channels during the underwriting process, and the telephone continues to be the most heavily used channel for policyholders to interact directly with their insurers.

"People have a job to do and they want to do it using whatever medium they have at hand," says Celent's Beattie. "Traditional methods are not going away."