From sales to appraisals to damage assessment, insurance requires many of its professionals to work away from the office. The new mobility offering for insurance agents and claims adjusters announced by Microsoft and HP is already generating buzz within industry associations.

"The Council of Insurance Agents and Brokers is excited about HP Mobile Agent. We are actively working with HP and Microsoft to help Council members benefit from this offering," said Frank Sentner, director, Strategic Technology, Council of Insurance Agents and Brokers (CIAB). “HP Mobile Agent’s lease and refresh offering extends important new technologies to insurance agents and carriers. Those who embrace mobile technologies early will have the greatest competitive advantage.”

Adoption of mobility has been slow within the cautious insurance industry, but firms that have deployed mobile solutions have seen strong return on their investment. Insurance carriers are wary of releasing technology secrets in fear of losing a competitive advantage, but mobile solutions provide carriers with a differentiator. Insurance products, such as life and health insurance and claims processes, haven’t changed dramatically over the last 20 years. Thus, carriers need to find ways to provide better customer services and new ways to improve existing business processes.

Mobile applications provide just that. Claims administrators and adjusters can access property and casualty data in real time via Windows Mobile devices and Tablet PC’s. Instead of waiting to get back to the office to submit a claim, the electronic forms can be sent by XML from the mobile device directly to back-office systems, streamlining the claims process and providing payment to the customer in half the time.

Insurance agents can also benefit from mobile applications through mobile customer relationship management tools and information workflow (personal information management/email). HP Mobile Agent was designed to provide large or independent carriers with out-of-the-box mobility solutions giving customers an inexpensive, low risk path to implement mobile solutions.

Nationwide Insurance (see case study at www.microsoft.com/resources/casestudies) distributed several thousand Tablet PCs to its claims adjusters and has seen significant reduction in the time required to process claims. Eliminating redundant data entry has reduced errors, and agents are becoming more productive and increasing their sales.

Nationwide obtains more accurate estimates, reducing the time and expense needed to resolve each claim. Though completing claims on-site has been a goal at Nationwide for many years, the difficulty of collecting and processing information in the field often prevented on-site resolution. Now, with Tablet PCs running Microsoft Windows XP Tablet PC Edition, Nationwide's adjusters travel to a claim site with all the tools they need to record the incident information and process the claim. Using Tablet PCs, adjusters input information directly into their estimation programs while inspecting damaged items. As a result, they have been able to increase the number of claims completed on-site by as much as 15 percent.

Organizations that have deployed mobility have seen significant return on investment. This ROI has been measured through business process improvements in claims in such areas as reduced claims processing, elimination of repeatedly entering of data and additional revenue through new sales opportunities for agents.

If you look at the life of a claims adjuster, you can quickly see how Microsoft’s mobility solutions can improve productivity. Claims adjusters can start the day from their home offices by loading appointments into their computers, and getting directions to the client’s location through Mappoint.NET Web Services, thus avoiding a trip into the office before the first appointment.

Using claims applications from Microsoft partners Dexterra or Accenture, they can gather information from clients and take digital pictures of the damage. Using a wireless connection, they can transmit photos and customer information via Microsoft SQL CE to SQL Server and to legacy systems. Through the same connection, they receive claims estimates from the home office based on the customer’s history and policy. They can then print out paper checks for clients, or initiate an electronic payment.

With the first appointment of their day completed, they can use Microsoft Telematics and Location Based Server to plan the next appointment. For the home office, this flexibility means that if one appointment runs over its expected time, or a new claim comes in from a client nearby, the adjuster can be assigned to the next appointment that is most convenient.

To use mobility effectively, carriers may have to change the way they interact with customers, suggested Petra Wildemann, director of insurance for HP EMEA and the company’s lead expert in mobility solutions for the industry. The method of interaction from an insurer to the customer or enterprise customer – which can be a broker, agent, intermediary or the end-customer – can include the sale of an insurance product as well as the service when settling a claim, Wildemann said.

“A lot of insurance companies don’t know who their end-customers really are. For example, we had an earthquake in Switzerland recently and only one insurance company could put its staff on the phone and call customers to make sure they were happy with their coverages, or to offer them an extension of their insurance,” she said. “For mobility to be really useful to insurance carriers and agents, you need to be able to act fast, have immediate access to your data, and make the calls wherever you are.”

Insurance companies that can respond to customers quickly, and process their applications and claims rapidly, will see their business grow. Fast responses to claimants also tends to reduce the overall cost of claims, she added.

“In mass claims like damage from hail or a larger automobile accident (with several parties involved), settling claims quickly reduces costs significantly. If people get their claims settled right away they don’t complain later on and are far less likely to file lawsuits against the carrier,” Wildemann said.

Wildemann said the Tablet PC would provide agents and adjusters with the computing power they need to be effective in the field. A tablet is a computer and has intelligent solutions to provide the agent with tariff calculation and claim settlement programs.

“A handheld device like the iPAQ provides a communications link to the agency or home office, but with a Tablet PC you can enter information and do the analysis while you are with the client,” she said.

HP and Microsoft developed a packaged solution of hardware, software, leasing and services for the insurance industry.

HP Mobile Agent is a services-led set of mobility solutions that integrates all the components of hardware, software, and support at a single point to solve common business problems. The Microsoft-HP partnership recently launched its offering in the insurance industry and is now focusing its efforts on other vertical markets including capital markets, banking, and healthcare. HP Mobile Agent offers a packaged solution that large insurance companies and small independent agencies and brokers can obtain through a simple monthly lease. It includes mobile devices, mobile applications and software, systems integration support, customer support, and a leasing program that includes refresh of the hardware.

The biggest concern companies have about mobility is its complexity and the dynamics of the technology. The sheer number of devices available for working in the field – smart phones, Blackberries, iPAQs, Palms, notebook computers, Table PCs – alarms the IT departments that would have to support the devices, the wireless links, and the software to synchronize field devices with desktops and back-office computers.

You can’t get rid of the complexity, but you can turn it over to a well-equipped services firm with highly trained professionals, like HP. That’s why a packaged solution that off-loads device management, integration, and field support will prove to be an attractive solution, both to large users whose IT staffs are already maxed out and to small agencies who need to make every single person as productive as possible.

In reality, for most firms the choice isn’t about whether its staff uses mobile devices – the choice is whether to extend corporate support, control, and security to mobility or just leave the field force to its own devices.

The most ambitious people in the insurance industry aren’t going to wait for their companies to provide mobile solutions. They will spend what it takes to become more productive and more profitable, so they are out there with every device they think will make them more efficient.

For companies, that presents a range of risks. What information are agents carrying on portable devices? Is it secured? If a notebook computer is lost or stolen, what confidential information could be exposed about clients or about the company’s strategic plans?

Adam Kornak of Microsoft specializes in mobility solutions and strategy for the financial services industry and is the lead author of Enterprise Guide to Gaining Business Value from Mobile Technologies (www.amazon.com/kornak).