Business Situation
Before issuing a life insurance policy insurers collect diverse information from third parties to inform the decision about whether or not to offer insurance.

At Liberty Insurance Services, the processes for collecting the information were manual, leaving highly skilled and well-paid underwriters chasing documents and supervising workflow rather than utilizing their specialized skills. Manual processes also meant the time taken to issue a policy did not meet customers expectations. With ever-increasing demand, the company was frustrated by its inability to process higher volumes of insurance applications without also adding staff and associated costs.

Solution
Avanade built an electronic integration engine that automated many of the manual administration tasks. The solution, based on BizTalk Server 2002, Avanade’s Enterprise Orchestration for Insurance (EOI) components, ACORD XML Schemas, and XML Web services, allows Liberty to automate the following processes:

• Application forms received from agents are converted into ACORD XML schemas and relevant information is saved to corporate systems
• Applications are transferred to an imaging system
• Requests for medical information are automatically sent to third parties using industry-specific messaging schema
• Tracking, reminders, and status updates between client and third parties are automated
• The workflow system informs underwriter when all relevant information is collected for review of the application and to make the final underwriting decision on policy issuance terms and conditions or declined status

Results
With this integrated solution, Liberty Insurance Services experienced the following benefits:

• Underwriters spend more time making underwriting decisions and less time on administration.
• Customers receive a quicker response to their application for insurance.
• The company can do more with its existing support staff, a boost to its new business drive.