Conference 35.181::insurance

    Ed-
    Nice to hear from you.  Hope you're wearing green today.
    
    Your note was of great interest to me.  We (The Hartford Insurance
    Group Team) are beginning a study with the Agency Division 
    (Property/Casualty).  I am interested in any other initiatives of
    this sort.  Particular concerns include:
                          
    1.  Plans to give terminals to the agents.  Anything new in the
    area of agent functionality (independent agents, that is).
    
    2.  Functions to be automated in the carrier's processing centers.
     I'm interested both in new functions and in interfaces to existing
    functions.
    
    3.  Areas of greatest benefit payback and how the payback is being
    demonstrated to the customer.
    
    4.  Troublesome competitive areas.  For example, does the industry
    perceive us as being missing certain key products or functionality.
    
    5.  Imaging: any creative ways to get rid of the paper.
    
    I'll be happy to share anything that I find out as our effort
    progresses, but right now I need some information to get started
    with the effort.  By the way, that's another topic.  How are companies
    getting started . . . prototype, model office, agent surveys, ect.?
    
    Joe Ritchie
    HTF
    DTN 325-1923
    

    Hi Joe:
    
    I am also interested in your endeavors at Hartford Insurance for
    Agency Automation.  I have a customer here in Philadelphia that
    is interested in Agency Automation.  This is Reliance Insurance
    Company, they handle a full line of Insurance areas, Property &
    Casualty, Life Insurance and Title & Mortgage Insurance.
    
    They currently have a big investment in PMS & Lifcomm and have just
    installed a Premium Collecitons and Claims System on their IBM system.
     We are looking at what we can do to automate their Agents operations.
    
    I am interested in what approaches we have tried, both successfully
    and unsuccessfully.  We have just begun to work with them on this
    application.  
    
    Any help or information will be greatly appreciated.
    
    Thanks,
    
    Dottie Leigh
    @PCC
    DTN 336*2976
    
    

    In the New Jersey District (NYA) we have a lot of interest from
    insurance companies (Chubb, Pru, AIG) to distribute various functions
    to the Regional Offices/Agencies, particularly Proposal/Policy print,
    Sales Reports, etc.  We haven't heard much about agent PC's.
    
    Apparently Chubb spent about $1 million in a joint venture with
    IBM to distribute printing of policy pages and ended up with nothing.
    The stumbling block, we were told, was the lack of a low-end (15-20K)
    printer that could pass the legal requirement of being identical
    to the product of a high-end printer.  There are also various software 
    and networking requirements which are solveable.
    
    We're chasing after solutions seriously, as we see a major opportunity
    with our large insurers, especially on the P&C side.  Anyone else
    chasing this?
    
    Jan Johnson (DTN 465-7213)  
    

    HP has just introduced a new LaserJet printer that is capable of
    printing on two sides of a page and lists at $4,295 (that's right,
    folks!).  It has two input trays and an envelope feeder as well
    as 14 fonts, including a proportionally-spaced font.  
    
    Technically this printer may make field-based policy printing
    economically feasible for the first time.  In the recent
    Arthur Anderson/LOMA survey, "Insurance Industry Futures: Setting
    a Course for the 1990s", a majority of CEOs interviewed in both
    the Life/Health and P&C fields felt that field-based policy
    issuance (including printing of policies and certificates) was
    highly probable by 1995 (52% of CEOs in Life/Health and 71% in P&C).
    
    This printer should be capable of connecting to a VAX (other HP
    LaserJet printers can be connected).  If you are using PC-based
    Word Processing software to drive the printer and the PCs are
    connected to the VAX using VMS Services for MS-DOS (PCSA), they
    can drive this printer.  Alternatively (and perhaps preferably),
    a word processing application on the VAX with the appropriate
    print drivers could also use an attached HP LaserJet.
    
    One issue that would need to be answered is whether the available
    fonts meet the legal requirements for readability (ie point size
    and type style).  If you have an account that is interested in
    this solution let us know.
    
    P.S.  The printer model is the HP LaserJet IID.  There is a write-up
    in the October 24 issue of Digital Review on page 6.