An Interview with DOCOsoft: Markel International and Faraday Talk to the Market
DOCOsoft had an opportunity to present its Write Back enabled Claims Management System to market practitioners in the Old Library, Lloyd’s on the 21st February. At this well- attended LMA organised event, DOCOsoft decided to dispense with convention and rather than talk at the audience we thought we’d engage with them instead!
We adopted a different approach, because every other service provider in such an environment is going to tell you how great they are! So instead we asked two of our clients – claims market practitioners familiar to everyone in the room – to offer their impression of Write Back and DOCOsoft so far.
Zoe Woods (ZW), Head of Claims Operations at Markel International and Rich Woodhams (RW), Property Claims Manager at Faraday, were interviewed by DOCOsoft’s very own Graham Sheppard (GS) on the day. The following is an abridged edit of what they said:
GS: “Faraday have been a customer of DOCOsoft since 2012 and were part of the original Write Back Steering Group. They worked with DOCOsoft as early adopters of the system and were one of the first carriers to go live in 2015. Markel International are a relatively new client for DOCOsoft and we engaged with them at the end of 2015 going live in 2016 across all three London bureaus, Lloyd’s, ILU and LIRMA.”
“Rich, you helped us with the design of the DOCOsoft claims system. What is it about the functionality that your claims team finds useful?”
RW: “The important thing to stress is that it’s a very powerful claims management system. It just happens to be driven by the Write Back messaging but all the things you hear about the system are just a fraction of what it is able to do. It is the Write Back messaging that drives the claims management piece. In designing the system we looked at the best bits of ECF1 and ECF2 and stripped out the elements that did not work well or that consumed too much time.”
“We really tailored the system to produce a number of things: our claims examiners want to see the documents that are currently being put in front of them, the CLASS data that supports those documents, and, critically, comments – not just public and private comments – I’m talking about the internal comments within the CMS. Every time a claims examiner is investing their time by looking at a transaction, they can build a picture around what needs to happen with that claim next, what was going through their mind when they saw that current transaction.”
“When they deal with the claim after the “first advice” stage – in which they may have invested a lot of time – then with the next few steps of the transaction they are off and running. That is the efficiency that the CMS delivers. We designed it so that when you see a first advice, you put an awful lot of effort as a carrier into understanding what has been put in front of you. We wanted to build in a process that allows you to see documents, and really start to predict what is going to happen with a claim.”
GS: “Zoe, can you touch on some of the benefits that you have seen since June?”
ZW: “We live in a claims world where we are required to do more things more quickly, faster, while not compromising the quality of what we are trying to achieve. When we initially looked at the solution it was found that, typically, an Adjuster would have 18 different actions across 7 different systems & 8 different processes to handle 1 claim. One of the benefits we have seen is that we have combined a large proportion of those processes into a single system in which our claims handlers can do their job in real time so they are recording quality claims data that we can use for analysis, performance measurement and for freeing-up time for other customer service focused requirements as well.”
“We also reduced our peer review processes which previously took up an inordinate amount of time. We have now reduced that time wastage by 50%. Write Back is, however, a very small portion of what the system is able to do.”
GS: “At DOCOsoft we tend to shy away from traditional customer/vendor type relationships. We adopt a partnership approach. I’d like to ask Rich Woodhams which direction he sees the relationship going?”
RW: “It is a refreshing change to deal with a service provider like DOCOsoft that has a can-do attitude. Whose approach encourages you in the belief that what you are doing makes sense! It has certainly given us the tools to do our job better, faster and efficiently. It is fair to say that as a carrier, more regulatory burdens are landing on our desk. The system enables us to see the wood for the trees, to add value to the business. The reporting that we are able to receive out of the back end of the system is very good.”
“DOCOsoft’s enthusiasm is refreshing. You can give an idea to these guys and you see a lightbulb appear over their heads! They really understand what makes a difference from a user point of view. They do make an effort to understand what we are trying to achieve.”
GS: “Zoe Woods, what are your impressions of the user experience?”
ZW: “Touching on the partnership aspects, we are asked to do things faster, be more competitive so using the information we have in a system that is flexible goes a long way to helping us achieve what we want. Having a partner whose attitude to a problem is “how do we solve this?” is a major benefit.”
GS: “What other benefits have you seen, Zoe?”
ZW: “The quality of the data that is now being entered is much better. Because it is being entered with the most current information and being recorded accurately without having to wait while backfilling processes, we have seen real benefits in that area. Also, our peer review model previously was completely manual and now that we have automated that process we have seen time savings of 50%.”
GS: “Where do you see the future of claims and the future for the DOCOsoft CMS, Zoe?”
ZW: “Carrier expectations in terms of client service are higher, you have to be more competitive in our marketplace against the competition in other marketplaces. This new system provides us with a much larger view of the claims world, just seeing the amount of claims data that is now available is simply astonishing and it is now a question of picking the right things to analyse.”
GS: “Rich, do you have anything to add to that?”
RW: “Yes, as a go-to service provider, DOCOsoft gives us the tools to do our job better. It is fair to say that there is more responsibility on carriers to process the data that is coming through. To improve quality and cope with subjects like Lloyd’s Minimum Standards, we need a provider with a track record that can help us to cope with those demands.”
“Finally, ring fencing from problems. We’ve all been there when ECF at some point has fallen over. There are other things in the pipe line with ECF. It is a system for a big wide market and the fact is that you are using your own system, designed for your own claims guys in a very intuitive way. So to a certain extent you are ring fenced from changes and problems out of your control. DOCOsoft is a go-to firm.”