Founded in 1935, the Hylant Group is a full-service business insurance brokerage with 11 offices in Ohio, Michigan, Indiana and Tennessee. Headquartered in Toledo, Ohio, the Hylant Group was ranked by the Hales Group as the sixth largest privately held brokerage firm in the U.S. in 2006. With more than 675 professionals, the firm offers complete risk management services, employee benefits consultation, loss control, 401 (k) and financial services, healthcare management and insurance for businesses and individuals.

The Challenge

The Hylant Group wanted to reduce the costs associated with storing documents. On-site filing cabinets were taking up needed office space and retrieval of off-site documents was expensive. An additional complication was that critical files were stored both electronically and in paper form. In some cases, employees had to search both electronic and paper forms for a needed document, slowing down responses to processing and inquiries.

The Process

Key to the success of implementation is integration with the company's agency management system, The Agency Manager (TAM). To begin the process, Commercial Line employees working in TAM assign a document type and keywords to the content to be scanned. The data is then exported from TAM into a file that is imported into ECM as an AutoFill Keyword Set. Using the AutoFill, staff only need to enter a policy number or client code and press Tab and ECM fills in the keywords automatically. The Application Enabler™ is then used to automatically create a bar code sheet with the document type and keywords. The coded sheet is placed on top of the paper document to be scanned, and they are placed in a bin. Scanner operators collect the bins and scan in the documents without doing any indexing since the bar code relays all of the information.

Solution Requirements

Essential to the solution was integration with The Agency Manager (TAM), the company's current management system. Additionally, the Hylant Group also needed its ECM system to improve disaster recovery and business continuity, as well as to ease the administration of its file retention policy.

The Solution

The Hylant Group selected the ECM suite to meet its needs. This integrated solution, including core capabilities in document imaging electronic document management, workflow, COLD/ERM and records management, allowed the Hylant Group to combine the power of the ECM with the company's current agency management system, TAM.

The Benefits

User Benefits

When a customer calls in with an inquiry, users can access documents from whatever system they are already working in - TAM or ECM. This greatly improves response time. Previously, users could only attach a document to an activity, claim or client when an instance was created in TAM, and the document could only be associated with that one activity, claim or client. Now, users can attach a single document in multiple instances. Cross-referencing allows them to double-click within a document and pull up other documents related to it, further easing document retrieval. Documents are now available across multiple locations by multiple users simultaneously.

Corporate Benefits

Because 11 locations have access to the system, any office can fill in for a closed office, thus increasing continuity. Employees can also log into the system using a terminal session from home or another office to access documents. The Hylant Group plans on adding a web server option in the future that will allow employees to access the ECM systems via the Internet.

One of the most prevalent causes of errors and omissions claims stems from poor documentation of telephone and personal discussions, thus the Hylant Group wanted to better document those interactions. Phone records are now electronic and accessed by both Commercial Lines and Financial Services and are neatly organized in both format and storage locations.

Overall, the implementation has also provided a safety net, ensuring an effective backup that allows the company to recover files in an accurate and timely fashion.