Savings Achieved Through Scanning System At Hastings Mutual Insurance

The previous document management system, implemented in 1995, was not up to the challenge of processing 120,000 multi-page documents per month and the system was very labor intensive. For example, documents had to be sorted into batches, and after batching, indexed information could not be deleted or modified. Separator pages or blank documents had to be manually removed from the system. As a result, underwriting documents were not available for retrieval for five to seven days. The system had limited search capabilities and no workflow functionality. To make matters worse, in 2002, HMIC learned that the proprietary system would no longer be supported.

HMIC already had over 238,000 policies in place, so an acceptable replacement solution had to be able to accommodate existing images. The new system also had to be flexible enough to extend automated document processing to other aspects of its business and integrate with the existing mainframe. HMIC evaluated a number of enterprise-level vendors and chose KeyMark.

KeyMark engineers were able to bring together a number of technologies to improve HMIC’s overall efficiency. Each morning, HMIC’s documents are scanned directly from the mailroom using OPEX document scanners. By noon, six clerks are able to open, scan and index incoming documents, typically ranging in length from eight to thirty pages. Because blank pages are automatically deleted, personnel no longer have to separate single-sided and doubled-sided documents. Separator pages are also deleted automatically. All images are recognized and stored accordingly in black and white, or color.

Overall labor costs associated with this process have been reduced. On top of the reduction in labor cost, HMIC provided a more comfortable mail extraction process for their employees. Their OPEX scanner has the ability to be adjusted to fit the ergonomic needs of each employee, making a healthier environment and improving productivity.