Motor Insurers Bureau of Ireland (MIBI) increases the visibility
and speed of claims management system with Microsoft SharePoint Portal Server

MIBI is an Irish registered company established under agreement with the motor insurance industry and the Government to compensate genuine victims of uninsured and untraced driving in Ireland. It also fulfils a European role to ensure claims arising from foreign motoring in Ireland or Irish motorists abroad are properly handled and settled.

Following a strategic review of the business, MIBI resolved to replace its old system with a modern Web-based application which would provide a platform to reduce the heavy dependence on paper, streamline the claim process and enable production of metrics which would assist in managing the business.

Critical to a more efficient and more effective Claims process is the real time collaboration between MIBI and its partners which include Insurance Claims Departments and Accident Investigators in assessing and settling claims. To address the MIBI needs, Microsoft partner Storm Technology was selected following a tender process to implement a new system based primarily around Microsoft SharePoint portal technology which met all its requirements.

Situation

By agreement with the Irish government, the MIBI provides a number of services: processing and paying claims for accident victims of motorists who are uninsured or untraced, acting as Insurer of all foreign vehicles travelling in Ireland and acting as an information centre for foreign claimants involved in motor accidents in Ireland.

Following a strategic review of the business of the MIBI it was decided that a new claims management system would be required to respond to a range of new trends in the insurance industry. This included the 4th EU directive on insurance where the MIBI acts as an information centre for travellers from other countries intending to use their vehicles in Ireland.

MIBI's principal mandate – which is to ensure that valid claims are settled fairly and in as timely a manner as possible – required that more control and visibility needed to be established over the claims handling process. In brief, claims handling and settlement is outsourced to the claims departments of 5 large Insurers who process the claims, with the assistance of Accident Investigators, to settlement. A system which enables the real time collaboration between MIBI, the Insurers and the Accident Investigators could both significantly accelerate the process and provide the metrics to the MIBI to gain real visibility on status, length of claims cycle and claims cost.

Further benefits would flow from the more comprehensive Management Information which could be gleaned so that MIBI could better understand trends in areas such as uninsured driving and better manage its financial accounting. Finally, the opportunity to eliminate the very significant dependence on paper could deliver efficiencies and savings in both time and workload.

The new IT system needed to handle registration of claims including data capture of claim details and documents, validation of data submitted, a facility to request further information and diary these claims for follow up. In terms of claim settlement the MIBI needed to be able to validate claims against a set of key criteria and track electronic payment of settlements. Finally, a facility to track performance of suppliers, both by case and by way of audit review, was required.

As a second phase of the implementation, the ability to assign claims out to the Insurers' claims departments and Accident Investigators and actively monitor their status would be addressed.

Solution

Following the competitive tender process, Microsoft partner Storm Technology was awarded the contract to implement the software aspect of the new system. The system it proposed was based around Microsoft SharePoint Portal Server 2003 with a number of other supporting Microsoft technologies.

The solution deployed consists of .NET web pages sitting on a custom SharePoint Portal, with Microsoft Active Directory used for user authentication. Based on policies implemented in Active Directory it enables both internal (and external users in the future) to initiate and manage insurance claims with varying levels of access and functionality. All claim-related documents, ranging from generic letters of inquiry to legal correspondence, are stored in SharePoint Document Libraries, with links to the originating claims for easy retrieval.

Incoming paper correspondence is scanned and indexed, which is then automatically associated with the appropriate claim in SharePoint. Claim handlers – the principal users of the system – are automatically informed when new documentation is added, increasing the responsiveness and speed of the system. They can then process the correspondence by updating the Claims Management system or by replying via letter or email.

Certain power users can create new Letter Templates (using Microsoft Word) which can then be used by all claim handlers. Outgoing correspondence is also associated with the relevant claim. New items are generated from templates and automatically populated with information from the database to accelerate worker productivity and reduce errors. Through the SharePoint Portal, users can review claim information and claim correspondence together, ensuring that all relevant information is always at hand and promoting more productive and effective team work.

MIBI acknowledge that they have realised a number of efficiencies in the Bureau even before they roll the system out to their partners. The reduction of paper chasing and filing provides more time to follow up on investigating claims which in turn improves the quality of work and delivers results.

Key Benefits

When the system is fully up and running and rolled out to all relevant third parties MIBI will be able to much more pro-actively manage suppliers such as handling offices, accident investigators, defence solicitors and specialist recovery solicitors. This will be possible largely due to the additional data on claims delivered by the new system. This includes the provision of more data on the status of claims, on actual deliverables by the suppliers and the ability to automatically schedule and monitor assigned tasks.

The use of SharePoint to store and classify documents provides a powerful illustration of the inherent information-organising strengths of the server product. In addition, SharePoint capabilities are also exploited, such as the ability to create, update, reassign and close user Tasks, while SharePoint Lists are also used for convenient administrative access to look-up lists and reference data.

The solution illustrates the successful fusion of latest-generation Microsoft platforms in that it utilises best-practice .Net architectures in conjunction with Web Services, Windows Server 2003, Active Directory, SQL Server, Microsoft Office (Word 2003) and SharePoint.

The MIBI also has a legal right to try and recover costs from uninsured motorists. The new system prompts the investigator in each case to carry out a recoverability check on each claim. This facilitates more consistent application of management principles and processes in the area of recoveries, which is a good example of technology facilitating the implementation of sound management practices.

Future Benefits

The system is currently being rolled out to the insurance companies who handle claim settlements on behalf of the MIBI. This will deliver a number of additional benefits going forward.

A large collection of role-based aspx web provides users and managers from all groups with the capability to progress claims from initial entry through to resolution and follow-up. This functionality includes claim milestones, tasks, reports, several kinds of payments and interaction with outside entities such as solicitors and numerous other workflow elements. The whole application is tailored to enforce MIBI's detailed business logic, which mandates strict levels of control over all information in the system.

Summary

Following a strategic review of its business the MIBI decided to go to the market for a new claims management system that would include workflow, document management and the ability to exchange documents electronically with partners in the future. It engaged Storm Technologies to implement a system based on Microsoft SharePoint Portal Server which is making the MIBI more efficient and better able to respond to changes in the insurance industry. As the system is rolled out to partner organisations the MIBI expects to realise significant additional benefits.