Challenge
In the competitive world of insurance, agents needing quotes for their customers have a lot of options. So, when they faced time-consuming steps to apply and long delays in processing at Mercer Insurance’s website, many walked away. And their revenue went with them.
“Agents were sending us a clear message,” says Paul Corkery, Senior Vice President & Chief Information Officer at Mercer Insurance. “If we wanted to keep their business, we needed to make working with us a whole lot easier.”
Mercer had been using one of many third-party solutions available to the industry, which was built on last-generation technology no longer up to the ease of use and flexibility standards of today’s technology. On top of that, Mercer was paying handsomely for outsourcing.
Because this business process was so critical and required expertise in leading edge technologies, Mercer decided to seek outside help. After investigating several leading rich Internet application (RIA) solution providers, Mercer chose Universal Mind based on the company’s reputation and proven methodology for developing breakthrough RIAs.
Process
Universal Mind laid the groundwork for the architecture and design to utilize Mercer’s infrastructure but discovered early on that serious re-engineering was required.
Performance issues existed across all systems. Mercer was shipping megabytes of data to clients that took upwards of 20 seconds to appear as the server became bogged down for unknown reasons.
In the first six months, Universal Mind and Mercer created a concept in Flex which ultimately became the user interface. They reworked the front end to create a solution that moved quickly through all tiers. At the same time, UM dug into the Cold Fusion middle and Oracle backend tiers to determine where the performance issues lay and resolved them.
In the remaining six months, with the server stabilized, the team was able to move forward with enhanced development to build on new modules designed to enhance usability and experience.
“We had immersed our key technologists in the Mercer organization in order to get a 360° understanding of agent requirements, along with the unique needs of the personnel who’d be using the data,” says Jeff Bouley, Director of Consulting Services, Universal Mind, Inc. “So we were working not only on stabilization but innovation at the same time.”
Result: MercerOnline
MercerOnline is a portal that enables agents to quickly fill out a Web-based questionnaire while on the phone with customers. As the agent responds to questions, data is dynamically updated in the rules-driven environment, enabling each answer to determine all subsequent questions. It’s the equivalent of flipping through a 200-page questionnaire, answering only those questions relevant to a given situation, yet it can take as little as 10 minutes to complete and get a rate quote.
Now, Mercer is enjoying the fruits of everyone’s labor. “The submissions process is dramatically shorter and significantly easier,” says Corkery. “As a result, we’re enjoying a noticeable upswing in business, and that is exactly the result we were looking for.”
In addition, Mercer is bringing new lines of business into the system and rolling them off the older system, enabling further cost-savings and efficiencies, so the positive effects will continue to be felt throughout the organization for a long time to come.
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