According to Capgemini, 77 percent of customers are expected to increase touchless technology use. Given the impact the pandemic has had, the need for remote consent and agreements is not going to dissipate in the near future. Customers that are unsatisfied are likely to churn as new players are leveraging their digital expertise to enhance customer experience. Thus, meeting customer expectations as they evolve is key to retention and loyalty.
There are very real benefits to leveraging digital agreements. The first is reduced hard costs of printing and shipping paper documents. The second is faster cycle time. Creating digital options for data capture through online forms, digital ID verification, SMS delivery of documents and eSignature can significantly speed up the policy sale process. This in turn frees up agent time spent waiting for customer signatures or following on incomplete forms, allowing them to pursue more business.
Mercury General Corporation is a multiple-line insurance organization offering personal automobile, homeowners, renters, and business insurance. With more than 8,000 independent agents in 11 states, Mercury realized early-on the need to engage their agents in a meaningful way to help drive business.
More recently, Mercury Insurance has undergone a transformation to provide an increasingly digital experience for its customers and agents. Abby Hosseini, Mercury’s Chief Information Officer, has overseen the company’s DocuSign eSignature adoption and its successful integration with Guidewire. The result? More efficient, digitized processes, rapid closure of business opportunities and improved internal compliance across the board.
A decade ago, Mercury Insurance agents were frustrated by the tedious back-and-forth involving paper-based processes. Prior to the adoption of e-Signature, when an agent received a new business application or made changes to a customer’s policy life cycle, they had to physically send and track documents to customers who, in turn, had to complete, sign and return them.
eSignature has streamlined this process for both parties. Agents send documents through eSignature and, within hours, customers digitally sign and return policy documents. And if some paperwork goes uncompleted, agents can follow-up with the software’s configurable automated signature reminders. This not only decreases document completion turnaround time but improves the overall customer experience as well.
eSignature helps Mercury manage its independent agents, too. Certain documentation is required when multi-carrier, independent insurance agents want to offer Mercury Insurance products to their customers. With eSignature, Mercury can quickly collect and distribute signatures to improve onboarding and license management with greater speed and improved record keeping.
After the initial eSignature integration, Mercury Insurance wanted to similarly streamline its four different backend insurance platforms to create a more efficient digital workplace. They integrated DocuSign with Guidewire and OnBase, Hyland’s enterprise information platform.
The three integrated systems created a paperless customer correspondence system that mail-merges forms into specific formats and sends them to the appropriate signers. Once completed, these documents are stored within Hyland and can be viewed by customers and agents alike.
This digital storage system allows Mercury Insurance to easily file and track documents online and therefore eliminates the need for file cabinets and physical document storage systems.
“If you walked into one of our offices a few years ago, most of the floor was occupied by file cabinets,” says Hosseini. “As a result of our paperless initiatives, we have recouped about 30 percent of office space over the last 10 years just by aggressively digitizing our documents.”
eSignature has also increased compliance for Mercury Insurance. By integrating the software into its procurement and contracts management processes, the company is able to digitally trace and audit documents to see when each was presented, signed and stored at the same time, enforcing a structured approval process. eSignature’s certificate of completion helps monitor proof of signature and track when transactions were completed, which is necessary for handling policy endorsements, claims processes and critical deadlines.
The eSignature integration allows for archival and retrieval capabilities as well. Instead of searching through file cabinets to find proof of signature on a specific document, DocuSign lets agents access everything via an online archive.
“We were able to implement predictable enterprise workflows and approved business rules that send documents to the correct person for signature, rather than allowing the compliance and business rules to live inside a person’s head,” Hosseini says.
Combining powerful systems such as Guidewire ClaimCenter and Guidewire PolicyCenter with DocuSign’s digital document management and eSignature solutions allows policies and claims to be completed in minutes and returned error-free and paper-free, reducing cycle time, increasing close rates, and delighting clients.
Automating workflows throughout all core insurance operations, like underwriting, policy administration, billing, and claims management can lead to time and productivity savings. Check out how you can achieve similar cost savings with policy administration and claims management via DocuSign for PolicyCenter and DocuSign for ClaimCenter.
This blog is the second in a series based on the recent Insurtech Innovators webinar, Enabling Digital Transformation, featuring representatives from DocuSign, Betterview and Smart Communications.