North Queensland Insurance Brokers took a manual, paper-centric workflow and turned it into a fast-moving electronic process. Learn why document comparison software was the key to their success.
The business need:
- Quickly and accurately check renewal terms from year to year
- See exactly which words, phrasing or numbers have changed in an easy-to-read report
- Digitize a particularly paper-centric workflow
- Find a digital comparison solution that is easy to use and time effective
- Implement a cost-effective comparison solution
About NQIB
Since 1986 Australians have looked to North Queensland Insurance Brokers for tailored insurance solutions. A team of experienced professionals work from offices in Townsville, Ingham, and Ayr. Their goal is to take the worry out of insurance for individuals and businesses.
Renewal checking at North Queensland Insurance Brokers (NQIB) was a manual process consuming too much time and too much paper. Kerri Skellern, Compliance & Marketing Manager at NQIB and her team wanted to find a better way of checking yearly renewals. Below, Kerri explains what that project looked like from start to finish, and how document comparison software made a difference.
What was the initial reason NQIB wanted to digitize renewal checking?
“NQIB has, over the last few years, been trying to reduce its paper use. One of the biggest areas of paper waste was renewal checking – where we print this year’s renewal terms and manually check them off against last year’s, annotating any changes in red on the paper document. We then scan the marked up document to file and throw out the printed version.
This process is to determine what changes have been made by the insurers compared to last year. These changes can be premium, sums insured, excesses and terms of cover, exclusions of cover, etc. We needed these changes to be clearly identified.”
What did you need from document comparison software?
“The program needed to be easy to use, time effective, and not burden our already busy processing team. It also needed to be easy to see what the changes were after the revised document was saved to file.”
How did you begin researching available comparison solutions?
“We were initially looking at Adobe but were hesitant as the cost was very high for the number of users we had.
I discussed our comparison needs with our contact at Technosoft, the developer of NQIB’s document management software, who then recommended we look at compareDocs from DocsCorp to see if it would suit our needs.”
How did you trial compareDocs within the business?
“We had three people trial compareDocs for one week to determine what would work best for NQIB.
This initial pilot was very successful. Our processing staff were willing to work with the new program, and the new renewal checking process. There was some initial apprehension as some staff were having issues with viewing changes. With some minor changes to the settings, we were quickly able to have all the processing staff use the program for all electronic renewals.”
Has NQIB been able to reduce paper waste?
“Checking our renewal documents electronically has reduced paper waste considerably. Rather than printing out the renewal terms and manually comparing them side-by-side, staff upload the two documents to compareDocs.
From there, compareDocs generates a redline report with all the changes clearly marked up. The report makes it easy to understand which words, phrasing, or numbers have changed compared to last year, as well as showing the original content.”
Summary
NQIB recognized an opportunity to digitize a paper-centric workflow with document comparison software. After an initial trial with a small section of users, NQIB discovered it could compare renewal terms from year to year faster and more accurately using compareDocs. Now, processing and broking staff use compareDocs for all electronic renewals and NQIB has drastically reduced paper waste.