Catholic United Financial is harnessing the power of HotDocs document automation technology to efficiently provide life insurance, retirement and savings plans to more than 72,000 of its client members.
HotDocs technology allowed Catholic United to completely transform a costly, time-consuming, and paper intensive document production process to an almost paperless solution. Finalized policy documents are now easily accessible by staff and customers via real-time, web-based portals.
The Problem:
Prior to implementing HotDocs, Catholic United produced all of its annuity and life insurance policy documents using mainframe technology and manual processes. Though a robust system, it was challenging to maintain since all updates and revisions required assistance from the IT department. This meant that every time a document template needed an update, a change request had to be submitted to the IT department, which resulted in extra burdens on the IT staff combined with an inefficient process.
As the organization grew, so did its documentation requirements. Handling the insurance and financial services documentation for 72,000 members was challenging, especially since nearly all of the documentation had to be printed and handled through a purely manual process.
Staff would create documents using fillable PDF forms and then print, combine, add amendments, and sometimes even photocopy certain sections. These policy packages were then internally routed or mailed out for signatures. Each policy package could easily contain more than 25 pages of contract documentation and amendments. Roughly 5,000 document pages were being produced monthly using these costly and labor intensive methods.
Though the system worked, it was far from efficient. The inefficiencies were both expensive and time consuming. Printing, postage and handling costs were a major expense and the time required to finalize documentation could take days or even weeks.
The Solution:
In an effort to provide better service to its members while also improving internal processes, Catholic United turned to HotDocs to facilitate a comprehensive overhaul of the organization’s document production system. One key requirement was to create a solution that would provide simple and convenient delivery of electronic documentation to home office staff, the sales force, and their members.
As part of this implementation, they wanted to place the creation, management and control of the document templates into the hands of the business in order to make the policy generation process easier to manage. This would also help ease the burden previously placed on the IT department, which handled all document template change requests – regardless of how small they might be.
To make this happen, several systems were integrated together to streamline and update the document production process. Over 70 annuity and life insurance policy documents were converted into HotDocs templates which were then uploaded to HotDocs Hub – a web-based document assembly platform. The templates were created by just two Member Services (Business Operations) resources, newly trained as in-house template authors, complemented with some additional support from the HotDocs consulting team. The team automated all of the life and annuity policy contracts, including initial applications, policy packages, inserts, medical records, amendments, etc…
Once automated, these policy templates were then set up to pull XML data through an integration with FAST, a cloud-based Policy Administration System SaaS platform. After pulling data from FAST, document packages would then be assembled and electronically delivered to the member’s portal account. Rendered documents would be automatically routed to OnBase, a document imaging system that stores and indexes all of the finalized documents in PDF format.
The Result:
Every department throughout Catholic United has benefited from HotDocs. The IT department has eliminated its document production workload. Employees now have quick and easy access to electronic documents in real time through a FAST web-based portal. Document templates are easily managed through a simple, user-friendly system. In particular, HotDocs has been valuable to the sales, member service, underwriting and new business support teams, who can now easily review member correspondence in real time through this paperless process.
Implementing and integrating HotDocs has provided the additional benefit of generating standardized documents with an updated look and feel. Completed documents are now accessible to client members through a secure online member portal on the Catholic United website, where members can easily sign in to view all of their policy documents in real-time and conveniently download or print at home.
Prior to HotDocs, it would take about 35 minutes to generate a typical policy. After the system overhaul, these documents can now be produced in 3 minutes.
Speaking about the success of the HotDocs implementation, Steve Miller, the Program Manager of the HotDocs and FAST project, said: “We have completely transformed the way we create our policy documentation. Our process is much more efficient, saving us hundreds of work hours each month all while increasing the quality of our documents. Our customers directly benefit from these changes and love the improved level of service provided to them through our new online member portal.”