IBM-Grange Insurance

Vendor: IBM (NYSE: IBM)
Channel Partner: The Dayhuff Group www.dayhuffgroup.com
Customer: Grange Insurance www.grangeinsurance.com    
Vertical Markets: Insurance
State: Ohio

Technology Used: IBM Enterprise Content Management solutions, IBM Content Manager 8.3, IBM DB2 8.2, IBM WebSphere MQ 3.6

Solution: Worth $1.3 billion, Grange Insurance is a highly successful provider of auto, home, life, business, and farm insurance. Grange Insurance serves policyholders in numerous U.S. states, including Georgia, Kentucky, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Tennessee.

Much of the company's success depends on the network of independent agents that serves as the main link between the company and its policyholders. Grange Insurance must make processes like providing quotes, writing policies, processing claims, and responding to customer inquiries simple and fast for these agents. Otherwise, they may decide to recommend another insurer to their customers. As Grange Insurance continued to expand, it became necessary to add new staff to meet the needs of their growing customer base. Even with more personnel, however, the company still couldn't respond to agents as quickly as necessary. The insurance provider needed to find a way to instantly track, trace, and access information.

For assistance finding and implementing advanced imaging and workflow solutions to better manage content and help with important business processes, Grange Insurance turned to IBM. The two companies worked together to identify strategies that would allow the insurance provider to optimize business performance and move beyond simple process automation. IBM Global Technology Services consultants deployed several IBM ECM solutions to help Grange Insurance access online policy information quickly and instantly provide required information to customers or agents by email or over the phone. Many information requests can now be completed in minutes as opposed to hours or even days. Using IBM Content Manager, the company can store, track, and manage policy information and workflows for commercial and claims applications, and the IBM WebSphere MQ software allows independent agents to quickly retrieve and annotate images for processing.  

There have been three major benefits as a result of Grange Insurance's implementation of the IBM solutions. First, the provider has been able to grow without adding additional staff members, something that is very favorable from a profit standpoint. Second, image retrieval times have been cut by an impressive 75-percent. Finally, the business performance of Grange Insurance has been boosted overall. They are now the number one insurance provider in Ohio, an achievement that can be attributed, in part, to the recently deployed IBM technologies.

Further details: ftp://ftp.software.ibm.com/common/ssi/pm/ab/n/imc14219usen/IMC14219USEN.PDF