Avrio Corporation Success Story

The Farmers Insurance Group of companies is the third-largest insurance company in the United States. Farmers offers auto, home, life insurance, business and financial services to more than 10 million households throughout 41 states in U.S. In 1999, Farmers embarked on the Operation Restore project to transform all aspects of the claims handling process, with a primary goal of returning the customer’s life to "normal" as quickly as possible. Through the efforts of its nearly 18,000 employees and several systems integration partners, Operation Restore successfully: (1) established a nationwide call center; (2) re-engineered all manual and procedural aspects of claims handling and loss settlement; (3) utilized the services of glass and tow vendors; (4) modified claim settlement process; and (5) developed an integrated loss reporting and claims settlement system.

The Problem

As part of the Operation Restore project, Farmers worked with Avrio Corporatoin and other integration companies to develop the Customer Restore Network ("CRN") system. CRN integrated Siebel, FileNet, CTI, Oracle, web technologies, and Farmers’ legacy systems into a unified application. CRN is currently deployed to over 1,800 Farmers employees, with a company-wide implementation expected throughout next year.

The Solution

Siebel’s robust user interface, data management, work distribution, and offline computing functions are at the heart of the CRN application. CRN provides customer service agents and claims adjusters with all the tools to: record claim (loss report) information; add property damage or injury units; capture documents; obtain coverage data; enter accident description codes for underwriting evaluation; validate and set reserves; process payments; update "downstream" legacy and external banking systems; route certain claims for subrogation; close and re-open claims; handle legal investigations; and perform online inquiries via web browser.

Each day, Farmers receives approximately 150,000 incoming documents, video clips, photographs, medical reports, and other items. Additionally, Farmers generates approximately 80,000 outgoing documents/forms daily. To manage this massive volume, Avrio developed a FileNet® document capture application and a custom form letter generation program that integrated with CRN. Incorporating these technologies provides all system users with a complete electronic folder of data and documents.

CRN incorporated a web-based business-to-business application that enabled communication between Farmers Insurance and its glass and tow vendors. Avrio helped Farmers to develop a system that enables customers in need of towing or glass repair services to contact the Farmers call center, wherein the claim is entered in CRN and transmitted via XML to the appropriate vendor. Using CRN, customer service representatives can attend to the customer’s needs quickly and easily.