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Online demonstrations graphically illustrate value of
web-based complaint handling
 |
Panelists for Wednesday’s demonstrations
of online communication between regulators and insurers include
(l to r) Jeff Steen (Nationwide), Suzette Scarver Dave (Ohio
DOI), Eileen Fox and Sandy Anderson (New York DOI). |
There was a time when handling consumer complaints was a paper-intensive,
heavily manual process. Complaints were received by companies and
insurance departments via regular (or “snail”) mail,
forwarded manually to an examiner, reviewed, responded to in writing
and then entrusted to the tender mercies of the U.S. Postal Service
again. Turnaround times, and consumer frustrations, were monumental.
With the advent of the online age, companies and regulators knew
there had to be better ways to receive, review and respond to consumer
complaints. If you can buy any book ever published or download
any song ever recorded online, you ought to be able to submit a
complaint and get a response with the speed and convenience of
your home computer.
Some of those better ways were showcased during the closing session
of the 2005 Nashville Exchange as Barb Fitch, 2nd vice president,
Market Conduct & Practices, National Life Insurance Company,
moderated a session during which the online complaint handling
functions of the Ohio and New York DOIs took center stage.
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Suzette Scarver Dave, chief, Consumer
Services Division, Ohio Department of Insurance, shares how
Ohio’s ECHO (Expedited Complaint Handling Option) system
works. |
Suzette Dave, chief, Consumer Services Division, Ohio Department
of Insurance, provided a live demonstration of her department’s
online complaint system.
Before the online environment came into its own, Ohio, like many
other states, operated virtually 100 percent manually in the receipt
and processing of complaints.
“We received written complaints, we forwarded the complaints
to companies through the mail, we responded to the consumer through
the mail … and we all waited on mail turnaround time,” Dave
said. “There was a lot of downtime and a lot of wasted time.
Our administration believed that there had to be a better way to
handle complaints.”
Everything into the system
And there was. It took the form of a web-based application pioneered
by the Ohio DOI in 2002, with the assistance and cooperation of
companies like Nationwide and Progressive.
“We still get some complaints by mail as well as by fax
and even walk-ins,” Dave said. “But we are now promoting
our online application much more heavily.”
Whether a complaint comes in online or on paper, everything goes
into the system. Correspondence is immediately scanned into the
database upon receipt. Once it’s in the system, it makes
no difference whether the complaint was registered by mail or online.
Agents can also use the site, going online to apply for a license,
update CEU (Continuing Education Unit) requirements and other functions.
When consumers enter the site to lodge a complaint, they can select
from a list of forms for specific categories of complaints. The
complaint can be submitted on line or a form can be downloaded
in Word or PDF form for manual completion and fax or mail submission.
“When the consumer enters a complaint, we provide an immediate
acknowledgment of receipt,” Dave said. “We inform them
that they can expect a full response within 30-45 days. All complaints
are automatically recorded in our complaint tracking database for
ongoing monitoring.
 |
Jeff Steen, director, IT Operations, Nationwide,
discusses how Nationwide and their policyholders benefit
from the advance technology in states like New York and Ohio. |
Jeff Steen, director, IT Operations, Nationwide, one of the companies
that assisted the Ohio DOI in the development of its system, spoke
for a few minutes about his own company’s online complaint
receipt and tracking system.
“We use a system called Power Center,” Steen said. “The
developer’s niche market is customer relations and you can
use their product for a lot more than just complaints. Over the
past 12 months we have used their system to document 125,000 customer
contacts, not just complaints.”
Steen went on to demonstrate how Nationwide’s system interacts
in real time with the Ohio DOI’s system.
“As you can see, the turnaround is very quick,” Dave
said. “Depending on the issues, you save a lot of mail time.
Importantly, this kind of speed allows for a better connection
between the consumer and the carrier because it gives the carrier
more of an opportunity to maintain the relationship, thanks to
the speed and efficiency of the system.”
From mainframe to laptop
 |
Sandy Anderson, manager, business systems,
New York Department of Insurance, tells how their Automated
Prompt Pay Complaint Handling system operates and benefits
all users. |
Sandy Anderson and Eileen Fox, both of whom are business systems
managers for the New York State Insurance Department, demonstrated
their department’s Consumer’s Information and Imaging
Management System (CIIMS), which was pioneered in 1998. Recently,
the CIIMS application was revised to allow it to run on laptops,
providing much greater flexibility and portability in taking the
application into the field where it may be needed on site after
some sort of catastrophe.
Anderson and Fox focused on their system’s ability to assist
medical providers, many of whom frequently submit complaints about
lag times in carrier payments for services provided to consumers.
“We wanted to build an online system that would allow providers
to register with us so they wouldn’t have to reenter all
kinds of basic information every time they had a complaint,” Anderson
said. “We also implemented a form so that carriers could
respond to us online. Using the business rules built into the system
and its ease of use, we can literally have a case opened and closed
without an examiner ever looking at it.”
The CIIMS system went live in 2002 on a staggered basis.
 |
Eileen Fox, business systems manager,
New York Department of Insurance, demonstrates how their
automated system greatly increases turn-around time at the
NY DOI. |
“We had a lot of cases that were still being housed in a
legacy mainframe environment,” Fox said. “During 2004,
we completed a process of running off all cases on the legacy system
into the CIIMS system. Now, in 2005, we are into our first year
using CIIMS entirely to deal with all complaints.”
Indeed, during 2005 more than 25 percent of complaints handled
by CIIMS were closed automatically within the system.
“Needless to say, we are pleased,” Anderson commented. “As
time goes on and we continue to look at the business rules used
within the system, we hope to see that percentage go even higher.”
The demonstrations made clear that the expanding use of technology
will continue to transform the consumer complaint response roles
of companies and regulators alike, including the ability to take
systems and capabilities into the field where they are needed.
The industry needs to actively embrace and integrate the applications
of the future that will help us better meet evolving consumer needs
and demands.
The session concluded with an offer made by New York regulators
to their Louisiana colleagues to take New York’s laptop-based
applications into the field in storm-ravaged areas to help Louisiana
respond more quickly to the flood of complaints certain to come
in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. It was an object lesson not only
in the power of technology but also in the spirit of caring and
cooperation that has characterized the industry’s response
to an unprecedented year of catastrophes.
 |
Barb Fitch, 2nd vice president, market
conduct and practices, National Life Insurance Company, sets
the tone for the online demonstrations from the New York
and Ohio Departments of Insurance and Nationwide. |
CONTACT INFO
Sandy Anderson
New York Department of Insurance
518.473.7980
Email: sanderso@ins.state.ny.us
www.ins.state.ny.us
Suzette Scarver Dave
Ohio Department of Insurance
614.644.3398
Email: suzette.dave@ins.state.oh.us
www.ohioinsurance.gov
Eileen Fox
New York Department of Insurance
212.480.4692
Email: efox@ins.state.ny.us
www.ins.state.ny.us
Jeff Steen
Nationwide
614.249.2999
Email: steenj@nationwide.com
www.nationwide.com
Barbara Fitch
National Life Insurance Company
802.229.3112
Email: bfitch@nationallife.com
www.nationallife.co
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