Customer Solution Case Study
/ Chubb Canada Cuts Costs and Boosts Productivity with Microsoft .NET−based Technology
Overview
Country or Region: Canada
Industry: Financial Services
Customer Profile
Chubb Insurance Company of Canada provides property and casualty insurance for personal and commercial customers, servicing 45,000 personal customers using 250 independent brokers located in five provinces.
Business Situation
After achieving immediate success with the relaunch of its public Web site and the launch of a Web-enabled broker site, it still needed to improve other key business processes.
Solution
Leveraging Microsoft® .NET connection software, it added a new billing feature to its broker site and developed a new Web application to improve the way it does business with third-party appraisal companies.
Benefits
n Printing/mailing cost savings
n Time savings through automation
n Boosted development productivity
n Increased business efficiency / "We are very impressed with the performance of .NET-based technology as it has enabled us to move one step further, and increase the number of people using the site…"
Nicole Brouillard, Vice President, Information Technology, Chubb Insurance Company of Canada
Chubb Insurance Company of Canada (Chubb Canada) specializes in high-end personal insurance, such as homes, cars, large watercraft, and excess liability policies. The company services 45,000 personal insurance customers through 250 independent brokers located in five provinces. To streamline business processes and improve communications with brokers and customers, Chubb Canada relaunched its public Web site in 2000 and launched a Web-enabled broker self-service site in 2001. To encourage wider adoption of the site among brokers, Chubb Canada enhanced functionalities and introduced a new billing feature. Leveraging Microsoft® .NET, Microsoft ASP.NET, and Microsoft Visual Studio® .NET, Chubb Canada launched a new application to help improve the way it works with third-party appraisal companies. These initiatives have helped the organization to realize a number of additional benefits.
Situation
Chubb Insurance Company of Canada (Chubb Canada), a wholly owned subsidiary of Chubb Corporation in New Jersey, provides property and casualty insurance for personal and commercial insurance customers in Canada. The company services 45,000 personal insurance customers through 250 independent brokers located in five provinces, specializing in high-end personal insurance such as homes, cars, fine arts, jewelry, large watercraft, and excess liability policies.
Business Challenge
In the past, all customer queries were directed to Chubb Canada’s call centre, where a broker could quote new policies, revise policies, and verify the latest rates and rules with the help of a Chubb Canada representative. Because 30 percent of calls were straightforward policy queries, it was a time-consuming process that kept customer service representatives away from revenue-generating tasks, such as revising policies and conducting transactions. Chubb Canada knew changes were necessary to streamline these processes and improve overall business efficiencies and customer service.
Working in conjunction with two consulting firms, BearingPoint and Slingshot Communications, the company relaunched its public Web site in July 2000 as a way to improve communications with customers and brokers. In 2001, Chubb Canada also launched a Web-enabled broker self-service site called @ChubbCanada, which is powered by Microsoft® Windows Server System™ integrated server software, including Microsoft Commerce Server and Microsoft SQL Server™.
Through @ChubbCanada, the company improved service to brokers by providing access to up-to-the-minute information about the company, its policies, and its clients.
“With a password and ID, brokers can view all of their customers’ policies, examine coverage, and access Chubb Canada’s private publishing site, detailing the company’s complete rates, rules, contracts, and underwriting guidelines,” says Susan Vella, Senior Vice President of Personal Insurance for Chubb Insurance Company of Canada
After the site went live, the company saw immediate returns on its investment including a significant reduction in printing costs, as well as increased productivity among its customer and accounting service representatives, in addition to giving more options to its brokers.
While the company was pleased with the immediate benefits of the two sites, Chubb Canada knew it still needed to do more to encourage more brokers to use both sites. The company also recognized there were a number of internal processes that needed to be streamlined. For example, 65 percent of Chubb Canada’s customers pay their invoices on a monthly basis using preauthorized cheques or credit cards. This, however, created problems for the company when credit cards expired and cheques bounced due to insufficient funds or had incorrect account information.
“When a payment bounces our accounting representative has to call brokers who then have to follow up with clients,” says Nicole Brouillard, Vice President of Information Technology for Chubb Insurance Company of Canada. “These calls are a time-consuming process for the accounting team and brokers who have to follow up on these accounts on a regular basis.”
Adding to the problem was a new policy introduced by credit card companies who were no longer accepting charges to accounts that had expired numbers. For Chubb Canada, this would have been a major problem as it would have increased the number of accounts to follow up on by almost ten times.
“Our rejected payments would have increased to almost 17,000 per year,” says Vella. “We never used to ask people for updated credit card information, so quite often we didn’t have that information available in our system. Having to update all of these accounts would have been a major undertaking and would have required us to hire more people to handle the volume.”
Another issue that needed addressing was related to appraisals made by third-party companies. Chubb Canada sends a portion of its appraisals to third-party companies who submit their information to Chubb through a variety of formats, such as paper or e-mail. Chubb Canada representatives then had to manually input this information into its internal system, which was a labour-intensive task and created potential for error.
Solution
To address these issues, Chubb Canada decided to add more functionality to its broker self-service Web site, in particular, a billing feature built using Microsoft Visual Studio® .NET development system and Microsoft .NET connection software.
Added to the site in December 2003, the new billing feature allows Chubb Canada to post a list of accounts with missed payments or expiring credit cards on @ChubbCanada, which helps to save time and ensure client information is up-to-date. Brokers can access all their individual accounts that have a payment issue on their own. By the end of February 2004, more than 3,000 updates and corrections were made by brokers to their customers’ payment information resulting in fewer missed payments and better customer service for both Chubb brokers and clients.
“Adding this functionality meant that our accounting department did not need to devote time to this process, allowing them to focus on more pressing tasks,” says Vella.
Additionally, Chubb Canada also developed a new application to improve the way it works with the third-party companies that handle appraisals. Previously, when companies completed an appraisal, they sent completed forms to Chubb Canada in various formats, including e-mails, paper, fax, and CDs. Chubb Canada representatives would then have to manually enter the information into its appraisal system.
Built on the Microsoft .NET Framework using Visual Studio .NET, the new application enables third-party companies to enter the appraisal information directly to Chubb Canada’s system using a template that is then automatically fed into its appraisal system. This has helped save processing time, reduced potential for manual errors, and improved productivity.
According to Paul Newby, Web Development/Architecture Manager for Chubb Insurance Company of Canada, the appraisal site is a mixture of Microsoft .NET–based technologies for the Web application and J2EE for some of the business logic. The inherent support of Web services in Visual Studio .NET allows the virtual seamless interoperability of these two technologies.
“Right now, the broker site is about 70 percent in ASP [Active Server Pages], 30 percent on [Microsoft] ASP.NET, and we’re working on migrating the rest to ASP.NET. To bring all the layers together, we’re using Web services—it’s the only real way we have to communicate between the Web tier and application server, and from the Web server to the Web logic components,” Newby says.
To address Web services security for new development, Newby is using the Web Services Enhancements for Microsoft .NET (WSE)—an add-on to Microsoft Visual Studio .NET and the Microsoft .NET Framework that provides developers with the most recent Web services capabilities to keep pace with the evolving Web services protocol specifications including WS-Security, WS-Routing, and WS-Attachments.
Benefits
Thanks to the corporate Web site, Chubb Canada brokers have the tools they need to help improve customer service and boost overall productivity. Enhancements to the site and the new application for third-party companies have also brought efficiencies for Chubb Canada including improved employee productivity and cost and time savings.
“We are pleased with what we have been able to accomplish with the Web sites both from an internal and external perspective. Since the launch, the functionalities have grown by leaps and bounds,” says Vella. “Our brokers have a number of new tools at their fingertips that allow them to do their jobs more effectively and deliver better customer service. This is important in helping our company keep our competitive edge.”
Online Self-Service Access Saves Paper Costs
Prior to the launch of the broker site, Chubb Canada anticipated it would significantly reduce printing and mailing costs and Brouillard is confident the company will meet its goal.
“We no longer print broker contract and rate manuals, broker announcements, or broker communications,” says Brouillard. “We are definitely on par to significantly reduce our paper and mailing costs as we had hoped to do at the start of the project—that is impressive.”
Rather than printing and mailing newsletters and other communications, Chubb Canada is also using the public Web site to communicate company news to brokers. As well, the company is in the process of stopping the printing of appraisal and policy copies, as brokers can now access this information on the Web site.
.NET Helps Boosts Web Development Productivity
By using Visual Studio .NET and the Microsoft .NET Framework, Chubb Canada was able to decrease development time and increase productivity on the appraisal Web application.
“We’ve used many different technologies for Web development and out of all these Web technologies that we have used, .NET is the most productive for us. We are extremely happy with it—so much so that it’s become our standard for Web development throughout the company,” says Newby.
Brouillard agrees, “We’re pleased with the efficiencies that this software has brought to our company and are excited about the future possibilities afforded by the .NET-based technology.”
In addition to productivity increases, Newby also found .NET-based technologies helped to facilitate better quality development. “By using .NET, we’ve found the environment and code to be much more stable and easier to develop with.”
Increased Customer Service
Encouraging brokers to use the online services on @ChubbCanada has been a key focus for the company since the 2001 launch. By adding more functionality to the corporate site, Chubb Canada is able to offer more value to brokers by providing them with faster, easier access to the updated information they need to conduct business.
“Brokers have taken to the changes very well. The more functionality there is on the site, the more reason for a broker to visit every day and the more we see the usage increase,” says Vella. “The billing feature, for example, has produced phenomenal results, because it gives brokers a workflow where they have to enter the site at least twice a month. And once they are on the site, they also visit other pages. Increased usage of the site is important to our overall assessment of the site’s success.”
In fact, the company has already seen a significant rise in usage since introducing new features such as billing. In March 2003, Chubb Canada had 57,000 transactions on the broker site. One year later, the number of transactions had risen to 231,000.
Future Changes
Harnessing the power of the Microsoft .NET Framework and ASP.NET, Chubb Canada has the IT infrastructure it needs to continue adding new functions and features to the site to encourage widespread usage.
“It’s definitely a site on the move. The more savings we achieve, the more we’re going to invest in the site because it’s a benefit to the broker, our clients, and for our company,” says Vella.
“We are very impressed with the performance of .NET-based technology as it has enabled us to move one step further and increase the number of people using the site and the number of transactions we’re getting. Microsoft-based technology has helped provide us with the stability and performance that we need today and into the future,” says Brouillard.
Microsoft Windows Server System
Microsoft Windows Server System integrated server infrastructure software is designed to support end-to-end solutions built on the Windows Server operating system. Windows Server System creates an infrastructure based on integrated innovation, Microsoft's holistic approach to building products and solutions that are intrinsically designed to work together and interact seamlessly with other data and applications across your IT environment. This helps you reduce the costs of ongoing operations, deliver a more secure and reliable IT infrastructure, and drive valuable new capabilities for the future growth of your business.
For more information about Windows Server System, go to:
www.microsoft.com/windowsserversystem