Fortra Software Gives AAA Carolinas a Life

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AAA Carolinas is an independently operated affiliate of the American Automobile Association. Besides the familiar AAA services such as roadside assistance and travel services, AAA Carolinas’ insurance division provides many personal lines of insurance including, auto, home, boat, motorcycle, life and health, for clients throughout North Carolina and South Carolina.

With more than 800 employees, AAA Carolinas is one of the largest affiliates in the AAA organization. The company is headquartered in Charlotte but has 34 offices in the Carolinas and works with independent insurance carriers and agents in both states.

How Paper-Based Processes Slow Down Business

AAA Carolinas’ insurance division’s document management process was slow, inefficient and costly. Agency underwriters and administrative staff manually processed, routed and filed hundreds of claims, reports, applications and files daily.

Those documents piled up, dramatically increasing storage costs and squeezing valuable office space. In addition, manual document processing slowed down the division’s workflow, resulting in long delays in decision-making. To make matters worse, some documents were misfiled or lost during routing, compounding delays.

AAA Carolinas needed a new way of managing documents that would reduce paper and storage costs, improve the efficiency of their document handling process, and increase employee productivity. The organization began to look for an electronic document management solution, one that would help streamline their business operations and be cost-effective.

Selecting a Digital Document Management Solution

AAA Carolinas turned to Webdocs, from Fortra, for help. Webdocs, a web-based document and image management system for the iSeries or PC, allows AAA Carolinas’ insurance division to quickly and easily scan and electronically store, manage and distribute insurance documents, eliminating the need for manual handling.

“Initially, people were apprehensive about using (Webdocs),” said Harry Johns, AAA Carolinas’ Insurance IT Manager. “But once we put the system in and showed people what it was capable of doing, it snowballed. Everybody wanted to be a part of it.”

The iSeries-based solution allows AAA employees immediate web access to documents from anywhere at any time. Plus Webdocs has features that track revisions and control document access, ensuring document security.

The system also reduces the risk of data loss due to clerical errors and eliminates the need for filing cabinets, reducing expensive office storage costs.

Usually, solutions like this require tricky installations and extensive training. Not so with Webdocs. The software was installed in less than two hours and the basic training took less than a week. “The guys at Fortra made it so easy,” Johns said. “I really enjoy working with them.”

Webdocs Saves AAA Affiliate $20,000 a Year

AAA Carolinas’ old paper-based, manual way of managing insurance documents has been replaced with a web-based, electronic system. The result is a streamlined and quicker process that allows the company to improve it responsiveness and gain a competitive edge.

The insurance division now handles policy management processes in days instead of the weeks it used to take. Employees involved in claim or underwriting decisions now access documents on the web and electronically forward them to others for review or approval. That saves them time, increasing their productivity and efficiency.

And because documents are now stored electronically rather than in filing cabinets, AAA Carolinas is saving an estimated $20,000* a year in paper and storage costs.

According to Johns, ROI was achieved in less than two months, and the savings continue to grow. What’s more, Webdocs helps position AAA Carolinas for the future.

“We were looking for a product that had the potential to grow as big as we need it to,” Johns said. Webdocs gives AAA Carolinas that flexibility.

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