Real-time Collision Reporting

Insurers understand the critical role information technology plays in supporting their operations. In an industry that consumes and generates vast amounts of information – much of which needs to be viewable in real-time – business software is nothing short of mission critical.

However, deciding when it’s time to upgrade existing technology may not always be clear. Besides the potential costs and time commitment involved in such a move, insurers want to be sure the investment they make will truly benefit their businesses in the long term. To do this, they must be attuned to signs in their environment that indicate their current software isn’t meeting their needs.

Accident Support Services Inter- national (ASSI) Ltd. recently found itself at such a crossroads. ASSI is the private enterprise element of a partnership unique in North America between insurance companies, police, and the Ontario Ministry of Transportation.

Operating from 16 reporting centres across Ontario, ASSI acts as the reporting service for property damage collisions. Its goal is to cut out a time-consuming layer of collision reporting and speed service delivery for citizens and insurers alike. Drivers who experience a collision involving no injuries can report to an Accident Support Services collision reporting centre (CRC) rather than contacting the police to investigate at the scene. This service provides insurance companies with detailed information on their policyholders – including official police reports, photos of the damaged vehicle and other critical documentation – while at the same time giving the policyholder a ‘one-stop-service’ opportunity for both police and insurance reporting.

ASSI was growing rapidly and found its software platform could no longer scale to match its success. The platform was based on aging spreadsheet software and each reporting centre had to maintain its own database. This meant there was no way for each of ASSI’s locations to easily share information; in turn, this affected the ability of insurers to get the information they needed to make key decisions. Time was also a factor for ASSI staff: the system did not support multiple, concurrent users, causing further service delays. Once data was generated, it was most often sent to insurers in hard copy, incurring delivery costs and further slowing access to data.

SUPPORTING GROWTH

Perhaps the most serious problem ASSI faced was that it lacked the technological infrastructure necessary to grow the business. Pushing more data through an aging, manual system would only compound the delays in getting information to insurers, putting the organization’s future at risk, according to ASSI president Steve Sanderson.

ASSI needed a fully automated workflow – one that would allow reporting centre staff to key in information at their desktop and make data immediately available in real time to all stakeholders via the Web. The platform also had to provide scalability to handle growing volumes of data, giving managers the confidence they needed to identify new business opportunities.

After considering its options, ASSI teamed with Mississauga, Ont.-based integrator Systemgroup Inc. to implement a system now known as the Collision Reporting and Occurrence Management System (CROMS). The Web-based and paper-free system is based on Microsoft .NET software, with a new Microsoft database application as its foundation. CROMS features an interface that everyone – from collision center staff to insurers and police – can access from their desktops to obtain collision data when they need it. Users can also launch sophisticated tracking and reporting tasks to help them drill down into data in a way that yields patterns or trends – a valuable tool for insurers and police. CROMS is designed to allow the transfer of information between stakeholders as well, using industry XML protocols.

New features in CROMS give ASSI the platform it needs to better service its stakeholders and prepare for growth. The solution is accessible via the Web from any location, and houses official documents for each incident. This includes, for each vehicle involved in the collision, a written report and diagrams, a scanned driver’s licence, insurance and ownership documents, any third-party or passengers and injury details, as well as photos of each vehicle. It has almost eliminated ASSI’s reliance on mail delivery of documents, helping it to cut back on administrative costs.

CROMS now has one common database for all locations, allowing users to have full cross-jurisdictional capabilities. Another benefit is speedier access to better data. Using the new data reporting and analytics capabilities in CROMS, insurance companies can flag claims that meet the criteria of being suspicious. Police are also able to receive alerts around suspicious losses, enabling them to do more with the information ASSI provides them. As well, by including mapping technology, CROMS investigators and public officials can pinpoint locations where collisions are more frequent and do so in a matter of seconds. CROMS’ VIN Decoder technology allows for great accuracy in identifying the vehicle involved in the collision and lets police verify that the vehicle reported to the CRC actually matches the VIN.

EXPANDING THE BUSINESS

CROMS has not only improved its day-to-day operations, it’s also providing avenues to expand services. Because CROMS is designed to allow data exchange, ASSI can now provide insurers, police, road engineers or the Ministry of Transportation with direct downloads to their systems on a real-time basis. This allows insurers to have an automated ‘first-notice-of-loss’ system; it also gives other stakeholders the information they need to identify collision hotspots much faster and quickly improve road and driver safety. Imagine being able to exchange data immediately: the efficiencies gained would be astronomical!

CROMS recently won two prestigious Microsoft awards. It was a global winner for the ‘Integrated E-Business Solutions Award.’ In Canada, it won the National Impact Award for excellence as ‘Solution of the Year.’

ASSI’s experience shows that when planned correctly, software not only supports business processes, it can enable and even grow them. Consumers expect more from services on-demand; for these services to be available when and where they need them, companies will need to ensure their operations can meet those demands.