Holman Insurance Brokers, Ltd.

Xerox Content Management Solutions are a Competitive Advantage

"DocuShare - Xerox Document Repository Software is the glue that binds our company's productivity and success."

Holman Insurance Brokers, Ltd. is a 25-year old firm in Toronto, Canada, serving personal policy customers in the province of Ontario and commercial customers across the world. Holman Insurance brokers consider it their business to help customers by aggressively searching for the most cost effective insurance coverage for their needs.

Holman's more than 50 insurance professionals receive in-depth industry training and are supported by an advanced rating system and electronic data interchange (EDI) with a growing number of major insurance companies.

The company's customer oriented brokers provide services ranging from traditional home and auto policies to more exotic coverage for aircraft, kidnap/ransom, art galleries and armored cars. In the extremely paper-intensive insurance industry, no matter what the Holman policy covers, it's sure to create a stream of hard copy documents that need to be accessed by dozens of people and, in some cases, remain active for decades. "

The Content Management Challenge

"Holman Insurance's business revolves around its policies. Its professionals need to quickly review, revise, approve and share tens of thousands of policies, forms and letters every month with numerous partner agencies, sales brokers, and policyholders. Add to that an endless trail of the manuals, invoices, applications and appraisals, and it's easy to see why Holman was searching for a new way to handle its content management challenge.

Paper files created a number of problems for the brokerage. Storage was an issue - some files need to be kept for up to 20 years - and retrieval was often arduous. Sharing files between brokers, insurance companies, and policyholders meant continuous trips to the filing cabinets, copy machine, fax machine or post office, and the creation of ever more paper needing ever more storage space.

Company vice president Paul Holman knew the paper was more than an annoyance. It was becoming a competitive hindrance. ""In an insurance brokerage, just opening the mail creates a new wave of paper to be handled," he claims. That new wave of paper every day was becoming a formidable operational challenge."

The Xerox Content Management Solution

"Holman is taming its paper tiger today, thanks to the company's adoption of Xerox Content Management Solutions featuring DocuShare - Xerox Document Repository Software and FlowPort - Xerox Image Routing Software to complement the Document Centre multifunction system. DocuShare is a web-based content management tool that grants authorized users instant access to documents for viewing, downloading, editing, printing, or revising - from anywhere, at any time. FlowPort takes document access a giant step further, enabling users to capture and integrate paper-based documents into the company's digital workflow, and then access, retrieve and distribute that content - all without the use of a PC.

With familiar folder-based, drag-and-drop architecture, DocuShare is easy to learn and use. Information uploaded or scanned in at the Document Centre is converted, instantaneously, into a universally legible format that can be accessed and read by anyone - with any browser, from any platform.

FlowPort features a unique paper user interface that contains encoded DataGlyphs®. By simply checking a box on a FlowPort cover sheet, Holman employees can send various commands to the FlowPort server to distribute documents via e-mail, remote print or Internet fax; or to store or retrieve documents in and from DocuShare repositories."