Digitizing documents
For Algoma Insurance, the importance of managing documents and images electronically was illustrated when one of the properties it had just insured burned to the ground a day after the policy went into effect.
“We had just taken the pictures,” says Ross Weatherby, technical administrator for Algoma. Rather than scrambling to find the hard copies, all of the information was easily accessible online, enabling Algoma to handle the claim efficiently. “Obviously, it is not every day that you insure a building and it burns down, but we had our documentation in place to make the right decisions as we processed the claim."
Algoma, which uses Xerox’s Docushare, has digitized its 17,000 documents and 6,200 file folders at a cost less than $5,000, according to Weatherby.
Other benefits of the system include the ability to convert its 2,000 square feet of paper storage to 100 square feet and reduce its costs by $40,000 per year. Employees now have 20 hours free per month to help customers instead of searching for documents.