Docuplus

Churchill Insurance

Churchill Insurance was founded by Chief Executive, Martin Long, who named the company because of its associations with Britishness, trust, strength and perseverance. Churchill began life in June 1989 with 88 employees selling car insurance policies, and added home insurance products the following year. Today, Churchill has over 8,000 employees and sells an ever increasing portfolio of insurance products. The company’s vision is to deliver best customer service and it is a regular winner of leading service awards.

The Need

Churchill Insurance wanted to update the look and capability of its client-facing documentation. The company needed to rebrand its core customer interfacing documents to be better looking, client friendly and easier to read. This essential literature covered Churchill’s Car and Home products at all stages of the lifecycle – ranging from initial quotation, to sales, renewal and claims.

Churchill’s centralised IT and Print Department acts as the central resource for producing all printed customer and intermediary literature and correspondence. This translates in to 150,000 individual communications per month, each of which can be up to eight pages in length, a total of 1.5 million monthly page impressions. This literature includes nearly 650 different marketing mail shots, which all adds up to a process that is complex and ever changing.

The IT and Print Department was very busy managing the day-to-day business of a fast growing and fast moving insurance business. This meant that there was a staff shortfall in a key specialist area – document automation. The insurer needed to find a specialist IT resourcing consultancy with the long-standing expertise to smoothly and efficiently oversee the repurposing of its documentation using a niche technology solution.

Key tasks included rationalising document sets, so that they were more logical and straightforward to follow, which meant replacing outmoded documents and rationalising others. Central to this requirement was designing the new look literature utilising Churchill’s document automation solution, ISIS Papyrus. This system is used to create the document templates and manage the high volume processing to output tailored documents of one at high volume.

The document redesign proved to be much more than just a simple update – it meant entirely rewriting the old legacy coding from scratch. The existing coding used the rules and layout of a previous, outmoded document automation solution that had been replaced by Papyrus.

The Answer

Churchill turned to Docuplus, an IT specialist in document automation, communication and print production systems. Docuplus has a number of strengths that attracted Churchill – it has the skills, experience and expertise to help Churchill meet its resourcing shortfall in developing a new document suite using the Papyrus system. The company is vendor independent, so Churchill could be assured of an honest, reliable diagnosis of possible teething problems with the document automation system.

Docuplus Consultants, David Vose and Marc Goldstein were the team members assigned to this project working in conjunction with Churchill’s IT team including: Rajula Singh, John Web and Ben Tidmarsh. The Docuplus Consultants enabled the in-house resource to focus on its day-to-day role whilst it concentrated on upgrading the document automation system. The job requirement was extensive – this included everything from analysing the insurer’s business requirements, through to the technical and system designs and developing the document software from the ground up.

The documentation upgrade was completed in phases – initially Motor Products’ quotations and new business, followed by Home Products’quotations and new business. The Docuplus team then moved onto Customer Services, Claims and Accounts Letters. Churchill’s extensive network of brokers and intermediaries are the latest parties to benefit from the company’s new family look.

Churchill’s IT and Print team were impressed by the Consultants’ knowledge and pick-up of the insurance company’s internal IT processes. “David and Marc quickly adapted to the way in which we work and have become valued members of the team, ”comments Rajula Singh, Print Application Leader at Churchill Insurance. “Their experience provided an invaluable resource to the department and meant that we could achieve some very ambitious deadlines. Docuplus more than met our expectations.”

One of the key tasks was more than to simply update the existing document technology infrastructure. A core role was one of skills transfer. “The Docuplus Consultants mentored members of the IT team so that they acquired the necessary skills to implement the new Papyrus system and create new documents. This process was essential to get the whole department up-to-speed with the new-look system, ”adds Rajula Singh.

The Benefits

“Implementing a whole family of new look literature across such a broad range of products wouldn’t have been possible in the agreed timescale without the resources from Docuplus working as a team with Churchill, ”comments Rajula Singh.

By outsourcing an ambitious IT project with tight time scales, Churchill’s IT and Print Department can focus on its core practices and not drain away vital in-house resourcing. “We see this very much as a long-term relationship using Docuplus' resources. They are very much part of the team and long-term strategy of how we produce client-facing literature, ”adds Rajula. It meant that Churchill’s Print team members could be tutored and gain the expertise from Docuplus' resources to manage Papyrus' New Look literature on a day-to-day basis.

By utilising Docuplus’ skilled resources, Churchill benefits from a whole range of new-look, integrated documents. Customers are now presented with relevant information in an easy-to-follow format. For Churchill, better looking literature presents better marketing opportunities to close sales and to cross-sell Car and Home products. It means that any future changes or upgrades are much simpler, quicker and easier to implement for the permanent development team.

Commenting on the Churchill implementation, Docuplus Director, Colin Richards comments: “Docuplus has worked with many leading organisations that all face the same challenge – how to maximise the effectiveness of their customer facing documents whilst delivering ever increasing marketing demands. We provide high level consultancy services that enable these companies to leverage their personalised, data-driven documents fully.”

The Future

As Churchill expands its family of literature, Docuplus provides ongoing consultancy and technical support. Currently, the insurer is developing a corporate partnership suite of documents for its key partners – such as Prudential, Lloyds TSB, Alliance and Leicester – that meets their particular brand requirements. These new look documents provide the basis for more flexible sales and marketing documents for new and existing partnerships.