J.W. Terrill Success Story

Insurance agency, J.W. Terrill, executes move to new location, leaving physical paper files and cabinets behind

Moving to a new location is often a difficult transition, but what if it could be done without moving filing cabinets or physical documents of any kind? The idea of relocating an entire office, yet leaving behind paper is not realistic for most businesses. Nevertheless, for PaperWise customer, J.W. Terrill, this scenario was reality.

Founded in 1962, J.W. Terrill Insurance, Benefits, and Risk Management offers a full array of services from TPA, 401K Management, and Employee Benefits to Personal and Commercial Insurance. With 150 employees and 10 years at the same location in Chesterfield, Missouri, a large accrual of physical documents accumulated. The paper driven environment, as with most brokerage offices, had employees creating thick files as a means of tracking client information. In order to accommodate all of the documents, special workflows were created for tracking the position of a file. However, regardless of methods for logging locations, chasing paper was inevitable.

When J.W. Terrill made the decision to re-locate to a new building in 2007, they did not want to move paper. Their need to invest in an insurance document management system led to the creation of a team of representatives from every major area of the agency, the team became known as "The EVOLVE Team." "Every decision made by the team satisfied the needs of the different divisions within the organization. It had to be an office wide solution," explained Training Coordinator, Kathie Ryan. After narrowing down a list of 10 vendors, the team was unanimous in recommending PaperWise. They felt they would have a better partnership with PaperWise, throughout the process.

Any kind of software implementation is bound to cause some disruption. However, the agency was determined to keep disturbances to a minimum. Due to their size and high saturation of paper documents, J.W. Terrill deemed it best to implement in phases. Commercial lines alone had 1.8 million documents to back scan into the system. In order to avoid impacting the entire operation at one time, a phased approach was implemented, which gave J.W. Terrill the opportunity to learn from previous phases. As each phase was completed, the next was prepared which helped to avoid hiccups from the previous install. "From the Commercial Lines standpoint, going in phases was extremely effective. Programming occurred simultaneously to address any issues that arose, making the entire process more efficient," described Commercial Lines Client Services Manager, Gary Moro.

Since associates had different expectations of the PaperWise system, it was beneficial to have onsite PaperWise trainers accessible to answer questions. "I felt it was effective in that the trainers could actually talk our talk," said Ryan. According to Moro and Ryan, employees were given a training survey a month after the install. It was clear most were quickly catching on to the new way of doing things. J.W. Terrill began the back scanning of documents immediately, to ensure it's associates had one electronic environment in which to work. "The only way for people to adapt is by building it into their daily processes. We knew that somehow we had to make that happen," explained Ryan. Back scanning was a necessity that J.W. Terrill was determined would come to fruition.

In initial planning phase, it was suggested to outsource the back scanning. Upon further review and investigation, it was determine they could do it in-house cheaper, fast, and more efficiently, while keeping the documents onsite. This entailed the rental of two scanners and the hiring of four temporary employees. Scanning took place in a central area, and at any given time, one associate's files were being scanned as another's were being prepped. In total, it took three months to convert all paper files to electronic. Despite the challenge of it all, Ryan believes back scanning was advantageous. "If someone were to say, 'would you do that over again,' I would reply absolutely, yes."

Today J.W. Terrill is completely paperless and operating more efficiently than ever. PaperWise's thorough integration with the agency management system, Sagitta, has simplified a number of daily activities for the associates at J.W. Terrill. Mail is scanned upon receipt, indexed to the client, and routed to the appropriate person within the agency. The days of tracking down a paper file are over. Through the quick search process in PaperWise, associates have files at their fingertips to better service their customers. Ryan said she has overheard CSR's say, "We went paperless a couple months ago." In most cases she said this answer is to say, "No, I don't need to call you back; one second and I can pull it up right now."

"Workflow teams are charged with looking at current workflow to adapted them to our new electronic environment, as well as examine them to see how we can eliminate touch points, to create a 'Once and Done' process where applicable." Ryan explained, "Now is the time to examine our methods to identify a better approach to doing things. We were locked to paper and because of paper we had to do things a certain way. PaperWise has unlocked our need for paper." As for the future and this partnership, it looks promising. Moro and Ryan look forward to discovering new ways J.W. Terrill can further gain efficiency from their PaperWise partner and what advancements are on the horizon for the PaperWise software.