Implementation of the Electronic Archiving project is elemental for our company to achieve full electronic document flow. For the back office of a life insurance and pension fund it is a necessary condition for effective and secure data processing.

Vladan Elšík, Director, Pension Insurance Department in Aegon Penzijní společnost.

About company

AEGON is one of the world’s largest life and pension insurance providers. It is also a popular provider of investment products. 30,000 employees serve more than 40 million customers in more than 20 countries in Europe, America and Asia.

Key markets today represent the traditional countries like the United States, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom, the largest growth, however, AEGON has experienced in the region of Central and Eastern Europe.

The company’s roots date back to 1759, when the oldest company from the group was founded. AEGON brand creation in 1983 started a new phase, which is characterized by dynamic development and modern approach to entrepreneurship.

Situation

Based on successful development and expanding portfolio of products and services offered by Aegon Insurance, the company’s new challenge was to comprehensively manage all client documents. Requirement to create such a system yet emerged from department of contract management and clearly defined need to minimize paperwork, as a critical factor for increasing efficiency of the whole company.

Following this definition, a system concept was developed which included the requirements:

  • secure archiving and management of records of electronic documents,
  • the management of physical and electronic archives,
  • a user-friendly interface,
  • fast retrieval and easy access to customer documentation.

Because Aegon also uses services of external partners, the new system had to ensure reliable and secure access to the archive for the partners as well.

The ultimate goal then was quicker processing of customer documents, settlement of requests, implementation of related changes, and thus significant improvement of customer satisfaction.

Implemented solution

The solution that IXTENT implemented for Aegon Insurance consists of two basic parts: system for digitizing and data capture Kofax Ascent Capture; and system for management, workflow and archiving of documents OpenText. 

Solution scheme of DMS for client documentation

Conversion of documents into digital form can be divided into several stages. The first stage consists of physical document preparation, i.e. removing clamps, staples, etc. The following stage is paper document conversion to electronic image using a professional high capacity scanner with built-in automatic functionality VRS for delivery of high quality scanned images.

VRS (Virtual ReScan) is a software tool for significant quality improvement of digitized form. This application works completely independently on background of scanning process and provides the best quality automatically.

Manual intervention is only required in exceptional cases of extremely complex tasks and users are automatically notified of the need for intervention. Scanning with VRS eliminates repetitive scanning, setting of different quality profiles in client scanning software, unnecessary storing of poor quality images, etc.

Using VRS is essential prerequisite for making full use of OCR/ICR technology, thanks to eliminating the number of unrecognizable data by up to 60%.

Process scheme of document conversion to digital form

The stage is the text recognition process when application automatically analyzes structure and content of the scanned document by using the key functionality of OCR/ICR/OMR (Optical/ Intelligent Character/Mark Recognition). In this part of the process the document is classified by attributes according to which it can be clearly identified, and then its content is captured. After converting the document into digital form validation and verification follows and leads to verifying accuracy and quality control of extracted data. Last step is then export of the extracted data to database and release of defined workflows.

Document management, workflow and archiving itself is provided by system Open Text Livelink ECM Content Lifecycle Management. It provides a secure environment with integrated services for knowledge management and automated workflows and forms.

Through additional services for records management and collaboration Livelink ECM creates reliable basis for defining, monitoring and compliance with corporate procedures, gathering information necessary for risk assessment and for monitoring of internal management system efficiency.

It reduces time needed to manage documents and related processes by allowing automatic versioning and tracking of changes within documents, attributes, document relationships, workflow maps, and keeping history of changes. Users can search and lock or unlock documents and other objects. They can also view complete history or audit of objects including records of how, why and by whom specific changes were made.

Ergonomics user interface of Livelink ECM distinguishes between personal user workspace, central working environment of the organization and also a virtual working group environment such as project teams workspaces. Users are primarily offered most frequently used functions. Other functions are then available via adjustable contextual menu. Offering of components and functions is adapted to needs of the system configuration according to the area in which the user is located, elementary layout is however kept constant.

Livelink ECM work interface

Livelink ECM removes all the effort connected with business information sharing. Model of authorizations with nine levels implemented within Livelink ECM ensures that only users with relevant permit can access various company information. Secured storage with web access means that users anywhere in the world can have access at any time to the information stored in such a storage facility using any standard web browser. Thanks to its web interface and open architecture, Livelink ECM is easy to deploy while its maintenance is not costly. This reduces overall operating costs.

Summary

AEGON Pojišťovna a.s. selected the correct method for deployment of their DMS system. After the initial implementation of the main process of establishing a new life insurance policy, further processes and documents were and are being gradually added to the system step by step.

This approach quickly demonstrates the practical output from deployment of the system, and allows verification of the right choice of software platforms and implementation partner and thus can continue successfully with further development of the overall solution.