AGLA

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US insurer provides field agents with Fujitsu pen tablet PCs

It's been said that good things come in small packages. That certainly turned out to be true when American General Life automated operations for thousands of its agents across dozens of US states.

Nashville-based AGLA has over 200 offices and nearly 5,000 agents, and writes life insurance policies for more than four million customers across the country. In 1994, the company recognized the need to replace the paper-based, manual transfer of account data from field agents to headquarters. The existing system was slow, redundant, and seriously prone to error. "What we were looking for," said Ed McClure, AGLA's Senior Vice President of Information Technology, "was a mobile, electronic office."

AGLA determined that handheld computers, rather than laptops, were the answer. "We wanted something as close as possible to what the agents were used to," said McClure. "We were working with career insurance people, some with as much as 30 years experience. So, instead of forcing them to do a lot of keyboard input, we decided that the best approach would be pen entry."

AGLA met with half a dozen handheld computer vendors and set up an evaluation grid addressing factors such as cost, maintenance, and ease of use. After rigorous examination, Fujitsu's 325 Point pen tablet PC was selected. These have been upgraded twice since then, and the company is now using Fujitsu's Stylistic pen tablet PC, but the elegance of the solution remains the same.

The handheld Stylistic pen tablet PC is the heart of a complete field kit designed by AGLA in cooperation with its agents. Along with the handheld pen tablet PC, the kit includes a fitted case to hold the pen tablet PC, a portable printer, and materials agents use in their day-to-day activities.

In the field, the system supports a full range of agent activities including collections, new business, customer service, and financial transactions. When doing collections, agents from a route list loaded onto the Stylistic pen tablet PC. As agents collect premiums from customers on the list, data is entered into the pen tablet PC with a stylus. The system printer generates detailed receipts for policyholders and stores the transactions on the pen tablet PC. At the end of the day, the agent runs a close-out sequence that compiles and pre-processes the day's accumulated data. That night, each of the 5,000 pen tablet PCs in the field automatically dials into the central office mainframe and uploads its accumulated data.

New business is entered in much the same way, directly to the Stylistic pen tablet PC. The pen tablet PC contains all the necessary forms, including those specific to states in which the agent is licensed. The completed forms can be reviewed with the customer from the pen tablet PC. Once they are completed, the customer can sign directly on the screen. Data and signatures are stored in separate locked files and are linked by a third file to prevent tampering.

As information from pen tablet PCs across the country reaches the mainframe, a 'work distribution tool' routes the various transactions to the appropriate departmental systems. Most of the necessary review and editing of information is done automatically by the system itself. Transactions that either don't pass the review or contain information that the system cannot interpret are passed to human reviewers or underwriters.

Automation has made a significant difference to AGLA's operations. "It eliminates duplicate data entry and maths errors," said McClure. "Forms are filled out correctly, and even those applications that have to be looked at by underwriters have already been checked and edited by the system, so the underwriter doesn't have to review the whole thing. The system tells them what's wrong."

In addition to the obvious impact at headquarters, the system eliminates a lot of administrative chores for field agents. McClure cites the example of daily accounting for cash collections. "We do it all for them on the pen tablet PC," he says. "Now they have more time for other things, including selling." Software updates are distributed automatically through the mainframe during nightly communication with the field systems. Because of the number of individual Fujitsu pen tablet PCs in the field, a typical distribution takes place over three nights, managed entirely by the mainframe.

"When we started this, it was - and still is, for the most part - unique," said Charlie Turri, AGLA's Associate Director Information Technology. "We hit lots of technical and operational roadblocks. Each time we came back, the people at Fujitsu were extremely helpful. I give those guys ringing endorsements."

The information sharing has been a two-way street. Development of the Stylistic pen tablet PCs currently in use incorporated extensive input from AGLA staff. And AGLA isn't the only place the system has been noticed. In 1997, the project was recognised with a Smithsonian Technology Award.