DocuWare > Case Studies > National Crop Insurance Services

National Crop Insurance Services

Customer Company Size

SME

Region

America

Country

United States

Product

DocuWare

Tech Stack

DocuWare
Peachtree

Implementation Scale

Enterprise-wide Deployment

Impact Metrics

Productivity Improvements
Digital Expertise

Technology Category

Functional Applications - Enterprise Resource Planning Systems (ERP)

Applicable Industries

Agriculture

Applicable Functions

Business Operation

Services

System Integration

About The Customer

National Crop Insurance Services is an international non-profit organization representing the 18 crop insurance companies that sell Federal crop insurance, as well as others that write private crop-hail insurance only. NCIS members write crop-hail insurance, the federally-supported risk management program, and privately developed crop insurance products, totaling more than $11 billion in premiums, with an insured value of nearly $150 billion in 2014. On behalf of its members, NCIS collects and manages data and information, conducts research and analysis, serves as a licensed statistical agency for the crop-hail program, and conducts extensive educational activities on claims adjustment, ethics, policies, and procedures. NCIS members range in size from one-state companies to national writers, as well as international company members. The companies service all farmers participating in the federal program, including limited-resource and socially disadvantaged farmers. In partnership with the government, these private companies deliver the safety net that equitably provides effective risk management tools to America’s farmers and ranchers.

The Challenge

National Crop Insurance Services (NCIS) is an international non-profit organization representing 18 crop insurance companies. They manage data and information, conduct research and analysis, and conduct educational activities on claims adjustment, ethics, policies, and procedures. With a staff of 45, NCIS needed a secure single location where it could store and manage their corporate documents such as internal meeting minutes, information from the federal government, and bulletins it distributes to its members. They also needed a better way to track the different versions of notes as they worked towards making a decision and they needed to be able to easily research when and why a decision was made. The organization also needed to update its document retention policy regarding email in order to free up room on its servers. In general, they saw the benefit of making their processes as paperless as possible.

The Solution

NCIS spoke with their trusted IT vendor about their needs, who recommended and installed DocuWare. The software was initially rolled out to the HR department and all employees were trained on how to use the software to manage time cards, time sheets, and time off requests. This was done to help the entire organization feel comfortable with DocuWare before it was rolled out to other areas with more complex work processes. Next, DocuWare was rolled out to manage meeting minutes with long term retention schedules. Today, meeting minutes are stored in DocuWare making them available from a laptop, phone, or tablet, eliminating emailing out the notes. Version control is used to help the staff keep track of high priority decisions and to document the evolution of policy decisions. NCIS decided to back scan Board of Director minutes to 1997. In the past, five to six times a year NCIS would mail a CD to its members containing a federal report for every county and crop in the nation. Today, member agents can login to DocuWare through NCIS’ website and download or access the information that is pertinent to them for their clients. Agents use this information to determine the premium and coverage amount for crops, so knowing that they are always looking at the most current information is critical.

Operational Impact

The more NCIS used DocuWare the more uses they found for the software. Their DocuWare system has expanded from purely storing HR and meeting minutes to a seamless integration with Peachtree, their accounting system. NCIS can access their AP invoices and other accounting records that are stored in a DocuWare file cabinet directly from the accounting software. When an invoice is processed in the accounting software, the index fields for the image of the actual invoice are updated automatically, keeping both software solutions working together.
Using version control for meeting minutes lets NCIS manage their meeting minutes with transparency. Version 1 is the working draft, version 2 means the minutes have been approved by the Legal Department, version 3 minutes contain revisions. At the next meeting, the version 3 minutes are opened, formally approved and stored as version 4. By using version numbers, the staff can see what changes were made and where in the process they were made for complete transparency.
The organization was also able to update their document retention policy. Important email can be archived in DocuWare in its native format and easily searched. All other messages are stored for two years then deleted. By implementing this policy, the organization was able to free up needed room on its email server and guarantee that vital content was not lost.

Quantitative Benefit

NCIS members write crop-hail insurance, the federally-supported risk management program, and privately developed crop insurance products, totaling more than $11 billion in premiums, with an insured value of nearly $150 billion in 2014.
In 2014, 1.2 million policies were sold protecting more than 120 different crops covering 294 million acres, an area larger than Texas and California combined, with an insured value of $110 billion.