Panhandle Insurance is awarded 1st Place for the 2011 AIIM Carl E Nelson Best Practices Award.

Optical Image Technology client Panhandle Farmers Mutual Insurance Company Wins AIIM 2011 Carl E. Nelson Best Practice Award

State College, PA – March 23, 2011

News

• The AIIM (Association for Information and Image Management) professional members selected Panhandle Farmers Mutual Insurance Company as a winner for the 2011 Carl E. Nelson Best Practice Award in the small company category, which recognizes excellence in information management. This award followed the second nomination for Panhandle’s stellar use of ECM by the AIIM Emerging Technology Advisory Group in as many years.
• AIIM professional members determine the winner by reviewing nominations and selecting a favorite in each category. Awards were presented to both Panhandle Mutual Insurance Company and Optical Image Technology during a gala celebration coinciding with the AIIM 2011 info360 event the evening of Tuesday, March 22 at The W Washington, DC, 515 15th Street, Washington, DC.
• Panhandle Farmers Mutual Insurance takes a proactive approach to their electronic content management project – improving upon it yearly for the greatest ROI. Their implementation practices have enabled Panhandle to compete and grow, and have produced the following results:
  • Processes are 98% paperless (in terms of incoming and internal documentation)
  • Net income has doubled
  • Surplus has grown 685%
  • Investments increased 72%
  • Assets increased by 174%
  • Expense ratio decreased from 49.3% to 28.4%
  • Reinsurance costs decreased 42%
  • Net Written Premium to surplus ratio improved to .98 to 1 from 6.92 to 1
  • Policyholder surplus tripled from $709,735 to $2,111,695
• Furthermore, Panhandle’s online payments increased from 18% to 42% of all payments during the past year. In the past five months, the staff processed 41% more applications

Quotes:

We set out to simply improve the efficiency of our operation and before we knew it our direction and accomplishments had attracted the attention of many from our industry, says Art Meadow, President/CEO of Panhandle Farmers Mutual. Winning this award is a tremendous achievement for our company and staff but just as important has been the contributions we have made to all our friends from within the insurance industry. Working with Optical Image Technology to help meet our needs and desires has been a wonderful partnership.

“Panhandle has succeeded where so many companies fail by putting their fear of change aside and company success and client service improvement first. They embrace process change and the results are spectacular!” said Jim Thumma, VP of Sales and Marketing at Optical Image Technology. “Art Meadows has been a trendsetter in his industry leading many other mutual insurers to more efficient and productive environments. Panhandle earned the award by not only using the ECM technology to its fullest for optimal ROI, but also by inspiring other insurers and small companies to think outside the box.“

About Optical Image Technology, Inc. (www.docfinity.com): Optical Image Technology creates software that improves information sharing, management, decision making, and customer service. Since 1986, OIT and its DocFinity suite of imaging, document management, and BPM/workflow software have helped organizations affordably optimize performance, provide immediate, secured access to information, and assemble and manage comprehensive customer records. OIT's robust, flexible DocFinity software enables organizations to work faster, smarter, and more efficiently regardless of size.

Learn more about the award, or nominate a company for 2011.