Rob Howell, Staff Claim Analyst for Allstate, uses PenPro at their Tech-Cor bodyshop to create a damage estimate quickly and easily. By simply touching the pen to the damaged part on the ‘smart’ PenPro illustration, Allstate’s field appraisers create even the most complex repair estimates on the industry’s first truly mobile system. PenPro helps to keep them out in the field with their Allstate policyholders and lets them complete their daily assignments without returning to the office.

Claims Services

Our Claims Services Group (CSG) serves auto insurance companies, claims adjusters, repair shops, and salvage yards in networked and standalone mode, with auto repair estimating and parts availability services. In addition, CSG provides auto insurance companies with fee and utilization audits of bodily injury claims. Those areas experienced strong growth last year.

Estimating Services uses complex databases to determine the proper costs and methodologies for repairing and replacing damaged vehicles.

In FY ’95, CSG introduced PenPro, a pen-based, mobile, auto estimating system, with much acclaimed state-of-the-art technology and graphical user interfaces. PenPro recently won a bronze award in national design competition and has been selected by three top auto insurers as their claims workstation platform.

With strong client demand for our Shoplink and Photolink products, estimating revenue almost doubled in the bodyshop repair market.

Parts Services also experienced dynamic growth across all products. Salvage yard revenue increased 37% through internal growth of Hollander Yard Management and EDEN communications systems. In addition, CSG completed the acquisition of AutoInfo’s salvage-related products and services at the end of the third quarter. This adds important satellite and voice-based trading networks for the location and pricing of recycled parts and also adds 1,000 clients to the CSG installed base of salvage yards.

Photolink is used to capture digital images of auto damage, attach them to a computerized repair estimate, and instantly transmit or receive this electronic claims folder between insurance claims offices and autobody repairers. When Jean Weide, Appraisal Office Clerk, USAA, receives images from a shop, she can get the estimate verified and approved on the spot so that the repair work can start immediately.

CSG now has almost 3,000 automated salvage yard endpoints for inventory management, and about 3,700 voice or data endpoints for the trading networks that support the recycled parts industry. This installed base and its planned enhancements should provide significant growth opportunities for the recycled parts industry and for CSG as the largest electronic supplier of recycled parts information.

Last year was the first full year of operations for our National BioSystems acquisition, now known as Integrated Medical Solutions. Its core product, Provider Bill Audit (PBA), doubled in revenue last year.

PBA is an expert system that performs fee and utilization audits of medical provider bills involving soft tissue injury. This service to auto insurers provides a consistent methodology for assessing the proper diagnoses and treatment of automobile-related injuries. The clinical databases and outcomes measuring techniques can also become a strategic platform for serving additional health care delivery channels such as PPOs and Worker’s Compensation.

PBA is now in pilot installations at seven large insurance carriers and has continued to expand penetration in its existing client base, which represents about 20% of all auto insurance policies in the U.S. At the end of last year, USAA (the nation’s 5th largest private automobile insurer) announced that PBA would be implemented nationally to provide consistent review and assessment of outpatient medical claims.