Leading insurer for religious organizations Church Mutual® built two self-service portals with the help of Liferay Global Services to support their producers and insured customers.
Church Mutual® Insurance Company, S.I., Equips 195 Producer Agencies with a Self-Service Solution
120+
Years of Experience
195
Producer agencies Served
10,000+
Expected Insured Users
Outline
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Key Takeaways
- Prevent user frustration with self-service options.
For both self-service portals, Church Mutual created functionality to make sure users could access necessary resources easily and quickly. - Deliver great solutions on time and within budget with the right development partner.
With budget and deadlines in mind, Church Mutual partnered with Liferay Global Services to create a modern, future-proof solution. - Save time by implementing automation where you can.
Church Mutual was able to automate many of their complex internal processes so their team could refocus their attention on other valuable activities.
Background
Based in Wisconsin and founded in 1897, Church Mutual Insurance Company, S.I. (a stock insurer) is a leading commercial property and liability insurer of religious institutions, with a diverse customer base that includes nonprofit human service organizations, schools, educational facilities, camps, conference centers, and senior living facilities. Church Mutual puts their customers at the forefront of their mission to protect those who serve and inspire others, bringing specialized insurance expertise and innovative solutions to purpose-driven organizations of all kinds.
Church Mutual is a stock insurer whose policyholders are members of the parent mutual holding company formed on 1/1/20. S.I. = a stock insurer.
Liferay Solutions
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Challenges
As part of their customer-first commitment, Church Mutual wanted to provide a self-service solution that would allow their third-party producers, or insurance agents, and insured customers to find what they were looking for on their own, with less hassle.
The lack of an existing self-service solution presented these challenges:
The lack of an existing self-service solution presented these challenges:
- Customers and producers had no easy way of accessing account information. Without a consolidated location to log in, customers couldn’t quickly find important details about their account including policy type, term, and other important data.
- Requests had to go through customer service. Church Mutual received frequent requests for documents like certificates of insurance, evidence of property forms, and loss run reports.
- Manual processes slowed down the pace of productivity. Since increasing efficiency was paramount, internal processes that lacked automation had to be updated.
The [Liferay Global Services team] hit it spot-on for what we were looking for [in the solution], the simplicity, the modern look-and-feel, [and] ease-of-navigation.
Implementation
After a lengthy and thorough selection process involving research with Gartner and other technology and industry specialists, “[Liferay] was selected as a foundational piece of digital infrastructure,” explains Michael Heinrich, Church Mutual’s Senior Digital Marketing Consultant.
Church Mutual partnered with Liferay Global Services to deliver their new self-service solutions, one portal for producers and one for insured customers. The Liferay Global Services team performed a thorough Discovery that ensured alignment between their team and Church Mutual's Business and IT teams on the near-term requirements and their long-term vision.
Liferay Global Service's subject matter experts used a combination of Liferay DXP's out-of-the-box features and customizations, ultimately delivering an on-time, on-budget solution. Working with Liferay for the product and implementation services meant that Church Mutual had a seamless transition from sales to implementation to post-implementation support.
Heinrich says Church Mutual was “very happy with the design process,” accepting the first round of design iterations for their solution that the Liferay Global Services team sent over.
The solution uses automation tools to improve efficiency as well as a customized permissioning system to account for the unique kinds of access producers and insured customers need.
Church Mutual partnered with Liferay Global Services to deliver their new self-service solutions, one portal for producers and one for insured customers. The Liferay Global Services team performed a thorough Discovery that ensured alignment between their team and Church Mutual's Business and IT teams on the near-term requirements and their long-term vision.
Liferay Global Service's subject matter experts used a combination of Liferay DXP's out-of-the-box features and customizations, ultimately delivering an on-time, on-budget solution. Working with Liferay for the product and implementation services meant that Church Mutual had a seamless transition from sales to implementation to post-implementation support.
Heinrich says Church Mutual was “very happy with the design process,” accepting the first round of design iterations for their solution that the Liferay Global Services team sent over.
The solution uses automation tools to improve efficiency as well as a customized permissioning system to account for the unique kinds of access producers and insured customers need.
Results
Church Mutual has continued to receive support from the Liferay team post-launch. “We’ve had a very consistent and solid experience with Liferay,” says Heinrich. The producer self-service portal is live to the majority of the 195 producer agencies, and the insured portal is now beginning a beta rollout to insured customers, with an expected user total of more than 10,000.
In the short time since launch, Church Mutual has seen the following outcomes:
In the short time since launch, Church Mutual has seen the following outcomes:
- Rapid producer agency adoption. There are already 125 third-party producer users using this platform as the single place they can go to in order to find critical information.
- Users and customer service save time with self-service. Navigating the solution has been a breeze for insured users, with many excited not to have to call customer service to get to their own documents.
- The solution is modern, convenient, and accessible. Because Church Mutual implemented responsive design for both portals, producers and insured users can access their accounts from any device.
As both the producer portal and the insured portal continue to find success, Church Mutual plans to use data from Liferay Analytics Cloud to understand customer needs better. Church Mutual anticipates the implementation will not only dramatically reduce calls to customer service, but also cut costs and increase sales.
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