In insurance, the job of damage appraisers is one of the most important ones: they are the field workers of an insurance company, justifying a claim and estimating the cost of repair. It takes many years of hands-on experience and training to advance and this expertise is highly valued.

Nevertheless, it is not among the most popular ones, and there is a trend of shrinking number of appraisers and their average age increasing. According to a study by the American Appraisal Institute, this workforce shrinks at the pace of 3% per year, with roughly half of them having worked for more than 20 years and many also retiring within the next ten years. In the meantime, insurance companies have to modernize their processes to make them more productive. Keeping up with competitors has to introduce technology solutions, like mobilization, in the workflow, as soon as possible. This was the case with the Aegon Group that looked for a solution to mobilize its damage appraisal process, to cut the paperwork and time it took to complete the task. But this also meant to introduce mobile technology to a workforce with an average age of 50+.

Aegon’s damage appraisal experts were used to a traditional workflow in which their job included many paper-based elements. At first, they needed to gather and print the necessary documents about a case, taking pictures or recording sound files on site, uploaded them on the computer, then sending them in the headquarters.

When looking for a solution to modernize this workflow, Aegon decided for SCOLVO and its Process product, based on the developer’s unique methodology, extensive industry expertise, and the promise of a quick delivery and customization options.

During the implementation, a new, mobile workflow was established that drastically changed the way appraisers worked and crossed many items off their to-do lists. With the application developed, Aegon experts are able to get all the information about the actual case real-time, on their tablets. The devices are also capable of recording text or multimedia data on-site, so it can be instantly sent to the headquarters that adjusts the claims by the next day.

The key to a success of such deployment is thinking long-term. For one, you need a solution like SCOLVO Process that is quickly accessible and has an extremely easy-to-use interface while still representing a high level of professionalism. For two, you need to set aside adaptation time for the users, no matter how urgent the deployment is.

It is definitely easier to be patient if the developer delivers an easy-to-use product, on time. In Aegon’s case, SCOLVO could present a customized mobile solution with a user-friendly interface that even reduced the time of training for the damage appraisers to spend on using the app on-the-job. It was also important to take the time to get to know the device: the experts got them before they had to work on them, in order to familiarize with the basics.

The combination of an outstanding product, SCOLVO Process, the industry expertise of SCOLVO in customization, and the flexibility of Aegon Group resulted in a drastically improved productivity of the damage appraisal process. With real-time, mobile data management, claim adjustment times have been reduced by 40%, while the intuitive interface simplified the workforce’s daily routine and resulted in a significant increase in their satisfaction.