Miniter Group on March 13 formally unveiled to the automobile financing industry its Internet method of claims management that, according to CEO Arthur Donley, can reduce costs to fractions of traditional methods.

Miniter's product, the Collaborative Risk Management E-Commerce Solution, was unveiled at the CBA Automobile Finance Conference in Orlando, Fla.

Combining advanced communications technologies with newly developed forecasting tools and paperless, online claims processing, Miniter Group's E-Commerce Solution is already setting new standards for claims cycle times and administrative cost reductions, according to Donley.

Some clients already using Miniter's E-Commerce Solution are reporting the time from claims submission to payment has dropped from an average of two months to about 10 days.

The speed of the Internet eliminates many of the high costs of filing paper claims by mail and tracking them by telephone, requiring far less data entry and no letters or phone calls.

Banks, after sending their claims, monitor and communicate with Miniter's claim department online, right up to the moment when claims are paid electronically into the bank's accounts.

Miniter's underwriters, led by CEO Donley and President Julianne Donley, spent the last two years developing the new tracking and projection tools.

The tools allow, among other things, bank managers who formerly used data only for underwriting to analyze the data through Miniter's Loss Trending Pattern, which can forecast portfolio losses up to 18 months in advance. Miniter's E-Commerce Solution also allows the monitoring of inception-to-date loss ratios.

The tools are available to Miniter clients instantly at the ultra-secure, clients-only section of www.miniter.com.

"Studies have shown the insurance industry as a whole has fallen behind in the strategic use of technology," said Jim Gilpin, vice president of operations at Miniter. "We took that to heart, looked around and realized our paper-based claims and policy servicing departments were becoming steadily less efficient."

As recently as February 2001, a new study by Conning and Co., an asset manager specializing in insurance company investments, warned that insurers are still not properly focusing on the capabilities of the Internet.

Gilpin no longer finds the think tank's predictions frightening. "We have, in fact, done what they said companies were not doing; we have integrated via the Internet all our marketing, operations and communications functions," Gilpin said.

About Miniter Group

Miniter is a provider of customized specialty insurance products for the financial community that has been in operation since 1925.

Its chief services are underwriting, delivered by multiple insurance carriers; claims processing, featuring the firm's e-commerce paperless processing; and portfolio analysis via the firm's Collaborative Risk Management E-Commerce Solution, which offers a real-time collaborative process between clients and their insurance programs.

Miniter Group is based in Norwell, Mass. For more information, call 1-800-MINITER or visit www.miniter.com.