Largest Independent Premium Finance Company in U.S. Turns to Document Management Technology

To Manage 70,000 Documents per Month

May 2, 2005 – Branford, Conn. -- First Insurance Funding Corporation (FIFC) is the largest independent premium finance company in the country and one of the top five companies in the insurance industry overall. Based in Northbrook, Illinois, the Company provides loans to finance insurance premiums for businesses.

In the insurance premium financing business, companies need insurance such as workers compensation, which can be very costly for small businesses. To help save costs, businesses finance the policy for the year with FIFC.

In 1996, FIFC implemented Westbrook’s File Magic document management solution and then moved to Fortis a few years later. The Company’s increasing volume of documents – which have reached 70,000 documents per month – and need for a more robust solution prompted the transition to Fortis. Typical documents include loan documents, premium finance agreements and notice of loan acceptance documents. In addition, since FIFC is owned by a bank, they must retain documents for seven years to comply with banking industry regulations and conform to individual document retention laws in all 50 states. They need documents instantly accessible since an insurance industry examiner can stop by and request documents at anytime.

“Insurance premium financing is a very form- and statement-driven type of business. We have developed a system where forms are prepped and built in Planet Press specifically for use in Fortis which has been a tremendous value. With our system running so effectively, scanning approximately 70,000 documents a month into Fortis has been smooth and seamless,” said Bob Lindeman, Executive Vice President and Chief Technology Officer for First Insurance Funding Corporation.

Lindeman continued, “File Magic’s exceptional reputation, industry word-of-mouth, product quality and price balance is what sold us on Westbrook Technologies and Fortis has impressed us equally.”

He explained that FIFC had an “absolutely perfect” experience working with Westbrook Partner Documetrics on the transition from File Magic to Fortis. Now they have approximately 25 Fortis users which encompass the asset management team at the Northbrook home office.

Cost savings has been remarkable for FIFC. Lindeman estimates that the Planet Press interface saved them the cost of one full-time employee and Fortis has saved them two to three full-time employees. “We would’ve had to hire three to four employees if we didn’t have the powerful Planet Press/Fortis combination,” he added.

Fortis will be expanding to serve the document management needs of FIFC’s credit committee members in the future so documents can be easily accessed and organized when they need to be pulled as background for credit decisions