Horizon Underwriting Managers was formed in 2012 following from the merger of two companies, dating back to 1992. Today, it is one of the leading insurance companies in South Africa's marine and shipping industry. Twenty-six employees, in Johannesburg, Durban and Cape Town, work on custom solutions for the unique kinds of risks found in the marine sector, including insurance for import/export of goods, transport within South Africa, solutions for marine liability issues, and hull policies for commercial and private boats. A modern document management system (DMS) ensures significantly faster processing times.

Insurance issues in shipping are very individual; every agreement is unique to individual needs. So it is no surprise that the time and effort required to prepare each contract is high. In the past, employees had to repeatedly rework drafts, print them out, sign them and only then send to the customer. In addition, the process was particularly time-consuming since many customers requested copies of the contract. This meant that the printed documents had to be scanned and sent to the customer by email in addition to the actual contract being stored in a fireproof archive. The double burden of managing a high volume of email on the one hand and meeting involved statutory requirements on the other proved to be untenable for the company in the long run. Plus, the workload for employees was barely keeping pace with the strong growth of the company. So their management team started to look for alternatives for best handling internal document storage. They found what they were looking for through a company that had been advising Horizon on printer and copier issues for many years. The subsequent presentation of the DocuWare solution revealed so many possibilities that the insurance specialist immediately opted for the DMS.

Country:
South Africa
Industry:
Banking / Insurance
Department:
Administration | Claims Settlement | Insurance
Deployment:
On-Premises