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UMMARYPolicy Processing
At the June 2004 Citizens Board of Governors meeting, Staff committed to achieving year end policy processing service goals by September 1, 2004. Staff is pleased to report that the goal has been exceeded. As of August 27th, the processing service levels were as follows:
Processing Activity by Account Days to Process December 2004 Service Goal
HRA Applications 5 days1 10 days
HRA Endorsements 8 days1 10 days
PLA Applications 10 days1 10 days
PLA Endorsements 8 days1 10 days
1
During the 2nd and 3rd weeks of August, processing turn-around times on all HRA policies and PLA applications and endorsements from the 19 counties affected by Charley was one day or less.
The numbers above reflect up to a 15 day improvement in the turn-around time in processing applications since the July report to the Board. The hiring of ten additional staff and initial benefits gained from changes to workflow have made a positive impact. However, as a result of resources recently being diverted to Catastrophe Operations, internal processing capacity has been reduced by up to 25 percent. Fifteen underwriting employees have been reassigned to work in a special Policy Verification Unit (PVU) and provide support to the LYNX call center in verifying policy coverage and taking first notice of loss. In addition, six people were deployed to the field CAT location.
Hurricane Charley Processing Capacity Impact
0 5000 10000 15000 20000 25000 30000 35000 40000 6/28/04 7/5/04 7/12/04 7/19/04 7/26/04 8/2/04 8/9/04 8/16/04 8/23/04 8/30/04 9/6/04 9/13/04 9/20/04 Processing Output Required to Meet Service Levels Processing Units Completed
Processing Units Expected to be completed with reduced internal staff.
Processing Output Required to meet service levels.
Figure 1: The chart above shows the difference in processing output in the weeks before and after
Staff is comfortable that favorable policy service levels can be maintained despite reduced internal staff through the new working relationship with MacNeill. Arrangements have been made for the additional workload to be seamlessly transferred to MacNeill for completion. MacNeill has committed to processing any additional work within contracted service levels.
The transfer of work between Citizens and MacNeill has been tested and was a significant contributor to the achievement of the current service levels. Full implementation of the new processing structure with MacNeill is schedule to be completed by October 1, 2004. In addition to their processing responsibilities, MacNeill will continue to handle phone calls on certain policies until the call volume in the Citizens Call Center is stabilized.
New Policy Inflow
The improved processing times were accomplished even though new application inflow remained high. Through August 27th, Citizens received a total of 32,201 new applications (26,389 PLA & 5,652 HRA applications). APPLICATION PROCESSING 34,790 34,536 31,741 43,018 37,456 33,399 32,201 29,769 25,034 30,479 31,546 27,351 24,537 31,786 24,889 28,726 16,047 27,006 25,276 25,931 33,710 27,014 20,644 31,990 46,534 31,110 0 5000 10000 15000 20000 25000 30000 35000 40000 45000 50000
Aug-03 Sep-03 Oct-03 Nov-03 Dec-03 Jan-04 Feb-04 Mar-04 Apr-04 May-04 Jun-04 Jul-04 Aug-04
Volume
Applications Received Applications Processed
Call Center Performance
The Citizens Call Center has had three weeks of record call volume. In the week following Charley, Citizens received over 21,000 phone calls. Most of the activity was driven by agents and policyholders calling to confirm coverage and verify policy status. However, the HRA Rate Increase, Implementation of the Florida Building Code, Changes to Wind forms and the Office of Insurance Regulation Consent Order extending payment periods for victims of Hurricane Charley were all contributing factors to the call volume. On average, Citizens is receiving over 7,000 more calls per week than the same time last year.
Average Weekly Volume of Calls Received
13,786 14,566 18,150 13,926 17,206 16,060 21,250 19,691 11,055 0 1,000 2,000 3,000 4,000 5,000 6,000 7,000 8,000 9,000 10,000 11,000 12,000 13,000 14,000 15,000 16,000 17,000 18,000 19,000 20,000 21,000 22,000 23,000 August '2003
Feb Mar May July
Aug 2nd - 6th Aug 8th - 13th Aug 16th - 20th Aug 23rd - 27th
Calls Received
Figure 3: This chart shows the week -by-week call volume in August as compared to the average weekly
volume in prior months. A comparison is also made to the same time last year. The trend line clearly shows the steady rise in volume during that period.
August Results
With the excessive call volume during the month of August, service levels fell further below the year end goals.
Figure 4: Call statistics above include activity through August 27th. The statistics also include calls made to the Policy Verification Unit.
CALL CENTER PERFORMANCE Through August 27, 2004 54,708 44,123 43,064 51,912 57,653 55,103 58,119 71,400 70,068 76,297 44,222 63,900 55,651 36% 27% 21% 19% 21% 34% 4:18 30% 4:19 14% 2:13 21% 3:08 16% 2:28 28% 5:11 32% 4:28 28% 4:39 0 10000 20000 30000 40000 50000 60000 70000 80000 90000
AUG '03 SEP '03 OCT '03 NOV '03 DEC '03 JAN '04 FEB '04 MAR '04 APR '04 MAY '04 JUN '04 JUL '04 Aug '04
MONTH CALL VOLUME 0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60%
Call Volume Abandonment
Figure 5: The graph above represents the trend for calls received and the percentage of callers that
abandoned (“hung-up”) in the call center over the last 12 months. The blue line also indicates the average time callers had to wait before their call was answered. The performance trend deteriorated in August due to the significant increase in call volume. Also, call handle times increased by over one minute, from 3:35 minutes to 4:36 minutes.
What is Staff doing to prevent further deterioration of Call Center performance?
Operations Staff continues to focus their efforts on reducing the number of calls being made to the call center and improving call center service levels. Prior to Charley, Staff initiated the following key initiatives:
Additional Staff
There are currently 72 full time employees in the Citizens Call Center. Of those FTE’s, 27 have been added within the last 30 days. The new staff is in the final stages of training and should be on the phones full time by the second week of September. Already, we have seen up to a 30% improvement in average hold times when the new staff is on the phones.
Phone System Upgrade
Upgrade to eWind System
Within the next 30 days, we expect to launch a new web based application for Agents to inquire on HRA policies. Currently, Agents have no means to obtain policy or payment information without having to call our call center.
There are other longer-term projects under development that will focus on improving agent communication and training so that agents will have better access to information.