Carla Blau and her team process over 270 requests for file access for clients throughout Germany every day. For over 20 years, the Berlin-based law firm Blau has been assisting clients with file access in administrative offense and criminal proceedings. They request investigative files from the public prosecutor’s office or the court, prepare excerpts, and send them to the client. The firm has developed particularly efficient processes for the insurance industry, certified according to ISO 9001:2015. These processes also utilize the Insurance Gateway, a component of the X4 BPMS digitalization platform, which accelerates workflows and saves time and effort for both their own staff and their clients’ employees.
Accessing files – from the client’s initial engagement to the final billing – involves regular phone calls to inquire about the file’s location or the manual assignment and filing of email attachments such as orders and invoices. This affects both the client and the executing law firm. The result is delays, inefficient processes, and media breaks. To avoid this, the Blau law firm, in its collaboration with a major direct insurance company, uses SoftProject’s Insurance Gateway: The file access process is automated and accelerated, while simultaneously increasing client satisfaction.
A platform for all parties involved in the process simplifies access to files.
A collision on the A24 motorway between Hamburg and Berlin. The result: personal injury and property damage. The police record the accident, create a file on the incident, assign it a case number, and forward it to the responsible public prosecutor’s office for investigation. If an insurer wants to understand and assess the claim, access to the investigation file is required. While the law firm was previously commissioned via email, it is now commissioned via the Insurance Gateway, an intelligent platform that automates and manages the data exchange between connected insurers and Carla Blau. The special feature: Both the law firm and the insurance company employees can continue working as usual on their own systems and familiar interfaces and do not have to use an external third-party system.
Real-time data and information exchange accelerates processes
As soon as Carla Blau and her team accept the assignment, the insurance company’s claims adjuster immediately sees when they will request the file from the responsible authority and when the file copy will be created at the law firm. “If obtaining a file takes a little longer in a particular case, we record this in our system with a single click. Information about delays and, for example, that we sent a reminder to the public prosecutor’s office today, is then sent directly and automatically to our clients via the Insurance Gateway. This keeps the client informed at all times, and we save ourselves the trouble of sending status reports by email or phone,” says Carla Blau. This simplifies the process for both sides, saving resources, time, and money.
End-to-end digitization from order placement to invoicing avoids media breaks.
As soon as the file arrives at the law firm, the team digitizes the relevant excerpts, for example as a PDF file, and makes them available via the firm’s Akte.pro interface. The Insurance Gateway retrieves the files via the interface and sends them to the insurance company. The claims adjuster there receives a notification that they can now access and view the information – directly in the insurance company’s own system and without any media breaks. The law firm also provides the client with the invoice for the completed file review request via the Insurance Gateway. “This eliminates the effort of exchanging collected invoices by email, and all related information is automatically stored centrally in one place,” explains attorney Blau.
Sometimes files are “not locatable” because they are in circulation or being transferred between two authorities. In such cases, our experienced and meticulous staff will research the file’s current location by phone and request it. All other steps are automated between Akte.pro, Insurance Gateway, and the insurance company’s service provider portal.
Carla Blau
A single, immediately usable interface offers great potential.
“We are very pleased with the implementation of SoftProject’s Insurance Gateway,” says Peter M. Scholz, who advises the Blau law firm on digitalization issues and the onboarding of new clients, “because it ensures seamless data exchange between us and our client.” He explains that simple configuration allows them to connect numerous additional clients via the Akte.pro interface, communicate with them, and expand their client pool as needed without any development effort. Similarly, insurers can connect any number of service providers via the Insurance Gateway, thereby accelerating their processes.
Standardized data and formats ensure smooth processes.
Regardless of which interfaces need to be connected between the individual process participants, the Insurance Gateway automatically converts all data and documents into the required format. This ensures seamless data exchange without media breaks and efficient collaboration between partners. Furthermore, various services and apps can be easily integrated into the processes, allowing them to be adapted to current requirements at any time.
