Hummel Group is a premier insurance and financial services agency with a steadfast commitment to helping clients navigate risk and achieve financial security. With eight strategically located offices in Ohio and Indiana, Hummel Group has emerged as a trusted leader in the industry.
Hummel Group provides personalized insurance solutions for individuals, families, and businesses. Their services include:
• Auto
• Home
• Umbrella insurance for personal needs
• General liability
• Workers’ compensation insurance for businesses.
• Comprehensive health and life insurance options for employee benefits
• Wealth management services, and more
Hummel Group encountered several business pain points primarily revolving around data quality and reporting deficiencies. Initially, they struggled with the inadequacy of canned reporting in their AMS (Agency Management System), which lacked customization options for their specific use cases. Additionally, the absence of a reliable system for mass data cleanup and ongoing maintenance posed a significant challenge. This led to issues such as incomplete data mapping during mergers and difficulties in ensuring data accuracy across various operational aspects.
Rochelle Yoder, IT Director of Hummel Group, said, “Our major pain point was accounting. The agency’s finance and accounting teams were not able to give timely reports on new business numbers each month. They were performing countless manual lookups, generating report after report, and still ending up with inaccurate figures. This inability to promptly generate accurate reports directly impacted the finance and accounting team’s ability to track new business metrics effectively”. Furthermore, discrepancies in retention reporting, active business reporting, and departmental line-of-business assignments compounded the complexity of Hummel’s finance and accounting teams’ data management. These issues affected crucial business functions such as client communication, accurate policy tracking, and financial reporting. The reliance on manual processes for generating reports exacerbated the challenges, particularly in accounting where timely insights into new business numbers is crucial.
Addressing these pain points required a comprehensive solution capable of not only cleaning up existing data but also ensuring ongoing data integrity across multiple departments and operational levels. Yoder stated, “The partnership with Synatic was instrumental in tackling these challenges, enabling us to streamline processes, eliminate dirty data, and enhance reporting capabilities for informed decision-making.”
Synatic tackled Hummel’s challenges with a systematic approach, primarily focusing on cleaning their dirty data and improving reporting efficiency. One of the initial tasks involved rectifying discrepancies arising from a merger with an Insurance Agency, which operated on a different AMS system. Yoder explained, “We merged with Ramsberg Insurance Agency, which was utilizing Applied Epic. When using the conversion tool to bring their clients over to AMS360, from Epic, not all the fields mapped in the location we would prefer them to be mapped to.” Synatic’s expertise, particularly through its DataFix solution, enabled seamless data mapping, resolving inconsistencies, and facilitating smoother operations. This allowed Hummel to leverage their marketing and communication channels more efficiently.
What’s more, DataFix played a pivotal role in refining data integrity across various fronts. It standardized email formats, validated phone numbers, and ensured accurate representation of employees’ roles within policies. DataFix then delved a level deeper into the data accuracy by validating the policy information loaded into AMS360 by the CSR team. Synatic’s systematic approach involved periodic checks and corrections to maintain data quality.
In addition to improving data quality and reporting efficiency, Synatic assisted Hummel Group with cleaning up the company’s line of businesses (LOBs), which were each linked to specific departments. The challenge arose from the inability to restrict employees to their designated LOBs within AMS360. This resulted in confusion and inaccuracies, particularly regarding premiums and revenue allocation between personal and commercial lines. Through a uniquely designed automation, Synatic assisted Hummel Group in ensuring correct LOB assignments, thereby enhancing data accuracy and departmental efficiency.
The partnership with Synatic not only addressed immediate challenges but also offered long-term cost-saving benefits for Hummel Insurance. Unlike previous solutions that involved costly one-time scripts or manual interventions, with Synatic, Hummel not only addressed immediate data cleanup needs but also establish an ongoing system for maintaining data accuracy, resulting in significant cost savings in the long run. DataFix’s continuous data cleansing process is not just a one-time cleanup; it’s an ongoing process that will save us a lot of money in the long run,” Yoder explained. Looking ahead, Hummel Group plans to expand its collaboration with Synatic to integrate additional systems, such as Redtail for financial services. By leveraging Synatic’s capabilities to merge data from multiple departments, Hummel aims to enhance cross-selling opportunities and gain comprehensive insights into client relationships. This underscores the strategic value of the partnership in driving business growth and operational excellence through data-driven decision-making.
"My favorite aspect of collaborating with Synatic is their accessibility. We interact directly with their developers, bypassing the need for intermediaries. Unlike working through a project liaison, where communication can become convoluted, working with Synatic was straightforward," Rochelle Yoder, IT Director, Hummel Group.
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