Arbitration Forums’ Electronic ‘Subro Hub’ to Improve Claims Processing

The Electronic Subrogation Demand/Response Processing System (‘E-Subro HUB’) – an innovative new service developed to improve the efficiency of subrogation claims processing and reduce costs – will begin piloting this fall, according to Arbitration Forums Inc (AF).

The ‘E-Subro HUB,’ a new, web-based product administered by AF, will reportedly allow companies to streamline the process and interactively manage their subrogation claims – both demands and responses – while cutting costs dramatically.

“The current method of resolving subrogation demands is very costly to the industry both in time and expenses,” said D. Kay Smith, president and CEO of AF. “AF is providing an electronic solution to these subrogation problems.”

Smith noted that the current paper-intensive subrogation process of letters and phone calls is plagued by time consuming delays as adjusters must keep checking the status of a claim and deal with duplicate demands and incomplete/delayed responses.

Smith also said that the average cost to process a subrogation demand is conservatively about $80. Insurance companies can reduce the cost of processing subrogation demands to a small fraction per claim through the interconnectivity of the ‘E-Subro HUB’ program.

The ‘E-Subro HUB’ will reportedly sharply reduce processing time, eliminating mountains of paper files and diminishing errors.
All transactions will be electronically based, allowing for the instantaneous exchange of documents. Companies with limited electronic means will be able to utilize the Web site, www.arbfile.org, for their transactions. AF will also offer an additional service that will convert their paper into electronic documents.

AF projects the program will handle at least 100,000 transactions by the end of 2005.