Ireland: CIGNA processes insurance claims across the Atlantic

Like many insurance companies, CIGNA faced the dual challenge of increasing claim volume and decreasing ability to attract the kinds of people who were willing and able to perform claim processing work. Claims processing is critical to an insurance company because it determines how much the company pays in claims and because speedy processing is a key customer service issue. The work itself requires mastery of insurance rules and the ability to work through many variations in the details of coverage, applicability, and pricing.

To find educated and literate claims processors CIGNA looked across the Atlantic to Ireland. Except for the need to transmit claims and related information across the Atlantic, claim processing in Ireland operates similarly to claim processing in the United States. The claim adjuster reads the claim, gathers pertinent information, and enters the conclusion and supporting information into a computer system with a telecommunications link the company's mainframe computers in the United States.

CIGNA's experience with claims processing in Ireland has been positive. Compared to operations in U.S. metropolitan areas, CIGNA is able to find better educated people willing and able to do the work at lower labor rates. The response time for customers is about the same. Even the phone inquiries can be answered from Ireland by simply directing toll-free calls to Ireland. The customers don't know where the call is answered.

Questions:

1. Use the WCA framework and the five perspectives to organize your understanding of this vignette and to identify important topics that are not mentioned.

2. What issues (if any) make this case interesting from an international or intercultural viewpoint?

3. What determines whether a company can perform important business processes overseas?

Source: Roche, Edward M. Telecommunications and Business Strategy, Chicago: The Dryden Press, 1991, 356-358

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