ORLANDO, Fla.--May 23, 2005-- Xerox Corporation today announced a comprehensive service designed to dramatically accelerate the time it takes insurance carriers and agents to process policy applications. The service, introduced at the 2005 ACORD LOMA Insurance Systems Forum, comprises Smarter Document Management(SM) processes and technologies that change the efficiency of the manual and time-intensive task of processing and advancing policy application information through to underwriting. As a result, insurance workers can boost their productivity, reduce errors, and record commissions and revenue more quickly. "Numerous forms and requirements are involved in the application-to-underwriting cycle. So carriers are constantly seeking a more efficient way of managing documents to reduce processing costs and issuance delays," said Dale Sedgwick, vice president, Financial Services Industry Business, Xerox Global Services. "Xerox's integrated service works to streamline the process, speeding time to revenue, while producing cost savings and higher levels of agent and customer loyalty." The service includes a range of hosted repository services, document scanning and indexing services, "intelligent folder" technology, and Xerox DataGlyphs(TM) technology. The newly developed intelligent folder technology, created by Xerox, turns traditional static electronic folders and documents into active folders, dynamically adapting to and advancing the policy application whenever new data or documents are entered. The folder automatically alerts carriers and agents when other required forms, such as health forms and credit reports, are at risk of being late or have not yet been collected. Once all of the documents are collected and all of the conditions and constraints are satisfied, the intelligent folder notifies the carrier or agent that the application is approved for underwriting. Application documents can be encoded with Xerox's DataGlyphs technology. Akin to traditional bar codes but far more advanced, DataGlyphs embedded onto documents make those documents easier to index, search, retrieve and authenticate when they're returned for subsequent processing. Unlike traditional bar codes that carry only a reference number, DataGlyphs can carry complete XML-based customer information encoded in the symbol on the document. As a result, customer information is completely secure and accessible only by authorized personnel.