Insurance Company In-plants

Competition among insurance companies is fueling marketing efforts, forcing in-plants to turn out more four-color work than ever.

Insurance is a huge market. Its providers make up a major portion of Fortune magazine's annual Fortune 500 listing, with giants like State Farm and Prudential ranking in the top 20.

Behemoths like these know how important quality marketing materials are to their businesses, and many of them turn to their in-plants to get them. Because of the competition among insurance firms, these materials must be eye-catching and colorful, a fact that is bringing more color printing work into these in-plants.

"Color will sell things easier," testifies Larry Jablinske, manager of graphic and printing services for SAFECO Insurance, a Fortune 500 company based in Redmond, Wash. "The more colorful [something] is, the more people are going to pay attention to it. So design and color are real critical."

Consequently, about 35 percent of his shop's work, he says, is four-color process work, with multi-color jobs making up an additional 50 percent.

At USAA Insurance, down in San Antonio, Texas, Manager Jack Mondin likewise prints a heavy volume of four-color work—60 percent of his workload, he estimates. Customers demand it, he says, because it bolsters their marketing efforts.

"We've got to maintain that competitive advantage," Mondin says.

Other insurance in-plants also report a high percentage of four-color printing: Sentry Insurance, in Stevens Point, Wis., says that 30 percent of its print jobs are four-color; Fireman's Fund Insurance, in Petaluma, CA, has a 60 percent four-color workload; Likewise, Prudential, in Novelty, Ohio, says 60 percent of its work is four-color.

This has impacted the type of equipment these in-plants are installing. To handle the requests for color work, SAFECO's in-plant added a new six-color 20x28˝ Mitsubishi sheetfed press with a coater last year. A 30˝ MBO folder was also installed. Since then, Jablinske says, the 43-employee in-plant has brought more work in-house. The outsourcing of stitching jobs was likewise halted with the purchase of a new Muller-Martini stitcher.

In recent years, Jablinske has watched the decline in traditional business forms work as electronic forms have taken over. In their place, high-end marketing and collateral work has moved in, requiring more attention to quality.

"Where you used to be able to get by with one- or two-color presses, they don't work for much any more," he notes. His in-plant, in fact, is looking into providing short-run, customized digital printing. Jablinske is examining options such as the Scitex Spontane, Xerox DocuColor 40 and Indigo E-Print.

Opening Up Opportunities

Similarly, Mondin, at USAA, is researching in-house applications of digital color prior to testing these devices.

"We're looking at electronic four-color process, and I foresee the opportunities are going to be even greater in the future," he says. One of the advantages of digital color, he remarks, is that it allows variable data printing, opening the door to a one-to-one marketing approach.

For its process color jobs, the 120-employee in-plant uses a range of offset presses:

• Two 40˝ six-color Komori presses.

• One 28˝ six-color Heidelberg.

• One 28˝ four-color Komori.

• One 40˝ two-color Heidelberg.

• One 28˝ two-color Heidelberg.

• One 22˝ four-color Muller Martini web.

The Two-pass Method

For other insurance in-plants, though, access to four- and six-color presses is a luxury they do not have. At Fireman's Fund Insurance, in Petaluma, Calif., color brochures, posters, reprints and presentation folders are printed with two passes on a two-color press.

"We're doing a substantial amount of four-color process on two-color presses," reports Larry Williams, manager of graphic services. "We've gotten pretty good at it over the years."

Williams recently tracked his in-plant's printing trends over the past seven years.

"I have seen a dramatic decrease in the black-and-white," he says. "The color work has been flat." But that four-color work, he adds, accounts for 60 percent of his shop's workload, with multi-color jobs making up another 30 percent.

"I see the complete decline of black-and-white in my shop," Williams predicts.

Part of the reason color jobs make up such a high percentage of Fireman's work is that the in-plant does not do any copying work—just offset, though Williams continually monitors digital color solutions in hopes he may eventually incorporate such equipment. Presently, the 21-employee in-plant handles 97 percent of the company's offset work; very little gets sent out.

"I'm currently capturing all of the work that I'm capable of doing," notes Williams.

Similarly, at American United Life Insurance, in Indianapolis, Printing Services Manager James Dalton says his shop produces the vast majority of jobs that are within its capabilities. Unlike Fireman's, though, AUL uses copiers in addition to its five one- and two-color presses. One copier, the Kodak 2110, produces 20,000 spot color jobs a month. Color work, Dalton says, makes up 40 percent of the in-plant's workload.

"Our marketing departments have seen the value of color," he notes.

Dalton recently installed a networked DocuTech for on-demand forms printing. He hopes to convert 1,200 of the shop's 3,000 forms to electronic format within 12-15 months. Not only will this reduce the need for large inventories, but it will enable agents to get more up-to-date information faster. This, Dalton points out, is an important responsibility of insurance in-plants.

"There's a necessity to get promotional and sales materials in our agents' hands faster and faster—to get them more information in a more timely manner," Dalton remarks. "That requires a very good working relationship between printing services and delivery services."

At AUL, he says, the two departments work closely, even to the point of having daily meetings to coordinate activities.

"That working relationship is key to the success of our service departments," he says. IPG

by Bob Neubauer