ARO Outsourcing expands at-home jobs beyond the call center, Part 2

Last week we highlighted how ARO Outsourcing is helping a Kansas City area health clinic move its back-office tasks (insurance verification, scheduling, etc.) to the virtual model. But lots of other - and seemingly unlikely -jobs are ripe for a similar transition. Take insurance auditors, for instance.

Companies take out workman’s compensation policies with insurance companies. The policy is based on the estimated payroll for the coming year. Say you estimated a $100,000 payroll but grew this year and ended up with a $150,000 payroll. Every year a “premium auditor” from the insurance company reviews your claim and adjusts it accordingly.

In the old model, called a “physical audit,” the auditor would get in his car, drive to the company and spend the day reviewing paper documents. Or pick up the documents, do the work somewhere else, then make another trip to return them with the completed audit.

To continue reading, register here and become an Insider. You'll get free access to premium content from CIO, Computerworld, CSO, InfoWorld, and Network World. See more Insider content or sign in.

Last week we highlighted how ARO Outsourcing is helping a Kansas City area health clinic move its back-office tasks (insurance verification, scheduling, etc.) to the virtual model. But lots of other - and seemingly unlikely -jobs are ripe for a similar transition. Take insurance auditors, for instance.

Companies take out workman’s compensation policies with insurance companies. The policy is based on the estimated payroll for the coming year. Say you estimated a $100,000 payroll but grew this year and ended up with a $150,000 payroll. Every year a “premium auditor” from the insurance company reviews your claim and adjusts it accordingly.

In the old model, called a “physical audit,” the auditor would get in his car, drive to the company and spend the day reviewing paper documents. Or pick up the documents, do the work somewhere else, then make another trip to return them with the completed audit.

This is costly because it means insurers need auditors in every nook and cranny of the country, and inefficient with all the driving around. 

So 18 months ago ARO Outsourcing came up with a “virtual audit” model that involves having the business fax, mail (or scan and transmit electronically) all necessary documentation to ARO. ARO then scans the paper and posts it on its servers. Auditors, working at home, access the documents online, then walk the company through the audit process via phone.

ARO has pilot programs underway with big-name insurers such as AIG, Farmers and Zurich. Michael Amigoni, ARO’s CEO, says getting people to see a new way of doing auditing hasn’t been easy.

“At first, our competition [physical auditors] said, 'You can’t do this, this isn’t the way it’s done.' And that people wouldn’t send us their documents. On the contrary, we’ve found if we requested a filing cabinet, the company would ship it to us by Yellow Freight.”

Today, ARO’s on the verge of signing some big deals. “We project about $1.2 million in revenue from this part of the business alone, with a potential for about $30 million,” he says. “AIG spends $50 million on audits a year.”

Sixty-five at-home auditors across the country work for ARO - retired or former accountants, bookkeepers and CPAs. “They love it,” Amigoni says. “At first we focused on customer service people, but then realized we needed people who love to spend the day digging through spreadsheets and reconciling accounts. We couldn’t get them to work for us any other way - they wouldn’t come into the office.”

The virtual model also lets Amigoni hire the most suitable workers for each client. For instance, one client writes insurance policies for oil and gas companies, so Amigoni hired accountants who’d worked in that specific industry. “For this client, you have to verify the well heads, and these guys know exactly how to get the well heads from the oil company," he says.

Read more about telework in Network World's Telework section.