In the fall of 2008, in response to meetings with member insurance companies and police, Accident Support Services International, the private company that works with police and insurers to facilitate property damage collision processing, introduced the Collision Reporting & Occurrence Management System (CROMS) Analytics Portal. The launch would mark the third wave of growth for the collision reporting centres and a testament to the power of partnership.

Prior to the launch of CROMS, industry personnel could only analyze collision data long after the events occurred. With the launch of the analytics portal, users can instantly analyze all information captured in collision reports. Using multi-dimensional analysis technology, insurers can now analyze investigations, trend analysis and underwriting components of collisions. By comparing statistical results against benchmarks within the industry CROMS Analytics Portal helps insurers understand and manage risk, enhance claims investigation, identify trends and changes, and market to their segments accordingly.

But like all good partnerships, ASSI’s technology did not simply benefit insurers. Police use the tool to determine all the factors involved in a collision, thereby providing them with up-to-date and comprehensive intelligence that enables them to develop more effective policing initiatives targeted to reduce collisions and make roads safer.

Building on the successful launch of CROMS, ASSI also developed a mobile, in-car solution to be used by police and the Ontario Ministry of Transportation. The new CROMS Mobile allows police to complete an electronic collision report by using a client application in either an on-line or off-line state, on their cruiser computer, at the scene of the collision. The introduction of the mobile unit provides for even faster data collection and analysis. The flexibility of this mobile solution also extends the reach of an established, proven, and successful CROMS program, which has been operating 24-hours a day, seven days a week, since 2003.

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Necessity Prompts Invention
In 1992, police services throughout Ontario were facing a tremendous challenge to balance enforcement and collision investigation while coping with a growing crisis of manpower shortages, restricted budgets, and increased demands for service.

Police in Ontario needed to make some radical changes to ensure the essential priorities were taken care of in each community. As a result an analysis of police services showed one area that required significant manpower: The investigation of property damage collisions. With over 70,000 collisions in the city of Toronto every year, in the early 1990s, the response to each event required 1.5 hours of police manpower. The analysis by the police showed that, due to rising need and shrinking budgets it was becoming impossible to send police to investigate every collision.

At that time, the police began to lobby the Ministry of Transportation for Ontario to alter the requirements of officers at collision scenes. This resulted in a police in Ontario no longer having to attend collisions where damages did not exceed $10,000 (CDN) and where there were no injuries reported.

Understandably, at that time, the insurance industry was alarmed by the news that officers would be no longer required on scene at minor collisions. Insurers predicted that fail-to-remain collisions would increase, and insurance fraud would dramatically rise. They were also concerned that injuries from low speed, low damage collisions were often reported well after a collision was reported. As such, the insurers lobbied against the changes.

Steve Sanderson was a local businessman who, at this time, worked with both police and insurers. He understood the dilemma the police and the insurance industry were facing. He began to talk to both sides about their concerns and, through dialogue, Sanderson developed a new method of dealing with property damage collisions that kept police involved without tying up valuable manpower hours on roadside attendance. Sanderson’s idea was a centralized facility where citizens could come to report their collisions to both police and insurance, assisted by customer service personnel provided by a private corporation. Insurers also requested that the centralized facility also have a vehicle impound facility in the Toronto, so apparently excessive tow charges could be better controlled. These meetings produced a committee formed, primarily, by the Canadian Insurance Claims Managers Association (Ontario Chapter), but with broad-based participation from insurers, police, and Sanderson. Together, this group worked out a solution that satisfied the interests of insurers and police. The solution was a one-stop reporting centre that set the standard for an alternate reporting system for property damage collisions.

The launch of Accident Support Services International Ltd.’s first professional Collision Reporting Centre (CRC) in North York, in October 1994, forever changed collision investigations. The public no longer spent long periods of time waiting at the side of the road until police showed up; police manpower was no longer used up with countless roadside non-injury property damage collisions, allowing for a very significant redeployment of police to to attend to higher priority calls.

Some additional benefits included:

• Traffic cleared faster, which reduced rubbernecking and the risk of secondary collisions.
• Insurers gained the ability to assist their policyholder immediately following the collision, opening their claim and managing expenses, often while the policyholder was still at the CRC.
• Reduced fraud due to a customized program.
• Ability to take and use digital photos of damage, taken by centre staff, that could assist insurers and policyholders.
• Use of damage-reported stickers, which, along with photos, would help identify and prevent insurance fraud.
• Ability to identify invalid or no-insurance cases, resulting in a dramatic increase in charges laid by police officers for these crimes.

In 2003, almost a decade after the introduction of the first collision reporting centre, ASSI introduced the Collision Reporting & Occurrence Management System (CROMS)—a move away from a paper based system to an electronic system.

At the CRC, policyholders are interviewed and data is entered into CROMS. A person’s statement and diagram of the collision is also scanned and included in the collision report; finally the driver licence of the claimant is swiped and captured. Due to this process, all data fields on the official government collision report forms are captured, and are electronically searchable by each secure user. Insurers and police were now using web based CROMS Portals to access all their collision information, photos, and scanned documents right from their desktop or notebook computers.

CROMS also tracks impounded vehicles at locations with storage facilities. Tow notices are sent to each vehicle insurer notifying them that a vehicle they insure has been towed to a CRC; the tow notice lists the tow company involved and the origin and destination of the towed vehicle.

By 2005, CROMS had won two distinguished awards from Microsoft. First, CROMS was chosen out of an international field of top submissions for delivering market-leading customer solutions and given the Integrated E-Business Solutions Award of the Year. Later that year, Microsoft Canada awarded CROMS with an Impact Award for Excellence and named CROMS as Solution of the Year.

Today, ASSI is working on CRC projects in Calgary and Halifax, while continuing to expand the solution to detachments across Ontario. At present there are 20 CRCs in Ontario, capturing over 40% of all collisions in the province. Over 90% of insurers that write automobile policies in Ontario support the program. By the end of the year, ASSI anticipates province wide participation with the Ontario Provincial Police (OPP) expanding into all 86 OPP Detachments in the Province.

A key element of the success of the CRC program from its humble beginnings in 1994 was that insurers and police stayed involved in the process, allowing it to evolve in a way that continued to be beneficial to all and to enable the process to truly reflect the changing needs and priorities of stakeholders.

Steve Sanderson is the founder and President of Accident Support Services International Ltd. Aldona (Ali) King is Executive Administrative Assistant at Accident Support Services’ head office.