News: 2009 Press Release

California Insurance Commissioner Steve Poizner issued the following statement today after the California Department of Insurance (CDI) won a Best of California award from the Center for Digital Government, a national research and advisory institute on information technology policies in state and local government.

"As head of the largest consumer-protection agency in the state, I am committed to streamlining government and making the day-to-day processes more efficient," Commissioner Poizner said. "I am proud of the efforts of the team that developed OASIS and I know it has already saved thousands of pages of paper and will save thousands of man hours that used to be spent processing and storing the files. That translates to taxpayers saving many hundreds of thousands of dollars."

CDI and the Sacramento technology consultancy firm Delegata designed, developed and implemented the Online Assistance System of Insurer Submittals (OASIS), an online business transaction and payment portal that has been operational on CDI's Web site since February 2009. The program is estimated to save more than 1.5 million pages of paper a year.

When insurance companies submitted applications to operate in the State of California, the applications were required to be in triplicate. Using OASIS, insurers can now submit the same information electronically and pay the application fee online instead of with a paper check, as was the case just a year ago.

OASIS also allows for in-house online sharing and processing of documents via electronic workflows to multiple departments throughout CDI. OASIS has eliminated unnecessary paper flow and manual processes, replacing them with quick, efficient review cycles.

The new program won a 2009 Best Solutions Award at the Government Technology Conference. The Department of Insurance has won a number of awards for its technical achievements. In 2008, the Consumer Federation of America rated CDI's Web site as "excellent" for providing consumers information about auto and homeowners' insurance. The National Association of Chief Information Officers (NASCIO) awarded CDI a third place in the 2008 Recognition Awards for Outstanding Achievement in the Field of Information Technology in State Government. The award was for CDI's Telecommunications Infrastructure Replacement Project. The project was completed in 2008 and involved the replacement of a nearly 20-year old system with Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) infrastructure. This transition allowed CDI to better serve California consumers, in addition to saving $80,000 per year in long distance charges and communication lines.