The VA Insurance Center in Philadelphia reached a major milestone at the end of September - one hundred percent of all veterans insurance death claims processed in a paperless environment. Paperless processing has decreased claims processing time from 2.68 days to1.86 days, a 31% reduction. Insurance's Paperless Office Initiative began in 1999 with the mailing 1.7 million beneficiary designation forms to policyholders for updating. As new forms were returned, they were imaged and became part of the VA Insurance online system, VICTARS (Veterans Insurance Claims Tracking and Response System). Following that, all incoming and outgoing claims documents (e.g., correspondence, claim forms, beneficiary designations, applications) were scanned, indexed, stored and retrieved online as electronic images. These images are automatically distributed to the appropriate staff and move through the processing and review stages electronically rather than from desk to desk. Currently, over five million images are available online so that Insurance staff can quickly retrieve documents and answer veterans' questions. In addition to the reduction in processing time, the retirement of paper insurance folders saves more than $2 million each year. VA Insurance is already working on the next stage of the Paperless Office Initiative, making Policyholder Services Division work processing paperless.