Managing Claims in Today's Time

My career started with an insurer (now RSA) in 1981, and phase one pre-children was completed as an assistant director at a major broking firm, now part of Marsh. Whilst not based on claims handling, claims service was integral to our overall client support with first and third-party losses. One Saturday morning, after having been bound with a new Insurer the day before, a major incident occurred. A full contingent of loss adjusters, our claims manager and the insurer all arrived quickly on-site to deal with the damage caused by the fire. Adjustment commenced immediately, with interim payments provided straight away.

The client was ecstatic - that level of claims service was unusual in those days, adjusting was more company and less customer-centric. Similarly, in 1987, the first major hurricane windstorm in the U.K. left customers with distinct dissatisfaction both with the time taken to settle claims and the overall assistance provided. By 1992, when the second major windstorm hit, customers were paid out far more quickly, and insurers then licked their wounds, with due diligence shelved, to facilitate the speed and the number of claims without challenge.

After a career break to raise my family and a local authority job as an insurance manager, I was attracted by a role at a major water company with a far greater scope of claims and self-insurance. From my earlier career, I had witnessed first-hand the importance of claims, situations where real people are involved and where I could make a difference.

My role as the claims manager coincided with an increase in the number of clean water flooding claims and the extent of that flooding. Water companies are customer-centric, contrary to what is often written about them in the press. I am fortunate enough to have collaborated with phenomenal adjusters, solicitors, contractors, and claims handlers/managers, some of the best in our industry. Together, we were able to facilitate changes to support managing all aspects of putting the customer back in the position they were in before the loss.

The days of the customers handling their own claims and reinstatement, recouping their outlay at claim conclusion had gone. If the claimant chooses not to hand their claim to their own Insurers, the process starts immediately with adjusters, disaster recovery agents and contractors assembled, ready to respond to the customer's (claimant’s) needs.

 

It is, after all, our duty as insurance professionals and claims specialists to ensure insurance shows compassion and humanity

We pioneered ‘new for old’ settlement on third-party liability claims where the legal requirement is indemnity, acknowledging the financial difficulties this can leave customers in. We often organised their alternative accommodation (AA) with furniture packs, bedding, and food allowances upfront. We managed reams of contractors on site: cleaning, drying, repairing, restoring properties, and even reproducing cherished photos, paintings and essential business records that had been damaged. When we hit a swathe of customers who couldn’t articulate the values of items lost, we brought more claims people to the site who managed that process with them as well, researched values and offered them options for repair/replacement. The old days of leaving customers completely isolated to manage their claims, restore their property and then haggle over reimbursement are a world away from what we do now. Whilst there is, in that, a balance to be struck between customer service and using our own customers’ money to further service claims made against the company, in London and other major cities, the increasing cost of rental properties means that the resources spent to reinstate in a short time period can often be more cost-effective and deliver a better customer journey.

The team live on-site at major events, shares the coffee, sandwiches, and occasional cake runs and deals with whatever the individual customer’s overriding considerations are day to day. This can include arranging a vehicle inspection or a taxi for an elderly resident to come on-site during the day to oversee repairs, returning to a hotel at night, topping up electric meters or arranging viewings via AA providers. Getting to bed after midnight, getting up at 6 am, and often at 3 am to respond to emails missed during the day are all part of the experience. Public meetings, council scrutiny meetings and stakeholder updates are all part of the job, along with the hours.

Local authorities are huge drivers for customer-facing companies to provide support far and above that for which the law demands we take responsibility. Whether the claim is in negligence or a strict liability such as S209 of the Water Industry Act, legal liability is to deal with the claim presented on an indemnity basis. That is no longer enough.

We all get a sense of pride at the end of the week, knowing we have genuinely helped improve things. It is, after all, our duty as insurance professionals and claims specialists to ensure insurance shows compassion and humanity.