Redefining Claims in Europe's Insurance Sector

For decades, European insurers viewed claims handling as a core competency—something to be guarded, managed in-house, and kept strictly within the company walls. That fortress is now opening up. Driven by a "perfect storm" of climate volatility, regulatory tightening, and a scarcity of niche technical talent, major carriers are increasingly forging strategic partnerships with specialist loss adjusters. This is no longer just about cutting costs; it is about survival, scalability, and accessing a depth of expertise that no single insurer can maintain alone.

The Catalyst: A New Climate Reality

Europe’s surge in outsourced claims management is rooted in a shifting climate landscape. Weather events once considered rare—traditionally “1-in-100-year” occurrences—are now taking place with unsettling regularity. Beyond headline-making catastrophes, insurers are increasingly challenged by a persistent rise in medium-severity events, including severe convective storms, hail incidents, and localised floods such as the destructive flooding in Valencia in late 2024 and the earlier impact of Storm Babet across Northern Europe.

This volatility exposes a critical scalability gap. Internal claims teams are typically staffed for predictable, day-to-day operations and are quickly overwhelmed when simultaneous storms affect multiple regions. Outsourced adjusting partners offer an “elastic workforce,” able to deploy hundreds of adjusters within 24 hours and scale down just as quickly when conditions stabilise.

Compounding this is Europe’s ongoing protection gap, where economic losses from natural catastrophes consistently exceed insured losses. Insurers are therefore under pressure to demonstrate value by accelerating claim settlements. Specialist adjusters with on-the-ground expertise and local knowledge are instrumental in bridging this gap and ensuring that valid claims are resolved swiftly and accurately.

The Regulatory Squeeze

Regulation across Europe is evolving from procedural compliance to a core operational mandate, driving insurers toward partners who are already aligned with heightened standards. Updates under Solvency II and new recommendations from EIOPA—which now incorporate additional risk factors for floods and hail—require more rigorous reserving and data-rich reporting. Specialist loss adjusters provide the technical expertise and granular loss data that insurers need to meet these strengthened requirements.

Simultaneously, increased expectations around ESG and supply chain transparency mean insurers must ensure responsible practices across their whole service ecosystem. Large global adjusting firms such as Crawford, Sedgwick, and Charles Taylor are increasingly preferred because they possess the scale and audited processes needed to deliver ESG-compliant reporting capabilities that are often beyond those of smaller local contractors.

In the UK, a stronger consumer-protection agenda, exemplified by the FCA’s “Consumer Duty” and recent scrutiny of claims delays, has further intensified expectations. Insurers are turning to specialist partners not to offload responsibility, but to elevate customer care standards and ensure compliance with regulatory benchmarks.

The rise of outsourced claims services in Europe is not a temporary reaction to inflation or a bad storm season. It is a structural evolution. Insurers are transitioning to a "Managing General Partner" model—where they own the risk, the capital, and the customer relationship, but rely on a network of highly specialised, tech-enabled partners to execute the "moment of truth" when a claim occurs. For the European policyholder, this should ideally mean faster payouts, more accurate assessments, and a claims process that feels less like a bureaucracy and more like a service.