10 quick claims lessons I learnt first hand...
I won't bore you with the story, but I recently had an Escape of Water claim and couldn't have been more underwhelmed by my insurer's response. However, it got me thinking....what would I have done differently?
- Aim for "minimal viable info" to get the ball rolling on a solution. Fill in the info gaps later. As we all know, time is the most important factor when it comes to the final settlement cost of claims - don't waste it on fussy process. And do not read me five minutes of disclaimers when I'm calling an emergency helpline! This is the best example I've seen of insurance governance being entirely counterintuitive for the customer it's supposed to protect.
- Use call waiting time to capture information and pre-qualify the call and/or claim. Make sure they're speaking to the right people and ensure they're only staying in a queue if there's benefit of doing so.
- Ask the customer directly what they need from you to prevent the loss worsening and then concentrate latterly on indemnifying. They are on-site, they're best placed to make the judgement call.
- Engage a specialist team to, whilst they wait for a contractor to arrive, advise customers on what they can do to help minimise a loss. Online help guides or an app could guide users on how to resolve common problems, such as Escape of Water. Why not have a static team of experts that can Skype/FaceTime/Messenger the customer to look at the problem and suggest short term fixes?
- Embrace IoT and start utilising sensors to identify potential losses earlier, particularly EOW. Give discounts those users who install them - this is something that we are still not incentivising customers to do.
- Automate and expand your claims networks, track your contractors, optimise your booking methods with digital tools and processes. None of this should be manual, none of it should be analogue.
- Share your network of contractors with customers to enable proactivity.
- Upon first engagement with the customer, appoint a single point of contact. Force people to take ownership of a problem and measure their successes and failures in helping the customer to resolve their issues promptly.
- If your humans don't do human things well, replace them with robots.
- Care. Genuinely. That's all any customer wants to feel.
What ideas have your first hand claims experiences thrown up?