A global strategic consulting firm specializing in claims management support is pitching an on-demand claims service to Australia’s insurers.
Francine Davis (pictured), associate vice president of client solutions with Xceedance Australia, said its offering enables insurers to quickly and effectively scale their operations. She also said their on-demand service achieves “the right balance between digital engagement and the more personal customer experience of voice-to-voice communication.”
Insurers are processing tens of thousands of claims from the record floods in March and April. The Insurance Council of Australia (ICA) called that disaster “Australia’s costliest flood ever” with estimated insured losses of nearly $3.5 billion. According to the ICA, policy holders have filed almost 200,000 flood claims.
“During catastrophe seasons insurers face multiple challenges attempting to secure contractual services with scarce resources,” said Davis.
Davis said an on-demand claims service avoids long-term contracts, offers immediate assimilation, and ensures claims-handling guidelines are met.
“The Xceedance right-shore support model, using global resources, enables insurers to be in a stronger position to manage catastrophic claims. Xceedance can perform in-depth, post-event claims audits to ensure adherence to claims guidelines,” she said.
In order to cope with claims pressures during a catastrophe, Australia’s biggest insurers have special teams in place and redeploy resources from other parts of their companies.
“We have a dedicated Major Event team that is in place all year round to prepare for and support our customers when we have a severe weather event,” said an IAG (Insurance Australia Group) spokesperson.
“During significant events we can bring together resources from across our Australian and New Zealand footprint to support with our customers’ claims,” he added.
The spokesperson said this ensures IAG can provide emergency support like temporary accommodation, manage claims as efficiently as possible and minimise disruptions to everyday claims.
This confident assessment suggests some of Australia’s biggest insurers don’t see a need for an on-demand claims service.
According to Xceedance, its service is “relatively new” in Australia, however some insurance companies have already taken them up.
“Xceedance administers all claims and creates regulatory reporting on behalf of several insurers in Australia,” said Davis.
She said her firm has offered on-demand claims services globally for many years.
“When a US-based insurer needed additional resources for its cat response after a major storm Xceedance supported them with a full-scale response, securing a dedicated phone line, using internal resources and sourcing new ones and leveraging partnerships with staffing firms to provide 10 additional trained team members within five days,” she explained.
Davis also described how, in the US, her company brought in 30 additional trained personnel within five days to assist a regional insurer to manage its claims during a hurricane.
The client solutions head said their offering is an end-to end claims service “supporting insurers with little to no transition time, ensuring customer satisfaction through compliance with stated service level agreements.”
The service can be used for claims across all lines of business, she said, from intake and acknowledgment to set-up of first notice of loss, reserving, disbursements and reconciling claims payments.
Davis suggested that integrating this service with the insurers’ existing claims management system is not an issue and is done “without the need for expensive long-term contracts.”
“Xceedance’s highly scalable team can seamlessly transition across the claims lifecycle enabling the insurer’s existing claims staff to be more efficient by focusing on complex issues,” she said.
Davis said their claims team has expertise across the entire claims lifecycle enabling it to deliver services with “minimal training required from the insurer or TPA.”
“Our claims team is system agnostic and can deliver on industry-leading claims systems,” she added.
Davis said the unique feature of their on-demand offering is the “little to no integration/transition time.”
A recent report from McKinsey & Company said insurers are entering a “new era of claims management.”
Claims 2030: Dream or reality? said rapid technological advancements and increasing data availability are creating “unprecedented visibility into the claims process, the changing preferences of customers and the expectations of a new generation of employees who demand a digital experience.”
The report said that even in 2030, “the most complex claims will continue to be handled by humans who can bring true empathy and expert judgement and who are adept with new tools.”
