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Danny Wood  00:00:08  Hello and welcome to Insurance Business TV. I'm Danny Wood, News Editor of Insurance Business Australia. Vero has received a lot of industry recognition over the last 12 months at the recent insurance business awards. The firm one insurer of the year that followed a raft of other prizes, the Gold Mansfield award for claims excellence NIBA Large General Insurer of the Year in 2023, the Insurance Advisor Net Large Insurer of the Year Award, and the Council of Queensland Insurance Brokers Insurer of the Year, Sare Ozkara, Vero's Executive Manager of Broker Partnerships is here to explain this success. Hi, Sare.  

Sare Ozkara  00:00:47 Hi, Danny. 

Danny Wood  00:00:49 Welcome to the show. But first up, you know, What's your general response to all this industry recognition? 

Sare Ozkara  00:00:54 Yeah, so I guess firstly, just to be big, thank you, we are really excited. And for our teams, it's a huge proof point that the hard work and the commitment to our brokers is really making a positive impact. Obviously, we're really pleased to win the insurer of the year in the Insurance Business awards this year. And as you said, we've won a number of awards across the industry over the past year. So it's definitely something that we're all feeling really proud of. 

Danny Wood  00:01:22 And my company's Insurance Business awards, you won insurer of the year, one thing that impressed the judges, there was how you took feedback from brokers. And often that was quite critical feedback. And you but you also acted on things to improve the situation? What feedback were you getting exactly? And what did you change?  

Sare Ozkara  00:01:41 Yeah, that's right, Danny, we do spend a lot of time delving into broker feedback. So we have our voice of the customer survey, which gets sent to brokers every month. And we also delve into the broker surveys and the knee bar broker research. With the feedback that we get, we really value it because you can really make inroads to improve our experience. So a couple of examples that I'll give here. Number one, our underwriting referral response times have been a cause of frustration for brokers for a little while. So we were able to really address that. And also, previously, we weren't that clear on our risk appetites for the product, so that we take to market so we've now created risk appetite guides to better support brokers, our teams that really focused on being proactive, and being there to support brokers with specifically what they need. And I know it sounds silly, but it's the simple things and they really do make a big difference.  

Danny Wood  00:02:38 For the 2023 NIBA Large General Insurer of the Year award, you were the only insurer without a negative NPS. That's a net promoter score. You reported strong NPS improvements from Jan 23 to December 23. What are brokers appreciating about you these days, do you think? 

Sare Ozkara  00:02:56 Yeah, well, I guess without sharing too many of our trade secrets, the game changer for us was that investment that we've made in technology. So we've actively addressed the biggest broker pain points that were being caused by our legacy systems. And it was impacting things like, quote, response times, trigger, triggering system generated referrals, etc. So with that significant investment, we've been able to enhance our platform, which has really improved that broker experience. And outside of that, we continue to focus on the BDM support and making sure that there's BDM underwriting and risk support within the states to make sure that people are supported on the ground. And our claim service also continues to be a cornerstone of our offering, and enhancing our overall service offering will always continue to be a key focus of ours. 

Danny Wood  00:03:50 What are one or two recent upgrades you've made to your SME platform that you think have made a difference?  

Sare Ozkara  00:03:56 Yeah, a big change for us was implementing a yes no model in our SME space. So brokers can still refer things that they're aren't sure about and have a discussion with an underwriter. However, our system does all of the heavy lifting in terms of making that decision. So we can provide a quote to broker as quickly as possible, or let them know that it's out of appetite for us. So on that platform as well. We've also enhanced our commercial motor offering, which is one of our flagship products. 

Danny Wood  00:04:26 You refer to your best in class claims proposition. What does that mean exactly? 

Sare Ozkara  00:04:32 Yeah, so we're really proud to have been awarded the Mansfield claims award for four years in a row. And we think this really reflects our commitment to claim service and customer support. And so we respond to smaller claims as quickly as possible through our 01 Touch process, and we continue to refine and improve that to provide a faster experience. For the more complex claims. We try and take a more personalized approach and separate property liability Financial lines, we have dedicated claims managers who helped see the claim through from start to finish. Within the claims team, we've built a team of claims professionals who are really supported by specialized external partnerships. And a big focus has also been building depth and breadth in our building panels to enhance our disaster response capabilities. That's that's been a big priority. 

Danny Wood  00:05:27 The judges at several of these awards were impressed with zeros turnaround times and underwriting response times. What did you change there? 

Sare Ozkara  00:05:37 So I referred to it before we had a launch of our upgraded SME platform. So that gave us the ability to reduce underwriting referral into the team, and therefore the response times have improved significantly. So our SME team have been able to respond to more queries within a two hour timeframe. And most queries are resolved within one business day. So those platform enhancements have also freed up our underwriters to be able to add more value to brokers when needed. 

Danny Wood  00:06:11 You also provide training to brokers, what are some of your new offerings?  

Sare Ozkara  00:06:16 Yeah, we do have a focus on broker training and support. And we're always trying to think of new ways to engage and expand on our bespoke program. So a big part of our focus is the NIBA Young Broker of the Year Award, which we've now sponsored for 35 years. So a core part of that experience includes providing learning and professional development for our industries, emergent emerging talent is on top of that, we've also got the SME insurance index. So that's been running now for 13 years. And that focuses on the Australian business market, and what their expectations are of brokers and also insurance. On top of that, we conduct a series of professional development days and events for our brokers. So these are things such as our insightful broker forums, future ready you, our broker learning gateway, and RM advance risk management awards. 

Danny Wood  00:07:11 So after all these awards, how are you going to keep up this high standard? 

Sare Ozkara  00:07:15 Yep, great question Danny and certainly something that we are always thinking about. For us, it's probably six, three key areas for focus. That would be our continued commitment to listening and taking on broker feedback and really acting on it. We'll continue to invest in in technology and on top. We'll continue to invest in our staff and that state based service structure. 

Danny Wood  00:07:42 Sare thanks for talking with Insurance Business TV. 

Sare Ozkara  00:07:45 Pleasure, Danny, thanks for having me. 

Danny Wood  00:07:48 Sare Ozkara is Vero's Executive Manager of Broker Partnerships. Thanks for watching Insurance Business TV. Bye for now.