When insurance organizations talk about the future of claims, they typically focus on claims technology and the goal of improving the customer experience. What claims organizations sometimes overlook, according to Bryant Vernon (pictured), chief claims officer at Aviva Canada, is the employee experience and how technology can be used to empower claims professionals. This, in Bryant’s words, is a “missed opportunity” because he believes the future claims organization is “more bionic than it is purely human or robotic.”
So, what does that mean? It means investing in tools and technology that will not only improve internal operations and customer outcomes, but will also empower claims professionals to do what they do best, which is to handle millions of dollars of indemnity while also providing empathy and support to people in their most urgent time of need.
“There isn’t a silver bullet, but I do think there are a number of practical approaches that companies can take,” said Vernon. “First, start with data. If that is just a spreadsheet for your business, that’s the starting point, but I encourage you to move quickly to online dashboards where you can democratize data, socialize it, and get your operations to the point that numbers feel as intuitive as words. Get your data into the hands of your business in a manner that’s visible, easy to access and relevant.”
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Beyond investments in data, Vernon advises an ‘all hands on deck’ approach to technology development, whereby employees have the ability to share their feedback, explain the common friction points, and express what they’d like to see in terms of claims administration systems. This is something he’s worked hard to instil at Aviva Canada, since he joined the firm in May 2018.
Historically, he said, there’s been some resistance in the claims space around “the implementation of decision support tools”. This is true for Aviva Canada and for the firm’s major peers and competitors. There was a view among frontline claims professionals that by adopting decision support tools, insurers were “solving a competency issue” and did not trust their human judgement. Vernon noted: “Employees naturally felt like the machines were coming in to take their jobs. But at Aviva Canada, we took the opportunity to guide the conversation. My leadership team and I spent time with our employees to understand where they felt they needed or wanted support.”
This all ties into culture, which Vernon said is “the only way to scale transformation”. He commented: “I believe the future of claims is a blend of human and technology. If you use data as a stick, and if you talk about technology in terms of displacing employees, you’re not going to engender the trust you need to achieve that union. So, change the nature of these conversations. Use data as a diagnostic tool and get rid of performance targets. When you distil someone’s work to a set of numbers, you rob them of their sense of purpose, which should be about connecting with customers, problem solving, and good indemnity management. With frontline employees, use the data to focus coaching discussions on specific behaviours, not numbers. Position technology solutions in terms of how they will ease the employees’ administrative burden, can make the daily flow more intuitive, and engage everyone in the design process.”
