Darren Trott of Claim Central talks to Insurance Business about how, despite much the industry's recent embrace of technology, claims is still lagging behind.
Video transcript below:
Reporter: The technological revolution rolling over the insurance industry has come on leaps and bounds in some areas, but not in others as Darren Trott from Claim Central explains.
Darren Trott, Executive General Manager, Claim Central
Darren Trott: In the last decade there has been some significant gains made by insurers implementing technological solutions, specifically in the underwriting area and we have seen packaged business for SME type products. Brokers now enjoy being able to get online, get various quotes from a number of different insurers and choose the best product for, best products for their customers and to be able to close that business online.
And, but for some reason we haven’t seen the same investment on the claim side of things and I think there is still significant opportunities to provide better service, to get process efficiencies and cost reductions with the use of technology. Major insurers in Australia still require policy holders to download .pdf files and complete claim forms manually and scan them and send them back. That might have been cutting edge technology you know a decade ago, but today it just doesn’t cut anymore.
Reporter: Trott claims there are many things the insurers could be changing today.
Darren Trott: Traditionally the introduction of new technology has been expensive and it’s required significant capital outlay, but the times have changed and there are now many technological solutions out there that are available to insurers if they open their eyes and have a look for them. At the same time, I think that there are some more immediate things that can happen, even putting the technology to one side, there are process improvements that could take place immediately.
We had you know triple QBE for example showing the initiative with their introduction of their C change system, but they couple that with the ability for brokers to on small straightforward claims have a delegated settlement authority and for the life of me I don’t understand why other insurers haven’t adopted that same kind of initiative. From the brokers that I speak to that utilise that authority, they love it, it means that they can be actively involved in the claim process. It means that they can demonstrate true value to their customers when a claim arises.
Reporter: Trott says it’s the case of insurers changing their mindset.
Darren Trott: I definitely think that there needs to be a shift in mindset. I see regularly people sticking to the same way of doing things and the same process without really giving consideration to the end customer or even the broker to make things easy. You know I have often heard the saying, well you know, we couldn’t trust brokers with the settlement authority and I really challenge that, because brokers are trusted financial and insurance advisors. If we can trust brokers to generate premium income for insurers, surely we can use their ability to understand the products to be determining low value high frequency claims that simply make the claim process faster and more efficient for everybody concerned.
