Kieran Fisher is an account manager (insurance) at Cazoo Data Services
Insurance companies using the Companion tool have seen a 73% reduction in valuation disputes, with the inherent transparency of our method breaking the negotiation cycle for good
Settling claims accurately, fairly and quickly has always been a bit of a song and dance with customers. Policyholders in the main believe they should refuse the first offer and will negotiate on the settlement, leaving claims handlers to spend more and more time trawling through guides and classified ads to try to find a fair offer that meets the customer’s needs for a replacement vehicle.
Recently, this already tricky job has become a whole lot harder with the way the market has responded to several factors, including the aftermath of COVID and the electronic component shortage on new cars, pushing vehicle prices to an all-time high, with no real sign of them settling down in the near future.
This volatile market can mean that making an offer based on last month’s manual guides can be hundreds or even thousands of pounds away from getting the customer into an actual like-for-like replacement vehicle. This of course not only means more time spent on the case, but customer confidence and satisfaction takes a dive and they are left with no choice but to negotiate, feeding the customers opinion that insurance settlements are inherently unfair.
Understanding which tools can support a more efficient and streamlined claims process will be helpful. But finding one digital partner that can answer the fair and fast claims goal while maintaining and earning customer trust has proven difficult. But not impossible as demonstrated by Cazoo Data Services.
Cazoo Data Services’s Companion tool gives insurers the whole picture of the vehicle, helping to accelerate desk-based research before deployment of engineering resources with a view of a vehicle’s events from manufacture to present day, as well as MOT history, owner, number plate changes, p