A personalised claims experience can pay dividends at renewal

Kajal Vakas
Senior manager, claims, LexisNexis Risk Solutions, Insurance, UK and Ireland

Access to reliable accurate, fair, and unbiased vehicle-centric data can improve the claims experience

The claims experience is usually the make or break of a renewal. But while there is much to be said for offering a digital claims journey—speed, efficiency and simplicity, if it’s done well—this alone is unlikely to convince the customer to renew.

Customers are smart, they know a digital journey is more cost-effective for an insurance provider and, while they may appreciate an app or web-based process to log a claim, they will still be wary that their claim won’t be smooth sailing.

Garnering a level of trust in the claims process is key to building brand loyalty. And trust is built when the claimant feels that their needs are understood, they’re getting what they’ve paid for and that they are being valued as a customer. Making that experience real comes down to personalisation.

Questions in the claims process can be tailored to the individual and their policy. This might remove the need for customers to provide information that the insurance provider should already know—or indeed, could know, through the use of internal and external data sources—to ultimately speed up the claim.

This could start with creating the single customer view, whereby all relevant previous records are linked together and appended with a unique ID using an identity management solution such as LexID for Insurance. The single customer view could then be delivered at the right points in the customer journey to create personalisation opportunities.

If this is coupled with technology that validates information from other sources, assessment becomes both faster and more transparent for less complex claims. Claims teams can then spend time engaging with customers for more complex claims.

For example, in a motor claim, if a claims handler knows through data solutions such as LexisNexis Vehicle Build, exactly how a vehicle is fitted from an advanced driver assistance system (ADAS) perspective, they can route the vehicle to the right repairer with the required skillsets at the outset of the claim.

This can cut the key-to-key time, ensuring the car is repaired and back on the road with minimal delay, reducing operational costs for the insurance provider while alleviating the inconvenience caused for the customer.

A valuation could be a manual process, using guidebooks. This can be inefficient, use up specialist skill sets unnecessarily and can be prone to error and guestimates. And on top of that, it can leave consumers fairly wary because, as mentioned earlier, they normally enter a claims process expecting the insurer to not pay out a fair valuation for their assets.

So, along with any ADAS fitments, the claims handler might also be able to determine through access to external data that the vehicle passed its last two MOTs, has 25,000 miles on the clock and has a current re-sale value of £17,000. This type of granular data can build a much better understanding of the vehicle to help expedite the claim.

Knowing that the Financial Conduct Authority has recently warned insurance providers not to undervalue cars in write-offs, access to reliable accurate, fair, and unbiased vehicle-centric data, including valuation data injected direct into the claims process, can improve the claims experience. Customers feel they’ve been treated fairly, which results in fewer complaints, reduces the claims lifecycle time and ensures specialised resources are focused on value-add activities.

For the claims team, personalisation may seem opposed to the need to increase efficiencies—yet it is now possible to leverage data to help determine personalisation opportunities, so that claims teams can work at scale but still offer what will seem to the customer, a very personalised service.

Image source: Canva and LexisNexis Risk Solutions

Claims Media