Insurers have been challenged to leverage technology to improve customer service – but not in the way they might think.
While the industry is alive to the benefits tech can offer in areas such as FNOL, claims handling and fraud detection, it has perhaps overlooked the fact that, increasingly, they will not be judged by policyholders on their own actions but by those of their suppliers.
One direct result of greater automation coming into the claims journey is that a policyholders’ first human interaction is likely to be with a company in the insurer’s supply chain. What data they have and how efficient they are will directly effect the customer’s opinion of the insurer itself.
Important
Byron McGill, Change, Innovation and Technology Lead, Supply Chain, UKGI Claims, Aviva, said, “The role of the supplier is becoming increasingly important. They say the first person the customer deals with face-to-face sets their impression of the overall claim, but as claims gets more and more digital, it is common now that someone in the supply chain is not just the first face-to-face person the customer talks to, but the first actual person.
“That person needs to have the right information to hand to provide a good service, and technology is critical in enabling that. So collaboration and connectivity is going to be even more important, because no matter how much automation is built into the process there will always be a person there at the end of the journey. And that is the person the customer will remember.”
Attitudes
While insurers and the supply chain alike proved their agility when Covid-19 struck and forced new ways of working, Byron, who spent the first part of his career in retail supply chain, believes there is still plenty of room for innovation within existing relationships.
He said, “Most of the original thinking comes from the tech start-ups. That’s a bit disappointing. There would be lots of opportunity in marrying the thinking from the tech companies with the more practical knowledge of the traditional supply chain, but you have to want it to work.”
Byron said he is fortunate at Aviva to be with a company that is open to new initiatives, and in Solus, its wholly-owned network of repairers, it has the perfect innovation partner.
Apart from testing new processes and technologies with them, Solus also affords Aviva a more granular insight into the component parts of vehicle repair, particularly as new technologies like electric vehicles come to market.
Byron said, “That’s important to feed back into our underwriting. It helps us work out costs and establish where we are going to place our risks. Having all motor repair expertise sitting under the Solus banner also supports our ability to develop young talent through apprentice programmes.”
Future
Looking forward, Byron said he sees the two greatest disruptors on the horizon being the way data from damaged vehicles is used and the environment.
He said, “There will be a massive increase in the amount of data we get from vehicles telling us what’s happened to them. But it’s more about what we do with that data. We need to harness it to get a live insight into the claims journey so we can make instant decisions. That data is all in different places now, but the moment it comes together it will be a huge disrupter.
“As for the ESG agenda, I think we’re at the tip of the iceberg. There is serious change coming in this space. Green parts and a circular economy is just the start, and I don’t think we know where this will go.”
Byron was addressing delegates at the ARC360 Back to the Future conference and exhibition, which was held at the British Motor Museum in November.
