Going for gold

Going for gold

Vero had a “best ever” claims target, and was rewarded with victory at this year’s Mansfield Awards

By John Deex

Two years ago Vero made plain to its staff that it was aiming for a “best in class” claims service – and the aspiration and associated hard work paid off in July when the insurer was presented with the Gold Mansfield Award for overall excellence in claims.

The Mansfield Awards, named after the English Lord Chief Justice who introduced the concept of utmost good faith to the insurance process in 1766, are organised by Insurance News and LMI Group.

This was the fourth year of the awards, and the first to be held online, attracting a national industry audience.

More than 2300 survey responses were received ahead of this year’s awards as part of the adjudication process. Unlike most awards focused on the insurance industry, companies and individuals are not invited to make submissions.

NSW state insurer icare and Steadfast have sponsored the event each year since it was launched in 2017, making possible an event that has filled a vacuum in recognising excellence in claims.

While COVID-19 meant that the traditional awards presentation had to take place via webinar, the awards themselves were considered too important to fall victim to the virus.

Category winners were Allianz (personal lines), HCi (SME property and casualty), FM Global (corporate property and casualty) and GT Insurance (specialty).

Vero Executive Manager Commercial Property and Specialty Claims Luke Whenman accepted the Gold Mansfield on behalf of 250 team members at the Suncorp-owned insurer.

EGM Claims at Suncorp Michael Miller told Insurance News Vero’s victory was a sweet success after the efforts made by the team.

“We want to deliver a best-ever claims service. That is what we’ve been aspiring for two or three years,” he says.

“We talk about the Vero claims promise, internally and externally. We make it very clear in terms of what we are trying to do.”

Mr Miller says brokers and other partners were consulted “to really understand what brokers wanted from a claims service from a commercial insurer”, before the claims promise was crystallised into three elements.

“The first is expertise,” he says. “We need to have people who know what they are doing, and when brokers lodge claims they can get expert advice.

“Next is the service element. I look after all claims – motor, home and the commercial area. The thing that strikes me around commercial insurance is that the brokers use us time and time again, whereas with home it’s once every 20 years and motor once every 10 years.

“So it’s really important that we have a consistent service going to brokers. We’re investing in people, in technology as well. We’re also trying to settle SME claims first touch under $10,000, to just make it as smooth as possible.

“We also know that we need to be flexible for our broker clients, in terms of how we fulfil and pay out claims.”

The third point is culture – something Mr Miller says cannot be emphasised enough.

“Our job is to absolutely pay out within the terms of the agreement, but we need to look at each case individually, with an overlay of fairness and compassion.

“The Australian Financial Complaints Authority has a very clear view on fairness for customers which I think is a really good way for a business to set itself up – to have that fair lens on top of what we are doing.”

Applying fairness is particularly important on claims that could go either way, Mr Miller says. He likens such claims to a window in a wall. “If it’s in the middle of the window there’s no judgment there and it’s covered by the PDS. If you have a claim on the wall clearly outside the window that’s not a claim.

“But if you look at the edge of that window and a claim is sitting there just on the edge, that’s where the judgment is really important in terms of intent, and what the circumstances are, really understanding the customer’s point of view.

“In the end our job is to pay within our product disclosure statement. We can’t cover things that aren’t covered. But we try and work with our broker clients and customers to make sure that if it’s around the edge of that window we have a good hard look at it and make sure we are being fair.”

Winning feeling: Vero’s Luke Whenman accepts the Gold Mansfield trophy

Mr Miller says his department has been through a challenging time thanks to “close to record numbers of claims” stemming from Australia’s Black Summer of natural disasters.

He also believes climate change will result in such periods becoming more normal.

He says a huge amount of planning takes place in relation to disaster season, with other Suncorp employees given the ability to “swarm” into claims.

“Within the whole claims team for home, motor and commercial there are about 3000 people. A lot of that team are part-time and they can scale up at Christmas time.

“We also cross-train our distribution teams so that they can come across and help us out when the claims really start to come through.

“But inevitably we end up hiring. We probably hired about 300-400 extra people this season, just to cope with the amount of claims coming through.

“We know that the longer a claim goes, the more likely a customer is not going to be happy with us. There are more costs as well, so it’s in everyone’s best interests to get in there and get the claims fulfilled and make the customer happy with their life rebuilt.

“It is challenging but enormously rewarding for the team.

“The team has done such a good job. When I look at our commercial insurance team, they are a very ethical and skilled group of individuals who really care about customers. We’re immensely proud of them.”

In the field: Suncorp EGM Claims Michael Miller, left, meets Vero panel builder Paynters at the fire-hit Malua Bay Bowling Club in February

COVID-19 has not had a drastic impact on claims to this point, Mr Miller says, but it has encouraged greater levels of technological development.

“We are spending a lot of money in terms of trying to do online assessing. We can’t get out as much as we could before.

“[COVID] has probably given us some good lessons about what can be done to make better outcomes for our customers. You do get used to a certain way of doing things, now we are finding different ways to do it.”

He says there have been instances where customers “haven’t been comfortable with our builders coming into their homes, if they could be susceptible to infection”.

“We are very respectful of that and will delay the claim until they are more comfortable, or sometimes move them out if that works best.”

Allianz Australia won the personal lines category for the second year running and Chief Customer Services Officer Brendan Dunne says to be recognised by industry stakeholders is “a privilege”.

“This recognition is testament to our Allianz claims team and their expert and empathetic claims-handling,” he said.

“I’m very proud of our people and partners. As an industry we play a very important role, even more so in these unprecedented times, and have immense gratitude for the hard-work and passion demonstrated.

“The Australian bushfires and other severe weather events, along with the global COVID-19 pandemic, have had a significant impact on our customers, and our claims team has worked tirelessly to support our customers.”

Hollard Commercial Insurance (HCi) took out the SME property and casualty award, and Interim Chief Executive Jack Joubert says he’s proud of his claims team’s response during “a very turbulent year”.

“To be recognised for our claims service under these conditions is a real highlight of our journey so far,” he said

Mr Joubert says the core of HCi’s claims service is “delivering the promise made to the policyholder to protect them when things go wrong”.

“The HCi claims team is a specialised intermediated claims team,” he said. “They are empowered to make decisions and guide the broker through the claim process to help the policyholders get their business back up and running as soon as possible.

“The volume of claims from the back-to-back events in early 2020 created a real challenge for the HCi claims team and the entire industry as a whole.

“Their agile approach and experience in managing catastrophe claims has helped the claims team navigate through this very busy period.”

GT Insurance won the specialty category, and Chief Executive Tony Dodd says the company recognises the “vital role” played by brokers.

“To be recognised through the Mansfield Awards is a great honour as it is judged by brokers themselves,” he said.

“Our core value is ‘fairness’ and this positive acknowledgement confirms that this value is being shown in our claims outcomes. I’m extremely proud of our claims team. We are committed to continually improving and ensuring better outcomes for our customers.”

FM Global won the corporate property and casualty category for the third year running.

Vice President – Operations Claims Manager Andrea Garske told Insurance News the company was “absolutely thrilled” with another accolade as “it shows we are consistently doing a good job”.

“FM Global does claims quite differently from the rest of the industry,” she said.

“We’re a mutual owned by our policyholders, and that gives us a different perspective in building relationships. We also have an in-house loss adjusting team and that is a model that really works for us.”

Ms Garske says the Mansfield Awards have “filled a big gap” in recognising claims teams.

“It’s helping to raise the profile of claims and encouraging people to understand that you need to think about the quality of the service you will get when the rubber hits the road, and not just the premium cost.

“When that claim happens, it’s when clients find out if they bought a good policy or a not so good one. It is make or break.”

Winners and finalists

The full results in the Mansfield Awards for claims excellence, with the finalists, were as follows:

Personal lines: The winner was Allianz. The other finalists were Australian Seniors, Millennium Underwriting Agencies and RACT.

SME property and casualty: The winner was Hollard Commercial Insurance (HCi). The other finalists were AFM, Catholic Church Insurances and Vero.

Corporate property and casualty: The winner was FM Global. The other finalists were Berkshire Hathaway Specialty Insurance Company, Liberty Specialty Markets and Zurich Insurance (Australia) Limited.

Specialty: The winner was GT Insurance. Other finalists were Interruption Underwriting Agencies (IUA), NTI, RentCover and TravelCard.

The Gold Mansfield Award for overall excellence in claims: The winner was Vero. The other finalists were Allianz, Hollard/HCi and Zurich.