5 Claim facts that will save you money.
19 May 2009
5 FACTS you need to KNOW about claims to cut your costs.
- Claims do not get cheaper with age. That is why we advocate early intervention in claims. Early notice and quick and informed investigations are critical. Do you have a system of early notification of incidents? Read more......insert early intervention pdf.
- Set yourself goals. Big hairy ones. To do that, you need to understand your performance. Measurement of your claims costs is critical. Do you know your key metrics? Average cost, legal / loss adjusting costs to settlement, duration of claims, etc? Once you capture that data and understand how you fit against other companies, you can be in a better position to set yourself goals and stay under the line! If you are a corporate, that means developing a plan that can limit your costs AND keep your premiums as low as possible. If you are an underwriter, it means questioning your results, and working to ensure you are competitive with the best. Want to take a test? Do you know if a result on a claim is a good one? Do you know if a claim portfolio is performing well? Contact us and we can talk about claim benchmarks.
- Question your legal and loss adjusting spend. For liability claims in particular, this is an area where a reactive or unskilled Claim Manager can leak thousands of dollars. If controlled strategically, lawyers and loss adjusters can be a valuable and cost effective resource in the proactive management of claims. When not controlled, this is an area where you claims can be out of control, and you don’t even know it. If you a. don’t know your percentage of legal and loss adjusting spend or b. Know the spend but are not certain if the results are good or bad, contact us to discuss our benchmarks.
- Is your claim manager proactive ? Have they set processes in place so they can control the claim from the start? Or are they reactive, responding to claims by reactively appointing lawyers or loss adjusters to every claim? We see many claim managers being reactive, which can be a function of high case load, outdated processes or lack of expertise at the desk (or all of the above.). If your Claim Manager is not helping you to control your risk and exposures, if they are not talking control of claims but are merely reacting to the claims as they come in, it is time to review how much that is costing you. Read more about how our property claim services help control your costs.
- Can you trust your Claim Manager to not just be proactive but to ensure the job is done and you only need to get involved at the level warranting your time? If you are spending too much time chasing your claim manager for follow-ups, information or action, it is time to consider what that is costing you in terms of your time cost and the flow on effects on the claim side.
The way claims are managed has a major impact on your brand image. Trust in your Claim Manager is critical.
CALLING all underwriters, underwriting agents and companies with self-insured claims.
FREE HEALTH CHECK......provide us with your claim history and a half hour of your time, where we can get an idea of your current processes, and we can tell you how you measure up.