Clubbing together

None of last year's Claims Club Rising Stars planned a career in insurance - and the class of 2008 is no different. Yet despite all coming into the sector from very different routes, they have all stayed, and progressed - and believe the insurance industry offers a real variety of opportunity to those staff that it can attract.

Vicki Crouch, claims motor services manager, Groupama Insurances started in insurance at a mere 17 in an NVQ trainee position in business administration with Fortis Insurance. But why insurance? The answer is simply because it was "within walking distance from my parents' home". She eventually moved house - and company - ending up at again locally-based Groupama Insurances.

Tracey Chamberlain, motor supply developer, Fortis, who now looks after the insurer's repair network, independent engineers and salvage agents also stumbled into the sector. "I went firstly into a claims area just file handling, and after six months moved over to the underwriting side where I spent 10 years." Eventually she moved sideways as an assistant to the chief engineer - "and that is where it all sort of sprung into action for me".

Lindsay Rowell, claims team manager, Zurich Insurance, studied ancient history at the University of Nottingham and then took a year out travelling and working in Australia. She presently looks after a team which deals with 40% of all credit hire that comes through the insurer's doors. Ms Rowell started in a temping job at Zurich: "That was six years ago and I was taken on permanently as a claims handler in motor claims in the Leeds office of Zurich, I worked there for a couple of years, and then managed to get on to their internal graduate programme."

Beth Richardson, a knowledge management consultant in the claims area at RSA has joined and left insurance a number of times in her short career. "When I had my first career conversations with the careers teacher at school, I told her I wanted to be an archaeologist. I went and did a degree at Goldsmith's College. I quickly moved back to Sussex and then as so many of us do in Horsham ended up working at RSA."

She somehow gravitated into internal communications in what turned out to be the first of three stints at RSA - leaving respectively to be a PA and a newspaper reporter in the interim.

Staying power

Razia Kahn, liability unit manager, Axa Insurance has been based in it's Bolton office for eight years and as with the others landed into insurance by accident. "I completed my A-levels and when I left (school) I was getting different views from everyone, go and study this and go and study that. I thought oh well I think I will just kind of ignore all the advice and just go and apply for a job. So I started working with Axa for work experience at first - having promised my mum and dad that it was just a year I was taking out and I would go back to university. But I stayed."

Ben Arthur, knowledge management consultant and property team manager, Zurich, is based in its Sutton office and lo and behold "came into insurance completely by accident.

"I was working in the catering industry and was going to follow my family as a chef but the unsociable hours at 18 were not really for me. So I took a job at the local office as a claims handler. The intention was only to be there for a couple of years and move up town and work in the hustle and bustle of London but it became quite evident as I went along, working for various motor teams, that there were opportunities."

These entry points into insurance, and especially claims, underline why perhaps the focus for attracting new talent - the next generation of Rising Stars - is very much focused on school and college leavers. As Ms Kahn observed: "We have found that when people have got less baggage they are more likely to be innovative and embrace change. We have also been working on developing insurance apprenticeships as nobody ever thinks about insurance, or knows anything about it. We are trying to attract people - and when we have, they have stayed and developed." Ms Chamberlain agreed on the attractiveness of fresh-faced staff: "When I set up a team of mostly school leavers, they had a real thirst for learning and change."

Ms Crouch continued: "At Groupama it is very much a grow your own philosophy so you get people in the door and then explain to them what the opportunities are. There is so much variety for people to choose from - once you get people in the door. Once you get the chance to explain to them this is what insurance is about, this is what we can offer, these are the opportunities, it then becomes a lot more attractive".

So what about the role of professional qualifications for developing staff? Looking at the guests themselves, only one of them has undertaken her ACII but despite this there was a general acknowledgement that professional qualifications are of real merit. Ms Rowell said she began her Chartered Insurance Institute qualifications as part of her claims graduate programme, but chose to continue her studies after it was completed: "We have a relationship with the CII and I act for our department as one of our representatives. It is something that is stressed in all of our inductions and it has a high profile."

Ms Crouch added: "Personally I have not taken any CII qualifications but in Groupama it is very much supported, it is part of the induction and it is regularly advertised that these qualifications are there and that the business will support them. There are also financial rewards for achieving those depending on what exam you sit so it is very much encouraged and part of the culture."

Five of the six Rising Stars this year are female, yet the industry is still very male dominated, providing little scope for role models as Ms Kahn commented. "I think we probably will see a lot more women coming up and probably stretching themselves and being role models for the future." That said, she cited her line manager, Donna Claydon, as an inspiration to her.

Getting and retaining good staff is one challenge - but another internal issue is the perennial problem of the disconnect between sales and underwriting. Mr Arthur said he believed the relationship was now much better than previously. "One of the roles we have is a claims account manager and a customer relationship expert. They have really bridged the gap whereas maybe six ago, there was definitely a separate entity within the company. I can rarely ever remember speaking to an underwriter except to say 'do I cancel this policy or not?' And them really being quite standoffish, and now there is so much dialogue in so many areas because of these roles."

However, the trend to outsourcing can act as a barrier as Ms Rowell conceded: "Within personal lines a lot of our work has been offshored or is being offshored. And I think that is where you really do get a breakdown between claims and underwriting because previously you could just walk down the stairs and go and talk to somebody in underwriting. You had that face-to-face relationship, you said hello to them in the lift. When you have got claims teams sitting offshore, and I don't doubt for a second that they are doing an excellent job, they are so removed from the underwriting facilities that I think it does bring an extra barrier."

Ms Richardson also highlighted the gulf between management relationships across the divisions, and those of other staff: "At a senior level there is a very good relationship. We have very strong technical communities that go right across underwriting and claims and meet regularly. But I think at grass roots level you are struggling to find somebody who could tell you end to end what the underwriting through to claims process looks like, who understands the big picture. So it is difficult sometimes to see where you fit."

Building bridges

Ms Crouch insisted that Groupama was working hard to build the relationship between claims and underwriting. "We now have regular claims/underwriting meetings to try and bridge some of the gap. I don't think we are anywhere near perfect yet but as I say, we have certainly seen a vast improvement and our new claims director does come from an underwriting background."

Ms Kahn agreed that change was afoot - but that more needed to be done. "We have people going over and shadowing underwriters and the other way round to gain awareness. But I think as we have all been saying, it is down to having those meetings and creating those opportunities where people can share. We should not really be two departments as from the customers' point of view it is just one experience. So it is just trying to get the claims handlers and the underwriters to understand that."

Another related communications issue that constantly emerges at Claims Club meetings is the challenge of managing suppliers. "From a customers' point of view, they prefer case management and case ownership," says Ms Kahn, "so they would love for one person to deal with a claim from beginning to end. But the truth of it is that you do need to pass things out to suppliers, so we just need to make sure it is as swift as possible."

There was also a feeling within the Rising Stars group that the claims supply chain had become quite fragmented with more and more players in the supply chain. Mr Arthur agreed adding that "the floods exposed a lot of things last year where you have so many different suppliers for so many different things that are related to one claim and those suppliers don't even communicate with each other, yet it is still the one claim. You know you are nominating someone to do the drying but the builders don't know anything about the drying company. They are not talking to each other and you find that the claims department do a lot of the running around, trying to co-ordinate everything, trying to pull it together which is difficult. And one of the things that suppliers are working on is to try and build that communication better, that there is a system that they can all work together on."

Ms Chamberlain emphasised the need to engender trust with your partner suppliers, getting their buy-in, so that they want to work with you for the right reasons. "Yes" agreed Ms Crouch, "it is about trust. You have got to want to work really closely with your suppliers. Because ultimately the customer is not really interested in who they are, whether they are Groupama or Fortis or Zurich. So you have got to want to invest that time with your suppliers, trust them as much as you trust the colleague that you sit next to at your desk."

Third-party policy

The issue of third-party capture also came to the fore: "I work purely on the third party side so I guess the motto for our department is that the third party is potentially our next policyholder and then it is truly driven by claims. If you are providing them with a service they think 'that was brilliant that was so quick', hopefully they will come to you next time or at least think about you."

Ms Rowell agreed. "Zurich has outsourced a lot of notifications, but on the third party side, the handling of the initial part of the claim is kept very much internally. We have really ramped up experience in that area so that we can extract the maximum benefit in the first 15 days and achieve moving our third parties on to suppliers so that we can gain a financial advantage."

Ms Crouch added that it really meant that third parties got more attention than your own policyholders. "We did a pilot and we found that we tried harder to a degree with the third-party claims because of all the add on costs." Ms Rowell interjected that credit hire was "the number one reason why Zurich is really front loading third-party claims, so that we can get in there first and we can be the supplier of choice."

Ms Crouch summarised: "I think what we need to be doing is making sure that we are controlling the claim rather than letting the claim control us. I think that can be very easily done. We should be the ones driving it with the insurer, with our customers, with our third parties, and not sitting back and letting somebody else, such as a credit hire company or a solicitor drive that claim forward. It is really important that we do it. And that will keep our costs down as well."

GUEST LIST
- Anthony Gould, Chair
- Ben Arthur, knowledge management consultant, property team manager, Zurich
- Tracey Chamberlain, motor supply developer, Fortis
- Vicki Crouch, claims motor services manager, Groupama Insurances
- Victoria Garvey, associate, BLM
- Razia Khan, liability unit manager, Axa Insurance
- George Lillington, director, general insurance and claims, CSC
- Beth Richardson, knowledge management consultant, RSA
- Lindsay Rowell, claims team manager, Zurich

IN THEIR OWN WORDS: PARTICIPANTS SPEAK OUT

"My bugbear is the image of the industry. It is still sometimes a bit stuffy, a bit pinstripe and bowler hats at times. It needs to be a bit more vibrant, innovate more and move with the times." - Ben Arthur

"My bugbear is all the add-ons that come with the claims culture now - such as credit hire - where people are getting their little bit of commission to introduce me to you and you to me and moving away from just one person, one contact, and the customer getting what they want without thinking who am I speaking to this time? 10 calls instead of one. Too many involved." - Tracey Chamberlain

"It would be nice to go round with a loudspeaker and say insurance is not dull, it is not boring, there are loads of opportunities and lots of different things that you can do." - Vicki Crouch

"We need to be a bit more adventurous and go out there and try something new and radical rather than be a bit stuffy." - Razia Kahn

"There needs to be a wider appreciation that claims is actually a very complex area and that claims handling is a complex role. It is not like factory farming." - Beth Richardson

"If you say you work for an insurance company, people look at you as if you are perhaps mad. How terrible for you, that must be awful and that stops people from coming into the industry." - Lindsay Rowell