A Career in Claims: Reflecting on two decades of change
Elliott Goss, Chief Claims Officer
Looking back, 2003 seems a distant memory. The second Gulf War in Iraq led to the toppling of Saddam Hussein. A fresh-faced Swiss man called Roger Federer won Wimbledon, the first of his 20 Grand Slam titles. And Myspace made its debut as one of the world’s first social media platforms. It was also the year that I started in insurance.
In historical terms, it was just two decades ago – a mere blink of the eye. But for me, it represents my whole working life. It was not long after the turn of the millennium. A time of promise, hope and positivity. It might have been a new world, but the way of working felt much more traditional.
The Claims Team was tucked away within the Operations department. Everything was about paperwork. Claims were handled as files – physical folders that swelled in size as they were passed from person to person. Claims brokers had face-to-face meetings with handlers, and if there was no file, then there was no claim. I should stress that computers were around, but just not as ubiquitous and depended upon as now. People exchanged emails, adding extra dimensions to the already-complicated paper trails.
My first job, in a basement office, was to input details from reams of underwriting files and claims forms into a spreadsheet so that documents could be logged, and simple trends could be identified. Even though my keyboard skills were relatively elementary, and MS Excel was still in its infancy, the concept of using IT to aggregate and determine results was something new as far as my bosses were concerned. They’d been working in a certain way since the 1970s and the idea that a desktop machine could provide insightful and meaningful analytics represented a huge generational change.
Fast forward twenty years and we are in the midst of another great generational change; our lives have become dominated by technology. Electric vehicles are outselling petrol ones, mobile phones are much more than simple communication devices and we can download entire movies within seconds at the touch of a button. And the impact of technology on our business practices has been transformational.
Within the insurance industry, data-driven decision making is becoming the new normal. AI is being used to simplify some processes and enable the collection of meaningful trends and profiling data. The previously unstructured flow of information is now gathered, analysed and assessed. We can derive precision data and accurately forecast trends based on a broad range of transactions, and this can help us to better understand why losses are occurring in the first place.
The way in which we work has fundamentally changed the landscape too. Hybrid working and cloud-based solutions allow claims handlers to deal with any transaction from anywhere in the world. Gone are the reams of paperwork. The previous risk of a file being lost in transit is no longer an issue. Now multiple businesses can work across a single claim simultaneously, speeding up the entire process. Individual empowerment means decisions can be taken quickly, resulting in speedier settlements, and happier customers. In an era where people want instant results, we can deliver.
As a result, the perception of insurance claims has been overhauled. The claims operation is now front and centre of insurance companies. Indeed, Executive Teams and Boards frequently include Claims Professionals. And this collectively benefits the stakeholders in the claims process. From customers, to brokers, to the claims handlers themselves.