Frank Heaps
Director, P&C Product Marketing
StoneRiver
The Midwest and South have been hit hard with storms the past few weeks. Rain has fallen on the Mississippi Valley day after day into an area that cannot handle it. Add to that the windstorms, tornadoes, and flooding that is coming and you have a region in peril. Now is the time for carriers to step up and take the lead. This is where our industry can change public perception and show value to their customers; it is time to expedite claims processing to get claims reported quickly.
All of the events above have put a strain on the resources and capabilities of any one carrier and the capacity of the P&C industry. The damage caused over the past several weeks is the equivalent of a powerful hurricane hitting the region. Some of the same states affected have experienced hurricane damage over the past five years, which is compounding the concern. The good news is that carriers have had time to work on their processes and CAT management plans to quickly provide estimates and repair homes and cars because of similar losses. Carriers have reviewed their processes and procedures to become more efficient in their approach to the large loss events.
Assuming cell towers are standing, loss reporting with a mobile device and high-tech mobile catastrophe vehicles enable claims to come in faster than they did 10 years ago. All of these claims coming in so quickly can potentially create a logjam of claims that need to be triaged, reviewed, assigned, and investigated. Any one of the recent weather events in the Mississippi River Valley would challenge most carriers for a few days. But, add in weeks of heavy rain, flooding, and tornadoes across a dozen states and you have a large concern to manage.
Early in the cycle of storms a friend had a tree fall on her house causing holes in the roof from a wind and rain storm. It took her insurance company nine days to look at her house. Increasing the pace of claims management is only going to get tougher as claims keep coming in.
Now is the time for all carriers to look at their claims processes and see where they can increase efficiencies. As claim departments reduce staff (or choose not to replace staff), there will be more claims for each adjuster. With tens of thousands of new claims coming in, the burden is huge and mistakes will be made. Automating claims activities is the way to reduce the burden on the adjusting team and enforce high-quality claim settlement.
As the claims flow in, an advanced claims system can automatically triage claims to determine which apply to the CAT and which are unrelated claims. The 80-90% of the rain, hail, wind, and other claims can be assigned directly to an adjuster to begin investigation. The adjuster can pick up the claim assignment, take care of initial loss review, and begin the settlement process. In the background the claims system can initiate your rules, manage business processes, and follow jurisdictional requirements. Field appraisers can be assigned to loss locations, required acknowledgment communications can be initiated, communications between the claim system and estimating solutions can be managed, and pre-authorized repair bills can be processed automatically.
Imagine how much more efficient and accurate your claims department will be during the next large claims event with a system that automates 80% of the manual activities traditionally seen in most claims operations. The system manages routine activities and your adjusters focus on claim settlement.