Improved communication and better understanding of short term insurance products could improve client satisfaction levels in the short-term insurance industry, said Darryl Grater, Head of Claims of Discovery Insure at the inaugural Discovery Insure Financial Advisers Summit in Sandton on 17 June 2014.
“Consumers don’t always understand their policies,” said Grater. More consumers complained about their insurer, but the short-term insurance ombudsman usually found in favour of the insurance company.
Short-term insurance companies are highly dependent on third party service providers, as it does not make sense for them to have their own tow trucks,panel beaters car rental fleets. As a result, on some occasions service provider capacity could come under strain. After severe hail storms, panel beaters could be booked months in advance. Similarly, vehicle parts could be delayed for months on end. Both situations were out of the control of the insurer, but resulted in considerable frustration for the client.
Grater said Discovery Insure aimed to improve client satisfaction levels through stringent performance criteria for service providers, including satisfaction scores, complaint ratios, service provider staff training, and empowerment measures.
Motor vehicle assessment company NetAssess, one of Discovery Insure’s service providers, investigates every complaint received and boasted a rigorous procurement controls, said CEO Peter Rogers. In addition, built-in checks on minimum and maximum prices for parts, paint and labour minimised the incidence of assessing and panel-beater fraud.
“We’ll never be able to get it 100% right but we do try. When there is a complaint, we don’t want the client to have to go back two or three times,” he said.
However, backlogs could result as there were not always enough manufacturer-approved repair shops. There are limited agent-approved -approved repairers in Gauteng. This could result in lengthy lead times for clients.
NetAssess would soon be launching Work in Progress, a new platform which would allow insurance brokers to opt in for alerts at each stage of the vehicle repair process, so that they could keep their clients up to date, said Rogers.