Claims services saves client market share

When a client has a large property loss, there is a great opportunity to demonstrate the value insurance provides to their business. There are a few things to consider about an insurance company's claims service to ensure any loss experience becomes a positive differential for you.

Claims Service Considerations

1. What is the company's policy on making advanced payments? When there is a large loss, clients must react quickly to begin mitigating the damage and get back to business. This often requires them to make repairs and pay contractors before the final claim will be settled. Carriers that offer advanced payments can help your client manage the cash-flow liabilities that come with a large loss.

2. Does the company use in-house adjusters or contract with third-party claims adjusters? In-house adjusters have decision-making authority that provides the ability and flexibility to make decisions on the spot. This assists in advancing the process more quickly and avoids miscommunications between multiple parties.

3. What expertise does the claims staff have that will help mitigate the loss and reduce the long-term negative impact to the client's business? A large property loss may create uninsurable liabilities such as loss of long-term market share and negative publicity, or cause damage to supplier/customer relations. In addition to reducing the direct loss costs, claims expertise can help minimize these indirect costs of a large loss.

Take, as an example, how these three claims factors helped an FM Affiliated client mitigate the impact a fire loss would have had on their long-term profitability.

This client had a fire at a key manufacturing facility that resulted in significant damage to a core piece of production machinery. The damage was so extensive that the initial assessment was for the equipment to be replaced entirely. The supplier of the machine gave an indication that the replacement of the piece of equipment would take between six and eight months. This amount of downtime to a core piece of equipment was going to result in the client losing contracts and upsetting key customer and supplier relationships.

The expertise and experience of FM Affiliated's in-house claims staff helped facilitate an alternative option. The solution was to bring in a highly specialized firm that could repair the equipment in just 10 weeks' time.

During the time it took the firm to repair the equipment, the client, broker and the adjustment team partnered to secure a temporary facility to continue business operations until full repairs could be made to their damaged production facility. FM Affiliated also provided advanced payments along the way to help them manage their cash flow throughout the process.

Thanks to expertise and creative problem-solving, the client, broker and FM Affiliated claims team were able to work together to find a solution that helped the client lower their long-term cost of risk, even in the face of a catastrophic loss.