Maintaining strong broker partnerships

How are strong broker partnerships established and maintained in the modern-day insurance market? 

I think for insurers, brokers and their chosen vendor partners, it’s about 3 C’s - Collaboration, Consistency and Communication. These are three key principles that underpin partnerships.  

Collaboration  

In collaboration terms, insurers are more focused than ever on ensuring that the range and scope of products offered to brokers are meeting the ever increasing demands of price and service. Price within the insurance market continues to be a thorny issue, against a backdrop of economic challenges for households. Insurance needs to ultimately be affordable and with that in mind, insurers are working with brokers to offer products which support a more discerning individual or household. Such collaboration is already being harnessed to offer a new, emerging range of low cost products, with a greater emphasis on the potential for the policyholder to completely self-serve electronically. Solving issues such as pricing and affordability ensures that the market recognises problems that customers are facing and shows that they are working collaboratively to address them. 

Consistency  

Consistency should be simple, if it works once – it can work all the time, surely? Well sadly that isn’t the outcome when we look at the weird and wonderful world of claims, where Carpenters currently have the largest footprint in the UK. Consistency for us as a partner is ensuring that the customer is following the best process, which is clear, helpful and ensures that all information required is available for the customer to access, this can be self-service or through more traditional methods.  

By putting the customer at the heart of the process and thinking about what the customer needs more than anything is a great place to start. When businesses think or even consider building a claims journey, simplicity has to be key. Ultimately, the claims part of insurance is often hidden from the customer’s thoughts, no-one buys insurance wondering “what will the claim experience be like”?  Consistency can often be overlooked, but it’s always worth remembering that great businesses will often start with that very debate. I always think if you visit a McDonald's in London, New York, Tokyo, or Buenos Aires, you can expect the same taste, quality, and experience. This consistency extends to every aspect of their business and is a great benchmark. 

Communication 

When we think about communication, businesses often start from a position of “what does the customer want to know”. Once we understand the most common questions that are linked to a claim experience, we can refine our responses to ensure that 80% of what the customer needs to know is available and ready for them, on demand. Communication types are rapidly changing, statistics from Sky earlier this year has shown how different generations communicate. It was revealed over a quarter (26%) of Gen Z say they actively ignore phone calls and over half (57%) admit to ignoring calls from their parents.  

With this in mind, insurers, brokers and partners need to ensure that their communication practices are in line with the expectations of their service demographic. We are sure to see a pivot away from traditional SMS & telephone usage, into more agile communications applications.  

Platforms via Meta (Facebook Messenger, WhatsApp & Instagram) are delivering staggering growth numbers, with Meta confirming that Facebook Messenger has nearly 1 billion active users. Those numbers are further supported by the strength of WhatsApp in the UK which is now the most commonly-used messaging app, with 76% of adults using it in the last three months. Around two thirds of UK adults (65%) say that WhatsApp is their main online communication service, followed by Messenger (18%) and iMessage (6%). All of the above points to a need for all businesses to ensure that they understand the communication needs of their clients, quite simply, SMS, telephone & email is no longer enough.

What services do Carpenters offer to brokers in order to build and strengthen these partnerships?  

We are lucky to be a significant part of the claims function for 2 of the largest broker businesses within the UK. As such, we’ve worked with and learnt from the best when it comes to partnerships. All of our broker partners will be looking for something slightly different, which could be 10% of the process to 80% of the process. It is important, as a partner, to know what works best for the customer.  

In our experience, any customer than has had the misfortune to be involved in a claim, is looking for clear, straight forward, jargon free advice on what happens next. That could be the hire car from Enterprise, through to the date the car is being collected by the chosen repair partner. Our commitment is to ensure that we provide services which are modular, this allows our partners to work with their own supply chains in a “Pick & Mix” solution, our flexibility accompanied with our technology, underpin that freedom for our partners. 
 
Finally, we always find the time to provide robust data to show what is working and what needs improvement. Our ability to report upon over three hundred pieces of critical claims data back to our partners, through PowerBI, provides the data assurance that our partners need for knowing that the customers are in safe hands. 

Responding to changing regulation: how does changing industry regulation and compliance affect the services that Carpenters offer to brokers?  

We have seen increased regulation across the financial markets in recent years, which has in turn generated further positive interest in value measures for customers and their definition. From a Carpenters perspective, we are working with our broker partners to ensure that any insurance product offered, is fulfilled completely, ensuring that the customer has been provided access to all levels of the policy purchased.  

We will continue to see increased, ancillary offerings for customers. This can include products such as Motor Legal Expenses Insurance.  

Motor Legal Protection is a critical product that provides customers with post-accident support, across a range of services that can include; 

• Help reclaiming your excess 

• Help with medical costs and legal costs 

• Help reclaiming travel costs 

• Support with recovering Loss of Earnings. 

*Carpenters will this year alone support over 45,000 customers requiring financial support and assistance following an accident.

Where can improvements be made / challenges overcome in the broker market?  

I believe that the broker market is evolving and that we are seeing a rise in the importance of brokers, from consumers and insurers. The cost of insurance will continue to be a debate point for the coming years, low cost insurance should not mean low value insurance and is important that insurers and brokers are working together to ensure that customers are provided with the correct guidance on valuation of any insurable item. 
 
Earlier this year, our Director, Donna Scully was invited to join the team at Covea to discuss a number of factors - including widening the awareness of ensuring that the level of cover you have in place is correct.  

The reason for insurance is to protect something and ensure it is insured for its replacement value. If it is insured for less than its actual replacement value, it results in underinsurance, which leads to insufficient insurance coverage. Undervaluing the items in a business can lead to rejection of claims and leave the business in a worse situation. In order to avoid this, Covea is working with its brokers to help businesses understand the type of cover they need and the value of their items, to make sure all levels of cover are adequate.  

Simon Smith, Director of Claims Strategy  
Carpenters Group

Credit:Modern Insurance Magazine - The Condition of the Industry