Paul Challoner speaks with Modern Insurance Magazine
31 October 2023
Our Commercial Director, Paul Challoner, recently spoke to Modern Insurance Magazine about how he prepared the teams to ensure that customers are effectively supported in line with the new Consumer Duty.
How have you prepared the teams to ensure that customers are effectively supported in line with the new Consumer Duty?
The FCA Consumer Duty requirements for General Insurance is a significant shift in the FCA expectations.
It introduces a more outcomes-focused approach to consumer protection and sets higher expectations for the standard of care given to customers.
FCA want good outcomes for customers to be at the heart of firms’ strategies and business objectives, and leaders have a key role to play here. Firms’ boards and senior management should embed the interests of customers into their firms’ culture and purpose.
Here at Carpenters Group, our values are fully aligned to delivering a first-class claims experience and understand that it is paramount to our customers and our Insurer partners that we deliver when the customer needs us most – at the point of claim.
Our long-standing relationships are testament to the quality of service. Our focus is always on the customer and ensuring their claims journey consistently exceeds expectation.
Carpenters Group have been preparing for Consumer Duty for some time, building on the strong foundation of our customer focussed strategy, which already includes constant training to ensure we are treating all customers along with our more specific training for vulnerable customers. We have adapted our training regime to included Consumer Duty specific training to all colleagues supporting their understanding of the changes and what this means to the various teams across Carpenters Group.
We continue to work collaboratively with our insurer clients to ensure we represent their brand by communicating with customers in a way that is both effective and meets the differing requirements of our insurer clients is met.
Identifying vulnerability has always been a part of the Carpenters Group customer journey and this has not changed. We promote an agile and adaptive approach and have long recognised that ‘one size does not fit all’.
We are closely linked with our insurers with regards to data and reporting requirements and discuss the industries requirements in regard to reporting and agreeing a standard set of MI that all parties involved in the customer journey can subscribe to.
Paul Challoner, Commercial Director Carpenters Group