by Russell Hutchinson
It certainly is. I remember a manager of mine a long time ago telling me that he was yet to find a mistake made in the statement for his main bank account, and yet he knew that the company he worked for made mistakes all the time with their policies.
It might be tempting to say that was a rare point of reflection, but insurers do, in fact, spend a great deal of time, effort, and money, making systems good, and better.
But unlike the banks clients don’t check their insurance monthly, or even more frequently. In fact some clients will never notice an error with their insurance between taking it out and cancelling it – even if the error were one they would spot within minutes of checking their statement with the bank.
I am convinced that a direct result of this reduced scrutiny, and the lower number of transactions processed, insurance systems will never be as robust as bank systems.
In a way, that is a depressing thought.
This afternoon I could not view online the balances and statements for my business accounts. The outage lasted a little under 30 minutes. I mention that only because it is so rare that it is notable. But near perfection and near-total robustness are very, very, expensive and can only really be delivered when a service is shared by millions.
So we accept more problems with insurers – but sometimes the problems become too bad. They don’t even have to be too bad for everyone.
You will probably have come across the phenomenon of the client who experiences one service failure after another. You think it’s just bad luck at first but after 20 or so years you notice a pattern sometimes a case goes bad and stays bad, one problem literally creating another. Whether you planned to or not you know, just know, that the client will be fuming when you next talk with news of the latest problem.
Try as they might – maybe because they are trying too hard – this client and their current insurer were simply never meant to be. So they will have to be moved.
Clients are allowed to decide that. But what about the process that we follow?
Can there be any objective, dispassionate way to justify a move simply because Mrs Smith is sick of the mess?
Yes, there can. If the service experienced by a client is so poor that their case may be cancelled, either by administrative error, such as failure to collect premiums, or by the client in a fit of anger then there clearly is some justification. Document it and move on.
I know one large agency that canvasses all its advisers annually on their service experience with insurers and uses the ratings in the next year’s selection criteria. Now there’s a thought…
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