Aviva Property Claims Service

The litmus test for any good insurance policy is how the customer is treated when a claim arises. Living up to delivering on our promise to our Brokers and your customers that we will be here for them when they need us most is hugely important to the property claims team at Aviva. We understand that it is a stressful time for customers when they have to make a claim, and they rightly have an expectation that we will handle their claim in a professional and efficient manner, making good on the promise that we made when they took out a policy with us. Failings in this regard could leave customers feeling disappointed and underwhelmed and generate negative commentary on our industry. We are very mindful of this when dealing with your customers’ claims and we strive to achieve the best possible outcomes – whether it is a small simple claim or a large complex one.

So, what do customers perceive to be good customer service in 2022? From our experience, it is clearly not just about having their claim paid as, if that was the case, the vast majority of claimants would be happy with their insurers. In today’s market, claimants are looking for choice and options in the claim settling process and our focus, working with Brokers and your customers, is to not just deliver on our promise to make good on the claim, but to go the extra mile for the customer and ensure we have in place a process that suits them.

Flexibility is key

We look to deliver a range of options for your customers when taking them through the claims process and allowing them to select whichever option suits them best. In doing so, we need to ensure that we have clear policy wording that sets out the goalposts for all to see, understandable ones at that. This will include options as to how we will settle a claim. We are also keen to provide choice around how claims are assessed, including providing technology-based solutions. However, we are aware that it is important to be available to customers who may wish to speak with a claims’ professional either by phone or to meet in person. Our internal loss adjusting team is key to supporting the flexible hands-on approach we offer to your customers. Feedback and TNPS scores achieved in recent years tells us that our customers really appreciate the full experience from us, where our staff are dealing with customers from notification to settlement. Internal loss adjusters can navigate the process more efficiently as they have authority to make quick decisions, with direct access to key stakeholders in the claims process further enabling that. We are committed to not simply talking about providing a flexible service, but to do it!

New improved Aviva Property Services (APS)

We are currently in the process of improving our direct reinstatement service, Aviva Property Services (APS). This service has been with us since 2017 but our expansion plans were impacted by the pandemic, as we didn’t want to send contractors to customers’ homes and businesses for obvious reasons. We pulled back a little during this period and provided the service only to those customers who sought our assistance. What we learned from the Covid-19 experience with APS and indeed since then is that customers really like the service. It’s a fantastic service and when customers have it as an option, they are more likely to engage. Of course, the service may not suit everyone, and we are happy to consult with you and your client to give them options.

We are currently expanding our nationwide panel of contractors, who will be available to all your home and commercial policy customers by the end of this year. The market has changed in recent years and Covid-19 accelerated that change. Building contractors can be hard to come by for most customers and what we offer is a reputable contractor, certified work, and our guarantee for those works. That level of comfort is not available generally. Furthermore, this service feeds nicely into our plan to meet our Net Zero target by 2040 whereby we strive to make all our business processes as sustainable and local as possible.

We are also looking at new ways to assess claims and have categorised our property claims under the following three headings:

• Small claims – suitable for desktop and rapid settlement
• Medium sized claims – suitable for remote inspection, with the aid of technology
• Large claims – inspected by our internal loss adjusters, or external partners and handled in a more traditional way

Pilot scheme on remote inspections

While there is nothing new about how we manage the small and large claims, the management of our medium sized claims is the real game changer and will bring a dynamism to the claims process that hasn’t been there previously. Remote inspections, with the aid of technology, will provide a flexible and efficient service to your claims’ customers that previously required inspection by a loss adjuster.

We are currently running a pilot using this process and hope to roll it out nationwide this year. It offers customers enormous flexibility around when claims are inspected. The more claims that can be managed via this process frees up our loss adjusting team to focus on the larger, more complex claims that require traditional inspections. This will help to deliver a better service to customers across the entire property claims portfolio. Remote inspections are something we’re really excited about, and from initial feedback, customers are too. More importantly, if customers are not interested in using this service, we can arrange an inspection by one of our own loss adjusters, or our outsourced loss adjusting partners, Sedgwick.

This will be an exciting year for our property claims team. The innovations we are introducing into our service will make our proposition even stronger. We look forward to working with you to serve your customers to the best of our ability and further enhance our reputation for a fast, fair, and efficient claims service.