Insurer Claim Handling Gets Some Poor Marks

According to the survey, 67 percent of respondents said they think it is important for their insurance companies to provide the ability to check claim status on the Internet.

The polling discovered, not surprisingly, that consumers' dissatisfaction with claims service increased significantly
with the number of claims representatives they had to speak with during the
course of their claims settlements.

Survey respondents who spoke to three
or more people at their insurance companies during the course of claims
were nearly five times as likely to be dissatisfied with their claims
experience as those who spoke to only one or two claims personnel==49
percent versus 10 percent, the researchers found.

Seventy-five percent of respondents said
they would prefer to speak to only one person from their insurance
companies about their claims.

The survey determined that respondents with more complex claims experiences were more likely to
negatively rate their claims experiences.

Negative claims experience
ratings were highest for claims that took more than 20 days to be resolved
(40 percent compared with 20 percent overall); claims that resulted in
recovery of less than half of their losses (28 percent); and claims that
involved auto-related injuries (39 percent).

"Insurers need to continue to implement new automated claims technology to help further expedite the process and improve the customer experience," advised Michael Lucarini, a partner in Accenture's Insurance practice.

Mr. Lucarini added, "The
most significant opportunities to improve claims customer satisfaction are
reducing the carrier-to-customer interactions required to handle
high-frequency, low-severity claims and keeping the customer more informed
on longer, more-complex claims."

Peter MacPherson, vice president, insurance business unit,
SAP America, Inc., said, with consumers demanding easier more efficient methods for filing their claims, innovative technology is crucial and "insurers who leverage the Internet as a tool for consumers to manage their claims will
gain a competitive advantage as well as reduce their operational expenses."
The survey also found that customers based their claims satisfaction levels on several elements, giving top priority to the perceived fairness of the settlement==selected as the top priority by 45 percent of respondents.

Next in importance was the responsiveness of claim representatives, according to 19 percent of respondents, and speed of the settlement, also 19 percent.
Eighty-one percent of those polled said they would file claims online if it would expedite the claims settlement process.
Seventeen percent of respondents said their claims experiences would keep them from referring their insurance companies to
friends.
The two most important concerns of respondents when settling p-c claims were that premiums would increase because of the claims (42 percent) and that they would not receive the full value of the claims (26 percent).

Results of the survey were announced at the 2005 ACORD LOMA Insurance Systems Forum in Orlando, Fla.

Accenture and SAP work together to help insurers and banks achieve the
vision of an open standards-based architecture.