Market needs to improve management of international claims: Muller

Given the speed at which many companies have expanded in recent times it was perhaps not surprising that this topic was chosen as the focus of one of the sessions on the second day of the 22nd Rencontres de l’AMRAE in Deauville this week. “Many risk managers have shown interest in the matter of international claims,” said Laurence Muller, Risk Manager at Louis Vuitton, the luxury goods group, who leads the debate. During the session, representatives of all parties involved, including loss adjusters, insurers and brokers, will present their views on how international claims could be processed more efficiently.hideAs many risk managers have expressed to Commercial Risk Europe in recent times, this is not something that is easy to achieve. Ms Muller noted, for example, that cultural differences and local business practices have an important impact on the whole process. “Each country has its own habits regarding claims and it all gets a little confusing for risk managers,” she said. “You have to adapt your processes, you have to find answers for different kinds of questions made by loss adjusters based in local markets,” added Ms Muller. Complications arise because traditional practices of those involved in claims can differ greatly. “Difficulties take place at two different levels,” Ms Muller explained. “The first one concerns the internal process of the company used to manage the claim. To avoid problems here, you need to put in place, before the loss even happens, a procedure to gather all the information internally. Someone needs to be prepared to talk to loss adjusters and gather all the information to report to the risk manager,” she said. A second problem involves issues that are external to the company, said Ms Muller. “They include questions about how to deal with the local and the group policy, the culture of the local people and the way the loss adjusters and the carriers of the master policy work. You can also find difficulties managing the networks of companies that you need to get information from,” she explained. Some French market particularities can muddle the process yet further. “In France, loss adjusters do not work as they do in Anglo-Saxon markets,” Ms Muller said. “They collect and report information, but they do not interpret the policy. This can be quite a difficulty too, as French companies are used to discussing the terms and conditions of a policy with insurers, but not with the loss adjusters,” she explained. The role of brokers can be sharply different in various markets as well. This can cause confusion and create obstacles to the claim settlement, even if brokers are trying to help things along. “In France, brokers are used to working directly on claims, but in other countries they only facilitate the relationship between the insurer and the loss adjuster,” Ms Muller pointed out. “So in some cases you will have your French broker working on the claim, but the local broker will not play any part in the process. Then the loss adjuster in the foreign market does not understand why the French broker is trying to give him advice,” she continued. This system could be improved if insurance companies gave more priority to their claims departments, according to Ms Muller. “Insurance companies are increasingly investing in their commercial and marketing teams but the claims management department is the last one they care about,” she said. “People are often more worried about writing reports for the mother companies than with the management of claims,” added the risk manager. Ms Muller continued: “Insurers are becoming ever bigger and we increasingly see that the power to take decisions about claims is not based in France any more. It is difficult that to make a decision about your claim your French insurer has to first make a report to a superior abroad. It is getting harder to be able to talk about a claim with a capable professional in a claims department.”

Market needs to improve management of international claims: Muller

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