Briefing: Insurers facing broker backlash for Covid service

By Content Director Saxon East

This year’s commercial lines broker service survey is about to be released - and it doesn’t make pretty reading for some insurers.

Brokers have given a selection of insurers poor ratings during a very challenging pandemic year.

This will come as no surprise to those insurers, who will be able to review the published results next week, but it will still be a blow.

In our Five Star Rating Report: Commercial Lines 2021, brokers complain about: 

• Poor response to claims, especially business interruption.
• The lack of clarity around policy wordings, which has caused many of the claims issues.
• Sluggish service as insurers adapted to a work-from-home environment. 

The good news is that some insurers have actually emerged from the pandemic reasonably well in the eyes of brokers.

They have boosted the overall market service score, meaning it has only dropped from 3.81 to 3.76 out of five. 

It is also encouraging that some of the largest players, such as Zurich, are really making big improvements.

Questions asked 

But, for those that have performed poorly, they should really be asking searching questions about how they can satisfy brokers.

A first step must be to review their business, clean up policy wordings and ensure brokers are clear about the product being sold. 

Too many brokers, not unreasonably, thought business interruption would be covered during the pandemic, only for the claims to be disputed for months as anxious clients waited in the wings.

This cannot happen again.

Every crisis presents an opportunity to rectify major problems. Let’s hope some insurers really learn their lesson.