Briefing: The Covid-19 pandemic ‘has become far less of an acceptable excuse for poor service’

By Editor Katie Scott

In December last year, Insurance Times’s cover story centred around the brokers who were experiencing strict tiered lockdown restrictions, particularly in Northern parts of the country, and how they were faring.

A common thread that soon became apparent across the majority of interviewees was that insurers’ service towards their broker partners had taken a serious nosedive as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic.

For example, Barry Thompson, director at Thompson Brokers, member of Compass Networks and former president of the Manchester CII, told Insurance Times that he was “a little disappointed with the service levels of some of our insurers”.

Meanwhile, Yvonne McKnight, co-owner, operations and marketing director at Affinity Brokers and Broker Network member councillor for the Scotland region, said that she expected “a much better service than is being offered now”.

Equally, our recently published Five Star Rating Report: Personal Lines 2020/21 supplement also showcased some dissatisfied verbatim comments from brokers – most of these are regarding slow response times from insurers and an inability to make contact.

Mike Keating, chief executive of the Managing General Agents’ Association (MGAA), concurred with this collective viewpoint. He told Insurance Times at the end of last year: “There is no doubt that some insurers have been challenged in maintaining service standards through the pandemic, especially in respect of renewals and underwriting support.

“With the hard market environment well set, this has added implications for the broker community in requiring renewal terms as early as possible in order that they can engage with their clients to provide advice on both coverage and pricing.”

For him, however, challenged insurers equals an opportunity for the MGA market to plug potential service gaps, capitalising on the fact they can generally bend and flex quickly in reaction to market fluctuations.

“During this period, the MGA community has demonstrated its ability to be agile, innovative and act at the speed necessary to meet broker requirements,” he continued.

“MGAs are reporting both increased retention and new business volumes, over that expected from a hardening market, in addition to increasing their distribution networks.

“This again underpins the value MGAs bring to our market, benefitting brokers, customers and insurers who provide the capacity.”

Two sides of every story

Following the publication of our December cover story, Adrian Saunders, commercial director at Ecclesiastical, got in touch to offer his perspective – for him, insurers have done their level best in “an exceptional set of circumstances”.

He told Insurance Times: “I understand the frustrations of some brokers, but we are all in this together, facing into an exceptional set of circumstances not even the best business continuity plan could deal with.

“Both brokers and insurers have responded really well to the challenges over recent months of working remotely.

“At Ecclesiastical, we’ve supported colleagues as much as we can and we’ve worked hard to maintain our service levels. People are the engine of our service delivery and managing their wellbeing has been a top priority for us.

“Granted not everything is perfect – but let us not forget the circumstances [of] many of our colleagues, broker partners and clients. [They are] working with the challenges of home schooling, home broadband and temporary working areas.”

Saunders also emphasised that brokers’ perceptions have also changed between the different lockdowns, as remote working becomes more the norm rather than a temporary measure.

“The Dunkirk spirit of the early stages, where we were all in it together, has passed and all of our service expectations have risen,” he continued. “The pandemic has become far less of an acceptable excuse for poor service.

“The key to success for both brokers and insurers is being flexible and clear on expectations, as these are challenges we are going to face for some time to come. We’re taking the time to speak to our brokers more than ever to understand their needs and the customers’ needs.”

He added that Ecclesiastical’s “latest satisfaction survey shows that 97% of brokers are satisfied with our service delivery, so we’re doing something right”.

Focus on service delivery

Chatting to A-Plan chief executive Carl Shuker earlier this month, the subject of insurers’ service levels during the pandemic also cropped up. Shuker, however, has had a positive experience so far and believes “the industry as a whole has responded really, really well”.

He told me: “Our insurers have been really, really good. They’ve been massively supportive and we haven’t really seen any let up in their capability around claims service, which is really important to clients, and general admin and support.

“I think we’ve seen insurers respond really well. Everybody’s been very focused on delivering for clients. And also, there’s a lot of focus on vulnerable clients; [the pandemic has] highlighted who is vulnerable and how you respond to it and so on. We’ve seen some lovely, lovely examples from colleagues who have gone above and beyond for some of our clients just to reassure them, help them and support them. It is bringing the best out of everybody I think.”

Going back to our Five Star Rating Report, there was positive feedback from brokers here too, which praised underwriters for being understanding of differing situations as well as insurer responsiveness despite working from home arrangements.

If anything, the reaction to our December story – as well as the article itself – has shown me that no sector can tar all its businesses with the same brush. In the same way that individual families are all experiencing the pandemic differently, so too are businesses, with some flourishing amid the myriad of challenges while others are simply trying to tread water in order to survive the months ahead.

Business as usual is certainly a very different state of affairs than it was this time last year.

Saunders’s point around expectations in the later lockdowns certainly rang true for me and mirrored a recent conversation with Gallagher Bassett’s UK chief client officer Peter Diskin. He told me that following the first lockdown last March, businesses now have a template and an understanding of how to operate in lockdown, meaning there should be less upheaval or unknowns – in turn, this could impact service expectations too.

With no government-defined end point to the pandemic yet confirmed, it is imperative that insurance firms do all they can to crank up and maintain service levels.

Hybrid working models are now certainly going to be a regular facet of working life moving forward, so whatever organisations implement now operationally cannot simply be stopgaps until the pandemic runs its course – as much as we all hate the phrase ‘new normal’, it’s undoubtedly here to stay.

And we need to work with it rather than hope for the full return pre-pandemic days.