Aviva and Ageas to use IT portal for motor claims subrogation

Aviva and Ageas have agreed to use an IT portal when subrogating costs in motor claims.

The two companies hope that using the portal will cut the cost of handling third-party motor claims between the two insurers.

Aviva wants to sign all other insurers up to the portal and turn it into a standard industry solution for cutting claims costs.

The portal was developed for Aviva by insurance technology firm Validus-IVC. The portal matches claims, views on liability and requests for payment without the need for letters or phone calls and so is designed to reduce the contact between insurers when dealing with subrogated claims.

Aviva and Ageas have already been using the portal for several months and they say it has reduced the amount of contact needed.

In addition to the portal agreement, Aviva and Ageas have also signed a bilateral agreement to keep the cost of subrogated claims between the two companies as low as possible.

These latest agreements are intended to help solve a long-running problem in the insurance industry. The claims costs are paid by the insurer of the at-fault driver, but the insurer has no control over these costs, leaving scope for them to be inflated by others in the chain.

The Aviva/Ageas agreements are the first to be reached since the Competition and Markets Authority’s review of the motor insurance industry in 2014, which failed to tackle the claims inflation problem.

Ageas UK chief executive Andy Watson said last year that the CMA probe’s failure to tackle the problem effectively legitimised the inflation activity and increased it.

Aviva claims operations director Andrew Morrish said: “We are proud to work with Ageas on this new initiative which has the potential to revolutionise the way insurers handle third party claims.

“The portal we have developed with Ageas removes the need for the hundreds of thousands of calls and letters sent between insurers to recover money. The banks have a clearing system for exactly this reason. We think this is an obvious use of technology.”

Ageas claims director Rob Smale added: “We believe this is a key milestone for the entire insurance industry. We are always looking for new ways to make the claims process more efficient and reduce unnecessary costs, which results in a quicker and smoother process for the customer.”