Broker Service Q&A Covéa Insurance: Making policies so simple that even 11-year-old can understand them

A service area being investigated in the ‘Insurance Times Broker Service Survey 2019/20’ is around the quality of cover being provided to brokers, how do you ensure Covéa Insurance is providing the best quality of cover to brokers and their customers?

Covéa insurance put the customer at the heart of everything we do and one element of this is by ensuring we regularly review our products. We have an annual product review process which identifies aspects of a particular product that require changes.

Changes could be driven by regulation but more often, they are as a result of customer and broker feedback around their expectations, needs or pain points.

In addition to getting feedback from brokers, loss adjusters and our own underwriters, we regularly review claims trends, complaints, compliments and any market changes.

We obtain information from a number of sources to ensure we deliver a quality, competitive proposition to the customer, in line with the market and most importantly, ensuring that the quality of the cover reflects the needs of the customer at claims stage and helps deliver a superb customer experience.

A service area being investigated in the ‘Insurance Times Broker Service Survey 2019/20’ is relationship management and handling. How does Covéa Insurance ensure it provides good relationship management such as access to decision makers to brokers?

To manage our key relationships effectively we ensure that there are a number of opportunities where we can interact at all levels with our partner brokers. In addition to our regular review meetings, including ones where exec and senior leaders attend, we hold quarterly network sessions where we bring partners together to discuss a particular current ‘hot topic’.

As well as the great networking opportunity it affords, it also gives brokers the opportunity to meet with key decision makers in our business as well as industry experts.

Good relationship management is about listening to your partners and adapting to meet their needs. We run informal breakfast sessions regularly throughout the UK and hold annual HNW showcase events, encouraging open lines of communication; we attend conferences and exhibitions and listen to industry survey comments, availing of every opportunity to find out how we can continue to support our brokers to grow their business.

A service area being investigated in the ‘Insurance Times Broker Service Survey 2019/20’ is around the claims experience, what steps have Covea Insurance taken over the year to keep improving the claims experience for brokers and their customers?

Claims is an area of our business that undergoes continuous transformation in order to keep up with the changing customer needs. The aim is to give the customer choice around their claims journey and increased control and communication. We have introduced ways for policyholders to track their claim, different ways of reporting including uploading of images and regular outbound calls on home claims to keep the customer and broker informed throughout each stage in the process.

A service area being investigated in the ‘Insurance Times Broker Service Survey 2019/20’ is underwriting performance. What steps have Covea Insurance taken over the last 12 months to ensure brokers receive the best underwriting expertise, flexibility and transparency?

The underwriting, distribution and pricing teams at Covéa work closely together to develop profitable accounts with our partners.

The underwriting and pricing team use a combination of data, management information and their expertise and past performance to make rating decisions. The key however is that all teams work together towards the same goal which is about driving mutually profitable accounts. Whilst the distribution take the lead on being visible in the market they regularly bring underwriters to the table to offer advice and have clear, open discussions about our approach.

On the HNW side, we also invest heavily in our training academy to ensure our underwriting and claims team’s get great training.

We have a structured approach for all new starters to ensure they are up to speed with our philosophy and that brokers receive a consistent approach. Brokers are invited to attend or dial into regular HNW training courses through our Broker Training Academy and events such as the HNW Showcases. We also host events or training days with third party suppliers to provide an in depth insight into specific aspects of HNW.

We also produce a bi-monthly newsletter which communicates all relevant changes to brokers as well as containing general interest pieces.

A service area being investigated in the ‘Insurance Times Broker Service Survey 2019/20’ is around the policy documentation being provided to brokers and their customers over the last 12 months. How do Covea Insurance ensure brokers and their customers are provided accurate, transparent and easy to read policy documentation?

Reviewing Policy documentation is not only about ensuring it is up to date, meets regulation, is correct and clear before products are launched but is about continuously looking at ways to make it more easily accessible and understood by all customers. We have worked hard. We have gone through a process of applying behavioural economics to ensure the layout, language and design of the documents is as customer friendly as possible and to ensure jargon is removed and readability is improved.

We have tested our policy readability with customers, as well as using junior focus groups for feedback ( Ages 11 – 13 year old) . Our theory is that an 11 year old needs to be able to read and understand our policies and we constantly challenge ourselves to simplify our wordings where we can. We have also worked closely with Fairer Finance to test these concepts further.

The Insurance Times Broker Service Survey closes on the 1st of November 2019 - Click here to take part