We speak to the director of ClaimsExperts, the first nationwide company offering loss adjuster services to policyholders and their brokers

Q. Why did you set up ClaimsExperts?

A. It was a bit novel at the time and the Chartered Institute of Loss Adjusters found it a bit distasteful. I didn’t see the insurers as evil types in a conspiracy against the policyholder, but it was clear that it was difficult for the public to understand insurance law.

Q. How has the claims process changed in the last 12 years?

A. The whole environment has changed. Insurers have got much more technical and much more centralised in their claims operations. There’s no longer a local bond between a broker and the insurer, and with that centralisation comes a lack of comprehensive understanding of what a claim means to a policyholder.

Q. What do you think of insurers’ service standards?

A. Patchy.

Q. Are insurers too prone to label policyholders as potential fraudsters?

A. Things have changed for the better over the last couple of years. A year or two ago we were getting the impression that every policyholder was being looked at as a potential fraudster. We don’t find quite so much of that now, which is probably because the analysis tools used by insurers and adjusters have become much more sophisticated so they are able to identify potential fraudsters much more easily. And if they identify one, my word are they thorough. In the cases we come across where insurers have identified fraud indicators, we would walk away from fewer than 20% of them as clients.