Blog: DAVE – the child of Covid-19, but what’s in a name or a visit? – 360Globalnet

Anthropomorphism isn’t a word I’ve used in a blog before but recently, I’ve started to treat a new product like a person because it’s called DAVE. The name has made it feel like a personality which seems right because it has a story to tell.

DAVE stands for Digitally Assisted Visit Experience. He’s a child of the Covid-19 era that has caused everyone in the insurance world to re-examine their processes in this case, the world of loss adjustment, investigation and repair post-Covid-19. What do you do when you have to ‘see’ damage or interview people but social distancing necessities intervene?

The answer for the team at 360Globalnet was simply to use the policyholder’s phone as one face… and the agent’s phone as the other.

Isn’t that just FaceTime or Skype or Zoom or WebEx etc? Well, no, for three reasons. First, this type of sensitive data capture must be guided, securely stored and logged correctly.

Second, using services based in another jurisdiction to capture claim information means tricky steps into GDPR and infosec.

Finally, it’s essential that policyholders know that the person on the other end of that camera is who they say they are. Here a proprietary system has a clear advantage.

The good news is, it’s working: some big UK companies are using it already and finding many aspects of it better than a physical visit. The personality I was nervous about instilling has become a boon. An article about DAVE in the Australian press jumped onto the anthropomorphism with the enthusiasm of a teenage wallaby.

Each time I smile however, I reflect that this is a product of the bow wave of a new era for insurers. Post-pandemic, we can never go back to the ‘old ways’. A habit takes between 10 and 60 days to form solidly - depending on which psychologists and neuroscientists you believe - and around the world, lockdown culture will have been in place for longer than this. Consumer habits will have changed forever with no prospect of a return to the old normal for at least 18 months

Digital visits, like social distance, contact tracing and shielding, weren’t on the public radar in November 2019. Today, the public will expect them. ‘If it is possible to do this digitally, why are you sending a person whose health and social contact history I can’t know?’

For insurers, a positive answer is necessary - whatever his name is.

Read more…Call centres: Rising to the challenges of home working amid Covid-19

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