Insurance Times Awards 2024: Ageas using tech to better identify customers at risk of extreme weather

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Stephen Linklater, UK claims director at Ageas, talks about the firm’s entry for the Excellence in Claims Technology – Insurer award

1. Why did you put yourselves forward for the Excellence in Claims Technology – Insurer category?

To mitigate the devastating impact that severe weather events can have on the lives of our customers and to support them in the event they need to claim, the core of our response to the increase of extreme weather events has been innovation.

Stephen Linklater, UK claims director at Ageas

As the first UK insurer to incorporate WeatherNet’s SurgeCast application with the precise geographical location of its policyholders, we can identify the customers most at risk of inbound extreme weather.

By leveraging our technical capabilities and applying them in this groundbreaking way, we can better prepare and support our customers, as well as planning our resources accordingly.

2. What do you think makes your entry stand out and why should you win the award?

This data-driven foresight gives us even more opportunity to pinpoint those customers most likely to be affected by severe weather and help better protect them before an event happens.

With this greater foresight, we can develop appropriate information and issue timely communications through various direct communication methods to support customers and brokers before, during and after extreme weather events.

We’re able to better predict when call volumes may increase and to what extent. This allows us to better prepare internally and allocate resources of our handlers and suppliers in a way that we’ve not been able to before.

3. What would winning this award mean to you and your firm?

I’m so proud of everyone who has been involved.

A data-driven solution that stemmed from a cross-functional weather-focused taskforce, it’s great to be part of an organisation where everyone can come together to innovate for good.

Winning this award would reaffirm why we do what we do and provides further testament to our efforts to provide brilliant service to our customers when it matters. Whether dealing with customers directly or working behind the scenes, all our people are driven by our purpose – to understand people and simplify insurance.