Question
I can see that there has been a big saving to the insurance industry, but has it been passed on to the consumer? Do you have cheaper insurance now in Ireland?
Byron:
Yes, absolutely. If you refer to the CSO website, and the motor price index there, you will see that the reduction has been between 15% and 20%, certainly since our inception. You will actually see it across other classes of business as much as 25% and in some instances 30%.
Question
We award our staff a bottle of champagne if they can record a claim in under an hour. Does AXA think that outsourcing claims service to India has contributed to excessive time periods in settling claims?
David Williams:
If you are going to compete in a market then you are probably going to have to go with it.
One of the problems that the insurance industry has caused itself, in terms of the criticism that we get regarding general outsourcing, is that people have done it in a random manner.
I have been out to India, to Pune. They are brilliant at some things. They are great at process, but they are not great at variation from a process, and I have seen some clear examples whereby that adherence to process has lengthened things. What the insurance industry needs to do generally is to recognise that offshoring is not a great panacea for everything.
Question
I know that you were involved in the set-up of Claimsense, and the pilot of InterResolve - do you envisage them working in tandem, or for separate types of policies?
Williams:
The question I was dreading was somebody asking me which one I prefer, and my answer to that was going to be that I prefer the ABI model. But, at this point, there is definitely room for both models, and probably others as well. It doesn't matter which one I preferred, because what we are trying to do is to support people who are doing good work by improving the process. What will matter is which one is the most successful, and which one delivers what all parties need, particularly the claimant.
Question
Regarding the NHS recovering costs of treatment... I was wondering whether this is going to affect the speed at which claims can be resolved.
Peter Ashdown-Barr:
The NHS has to start recovering costs, and it is going to do it from January. It is going to add about £150m per year. The cost has to come from somewhere - in other words, from liability premiums. I do not know whether that will have the effect of adding to the length of the process.
Williams:
I do not think it will delay things. My challenge would be that if it is getting this additional income, let us see some investment in better services, because we know that some areas are failing dramatically, but it shouldn't delay the process in any shape or form.
