Half of UK brokers are less than impressed by the standard of loss mitigation and disaster recovery services they receive from insurers, revealed a survey from Deloitte.
Half of those surveyed were also dissatisfied with the time insurers took to settle claims, said Deloitte.
Almost a third of the brokers polled rated the claims service provided by insurers as ‘poor’, with over half rating those services as ‘fair’. Less than one percent of those surveyed said the service was ‘excellent’.
“A good claims service is the ‘shop window’ of the organisation - when a customer makes a claim, this is the only time they really see what they have been paying for,” said Deloitte director Angus Tucker.
“Specialists who can project manage the claim and control its mitigation, qualification and presentation in an integrated way appear to be lacking in the current process.
Deloitte said increasing consolidation in the industry was highest on the brokers’ list of threats to the industry, followed by insurer capacity to underwrite business and the apparent lack of flexibility from underwriters in providing required cover.
Brokers cited employers’ liability, public liability and property as the most relevant and important risks facing their clients, revealed the survey.
Only a quarter of those surveyed saw the forthcoming FSA regulation as a threat, with a third describing it as a business opportunity.
Regional brokers rated the risks of asbestos and toxic mould claims as least important for their clients, despite the rising number of these claims in the US.
Tucker said: “Regional brokers have a traditional view of what constitutes risk—they do not appear to be very concerned about intellectual property rights or reputation risks, despite the fact that a damaged reputation or loss of intellectual property could pose a real threat to a medium-sized business.
