Growing catastrophe exposure demands new approaches to managing CAT claims
On an average day, insurance carriers, adjusters, and third-party administrators struggle with routing, assigning, and assessing claims in a timely manner. Add in an immediate increase in frequency of claims related to a large catastrophic event, or a series of regional mini-events, and the claims process can easily get overwhelmed.
We continue to see a rise in catastrophic (CAT) events globally – natural disasters from hurricanes to floods to earthquakes. According to Moody’s, global insured natural catastrophe losses have averaged about $100 billion over the past five years.
This is taking a toll on insurer and reinsurer profitability, and creating significant risk impacting both customers (risk becoming unaffordable to insure) and insurers (risk unfeasible to cover) alike. This environment demands insurance solutions that can stand up to unpredictable pressure and help meet customer needs at a critical time.
The impact of catastrophic events and CAT claims on insurers
CAT claims create operational strain and financial burden on insurance carriers, particularly for organizations that may not have a dedicated CAT insurance team or don’t have the tech infrastructure and ecosystem to effectively support their workforce and customers during these high-volume events.
CAT claim volume and time crunch
The claims process is overwhelmed by volume, with insurers struggling to get the right claim in the right hands quickly. With time at a premium, opportunistic or veiled fraud is also easily missed.
Pressure on customer experience and retention
If there’s ever a time for insurers to be concerned about NPS, it’s during a CAT event. Delays in payouts can lead to decreases in customer retention, reputational risk, and a negative impact on consumer loyalty. It’s a delicate balance between investigating every claim and providing a light touch experience for customers facing life-impacting events.
Skyrocketing costs
Not only are loss ratios taking a hit due to overpayment on claims where fraud was missed, but insurers also see cost creep from secondary investigations that wouldn’t have been needed with more accurate risk assessment at triage.
Workflow and process inefficiency
Even if insurers have dedicated CAT insurance teams, they can still be overwhelmed by volume. And for those that don’t, typical staffing models may mean CAT events are handled inconsistently, whether it be newer, less-experienced adjusters handling CAT claims; outsourcing claim overflow; or non-optimized call routing. An organization’s tech stack may also not be optimized for quickly processing large volumes of CAT claims.
Optimizing the CAT claims process
Being able to effectively handle a surge in CAT claims requires technology and tools that provide fast, accurate risk detection with minimal disruption to existing processes or the customer experience. This type of risk mitigation tooling will not only support insurers in CAT-prone markets, but also provide a sustainable competitive advantage.
Scale quickly with confidence
Meet customer needs
Reduce opportunistic fraud
Clearspeed Surge: A solution to assess risk in CAT claims quickly and accurately
Clearspeed Surge helps insurers quickly and accurately process large weather-based demand at initial notice of loss. By automating high volume, low risk claims using a unique risk data point, operational teams are empowered and can scale efficiently while better meeting customer needs, when both are most vulnerable.
Powered by our market-leading voice analytics, Clearspeed Surge delivers instant scale using automated questionnaires that provide fast, accurate, and objective risk assessment.
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