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When It Comes to Claims, Timing Is Everything

At least that's what 11,000 recent auto and homeowners' claimants told J.D. Power and Associates when the company conducted its 2007 Insurance Claims Study, which measured auto and homeowner

By Eric Gilkey | Updated on January 23, 2008

Timing is everything when it comes to satisfactorily resolving a claim.

At least that’s what 11,000 recent auto and homeowners’ claimants told J.D. Power and Associates when the company conducted its 2007 Insurance Claims Study, which measured auto and homeowner insurance customer satisfaction with the claim process. The key factors addressed in the study included claim settlement, claim servicing, first notice of loss, estimation process, repair process, and rental experience. According to J.D. Power, repair shops and insurers have a time period of 14 days to get a claim settled and the property repaired — regardless of whether it is an auto or homeowner claim. If that deadline is reached, a majority of claimants will be satisfied. Extend repairs beyond that two-week window, though, and satisfaction begins to plummet. The study also revealed that while timing may be king, other issues can influence satisfaction results. For instance, claimants who were redirected by their agents to call in their claims directly to an insurer or call center tended to be less satisfied with the claim experience, J.D. Power said. This is a result of having to explain the same information over and over again, which can lead to a feeling that unnecessary time is being spent on the process. In fact, study results showed that those who had agents acting as the primary claim contact were much more satisfied than those who did not. Unsurprisingly, the least satisfied claimants were those who had out-of-pocket expenses in addition to their deductible that were not fully reimbursed. Even if those expenses were later reimbursed, J.D. Power said that those claimants still were at the low end of the satisfaction scale.

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