Using claims FAQs to anticipate customer needs
The most common inquiries during the claims process deal with process explanations and next steps, according to a recent Hi Marley white paper.
When insureds have a bad claims experience, they are more likely to shop around and switch carriers. An analysis of 25,000 claims by Hi Marley showed the biggest factors that determine claims satisfaction are timeliness of service and resolution, communication, process effectiveness and adjuster attitude and approach.
One way to improve the claims process for a policyholder is for carriers to better anticipate their needs in order to cut down on unnecessary back-and-forth communication that can slow the claims process and be frustrating to customers.
Hi Marley recently released a white paper detailing the results of a study in which they categorized a random sample of 1,040 auto and property claims to dig down to the root cause of customers’ most frequently asked questions. This is how customer inquiries during the claims process broke down:
- 31% related to process explanation/ next steps
- 30% were ad hoc requests
- 18% were informational only
- 13% dealt with expectation setting
- 5% were about scheduling
- 2% related to response timeliness
- 1% fell into an undefined category
With this data about customer inquiries in mind, insurers can create a plan that preemptively addresses these questions in order to make the claims process more efficient.
Process explanation
According to Hi Marley’s research, the top cause for customer questions centered around a lack of understanding of the claims process. Nearly a quarter of inquiries in this category were asking for a status update on their claim, 10% asked about payment status, 9% wanted an explanation of the next steps of the process and 8% inquired about what documentation they needed to send to their adjuster.
Setting expectations about the timing of repairs and payments can lessen the need for customers to reach out with questions when things are taking longer than expected. In the study, 20% of body shop-related inquiries were related to repair status, 11% were about inspection status, 8% wanted to know the next steps for dealing with the body shop and 6% asked for updates on the body shop payment status.
The white paper claims 45% of body shop-related inquiries could have been avoided if the process was explained and expectations were set earlier in the claims process.
Automating acknowledgments
It’s important to customers to know when information they’ve submitted during the claims process has been received, and 23% of the inquiries Hi Marley looked at weren’t questions at all, but instead comments requesting confirmation of receipt for information submitted to their claim handler. These kinds of requests appeared 244 times in their research, resulting in a total of 823 messages exchanged to satisfy these inquiries.
Based on these numbers, carriers could be well-served to automate confirmation replies when insureds submit documentation or other information relevant to their claim. If this response is generated before a customer has a chance to ask for it, it could potentially cut down conversations by an average of three messages each.
Rental car confusion
Questions about rental cars were also common during the claims process, and of the inquiries they studied, Hi Marley reports the majority (64%) of rental questions were about scheduling, 19% related to rental extensions and 15% related to rental coverage. To lessen time spent fielding these questions, they suggest carriers utilize text message templates that lay out applicable information – like what coverage does and does not pay for, what the scheduling and pickup process looks like and where car vendors are located.
The report explains: “By anticipating these questions and providing pertinent information up front, carriers can proactively address 98 percent of rental-specific inquiries, significantly reducing the number of inbound questions. With text message templates, adjusters no longer need to type out generic responses, saving time and enabling them to focus on high-value claim-handling activities and make more frequent contact with policyholders. And consumers will have all the information they need in one place and can refer to it again in the future.”