Where the rubber hits the road

How technology can put claims management efficiencies into practice.

According to figures from global accountancy firm EY, the UK motor insurance market achieved an underwriting profit in 2021. Post-pandemic factors - less commuting and the increase in working from home, resulted in fewer motor insurance claims. It recorded a Net Combined Ratio (NCR) of 96.6% which was a rise on an NCR of 90.3% in 2020.

In 2022/23 things look like they will be very different. The last couple of years of supply chain issues, the pandemic hangover and now rising inflation increasing the cost of materials, labour and energy prices has created a perfect storm of significant strategic and operational challenges. Motor insurers are looking for ways to reduce costs, be more efficient, win and retain more customers improving their customer journey, and to face down the rise in fraud due to the cost-of-living crisis.

Here we consider how best motor insurers can meet some of the macro challenges to help them remain competitive and deliver an excellent customer journey in challenging times.

Watertight information capture reduces fraud in claims management

History has proven that when our cost of living is squeezed, the UK sees a large increase in insurance fraud right across the board. According to the Association of British Insurers (ABI), the recession of 2008 witnessed 107,200 false insurance claims worth £730 million – a 17% increase on the previous year. But things have changed significantly since the recession of 2008, advances in technology are playing a much greater part in how we can reduce fraud in claims management.

Embedding media evidence into the claims ecosystem is one way insurers are reducing fraud. It's estimated the global population takes approximately 1.4 trillion digital images and video footage per annum – we’ve never been more equipped to do so on devices including dashcams, video doorbells, drones and smart devices. That’s a lot of digital imagery, and all of it can be easily ingested in any digital format (over 40 types of them) into the claims process. Moreover, saving the footage doesn’t have to be cost or storage hungry either with the ability to compress the data by 100 times, it’s possible to reduce storage costs and provide simple upload links for consumers.