RSA sets sights on liability and bodily injury business

Royal & Sun Alliance (RSA) has earmarked liability and bodily injury claims for the next phase of its claims business overhaul.

Rod Kitchen, UK claims director, RSA, said he hoped to introduce a "radical programme" for liability and bodily injury with pilots expected early in the new year.

He said: "This is a key area for all companies as the spends on ongoing costs are higher than payments to the party.

"We need to be more proactive with these claims and to move from being a claims settling company to an incident management company."

The insurer recently unveiled a two year plan to reorganise and refocus its claims business to offer a faster, more responsive claims service to brokers and customers that would also enable the insurer to better cope with downturns in the market cycle.

Mr Kitchen explained: "When Andy Haste took over as group chief executive, he wanted to ensure we could live in poorer market conditions. When you consider that claims constitutes 65-70% of our spend, any improvement in claims will make a big contribution to profitability throughout the cycle.

"We had a pretty good claims business but there were lots of flaws we identified that we could improve rapidly, such as outdated legacy systems and an inconsistent process."

As part of this initiative the company has launched a supply chain network, using a similar model already deployed in its personal lines business.

The network will be used to manage commercial property claims from the moment they are reported through to the work being completed. RSA will assess the claim, appoint the contractor, oversee the work and organise replacement goods and services.

According to Mr Kitchen, this system will help the insurer reach its target of cutting claims settlement times by half within three years, providing a better service for brokers and customers.

The insurer is also in the process of restructuring its claims business to provide greater focus. It is narrowing down from 23 locations to 12, with specific claims groups handled out of just two claims centres rather than in multiple locations.

'Rapid response' teams have been set up to handle first notification for the "vast majority" of claims. The teams will be organised by claims class so that each notification goes straight to someone who specialises in that specific type of claim.

'Non express' claims will be routed directly to either a new 'Core Claims' team, or to specialist or 'Large Claims' team. The new Core Claims teams are organised by claims, class and complexity, so that each 'non-express claim' can be routed quickly through to a team with the right skill set who will then handle it through to completion.

Go to page 36 to find out more about RSA's new claims system.