At the top of chief claim officers’ minds are the soft business environment, workforce issues and technology challenges, according to a new survey conducted by
While expectations are not dwindling in the face of these challenges, respondents also complained that they are being given fewer resources to accomplish performance goals. According to the report, “claim officers believe they have the authority to make a difference, but not necessarily the range and depth of resources” to do so.
This heavily impacts claims officer’s greatest business differentiator: customer service. Consistently viewed as a top priority based on its ability to distinguish a company’s claims services from competitors, workforce reduction has proven damaging yet again. To sidestep this detrimental trend, technology—in the form of electronic communication and processes—is being looked to as a bridge for the gap left by dwindling resources.
Organizational flexibility/agility and workforce management, accordingly, were given as claim officer’s top focus and challenge, respectively. Workforce management (77 percent) easily outpaced other claim-related challenges cited—technology innovation (54 percent) and financial results (48 percent)—by a healthy margin. As far as focal points cited most frequently as necessary for achieving workforce success, following flexibility and agility (71 percent) were developing and attracting critical-skill workers (67 percent) and employee morale/engagement (60 percent).
While those focal points appear to be neck-and-neck, the data paints a picture of disparity when taking company size into account. Flexibility and agility were cited by 80 percent of midsize-to-large firms, compared to only 40 percent of small firms, which are much more concerned with ascertaining critical-skill workers.
Top business concerns among claim officers, on the other hand, come from pressures to contribute to overall performance; listed most frequently as a concern was profitability and return on equity (71 percent), followed by top-line growth (63 percent) and competitive environment (52 percent).
This is Towers Watson’s sixth installment of the “Property & Casualty Claim Officer Survey.” Forty-eight chief claim officers participated in the survey, and a wide variety of size and business focus (commercial versus personal) was included—with the weight of the respondents being on the smaller end, and engaging heavily to completely in commercial lines of business.
