Read on to learn about the challenges facing insurance managers. Alarm’s 2017 Professional of the Year, A2Dominion Group’s Insurance Manager, Mark Gilbert, discusses the challenges he faces running the insurance department today and how he is working towards overcoming them.
Obtaining competitive insurance cover
A key objective for any insurance manager is to source and secure suitable and competitive insurance cover. With many insurance managers having to work to tighter budgets and report cost savings, gaining competitive insurance cover is high on the agenda.
How to get the most competitive insurance cover?
Understand your requirements
You need to have a clear understanding of what you need cover for. Keeping asset registers up to date is essential to ensure you are not covering assets that are no longer relevant and any new assets have sufficient cover too.
Clear insurance claim history
Claim history is vital. With historic claim data you will have key information to supply your insurance provider around the number of claims, the value of claims and the type of claims that have been made against your organisation. This is critical when determining the amount of cover that is required and understanding your claims history is a useful tool in assisting premium negotiations.
Reduce claim volumes
If you can reduce the number of claims you receive, you will be in a better position to get the most competitive insurance cover. Having clear insight into claim trends will allow for training and prevention methods to be instigated and in turn should reduce the number of claims submitted thus reducing premiums.
Using JCAD’s Claims handing system, LACHS, Mark Gilbert says ‘˜I have been able to save £725,000 on A2Dominion’s insurance premiums since 2014. The system very quickly and easily provides accurate reporting and A2Dominion also benefits from the system’s Asset register to ensure that we have comprehensive cover for our assets.’
Ensuring availability of insurance cover at the right level
The amount of cover required for certain areas is influenced by previous claims and events. Insurers can adjust the value of cover they are willing to provide. Mark Gilbert said: ‘˜After the tragic Grenfell incident, getting sufficient insurance cover for Directors and officers liability proved difficult compared to previous years. With some insurers reducing cover we had to use multiple insurance providers to ensure A2Dominion maintained its level of cover.’
Using JCAD LACHS for insurance management allows you to clearly see what cover you have and the reporting functionality allows for greater insight into claim trends allowing for informed negotiation with the insurance provider.
Engaging all employees in risk management
Risk management is a job for every employee. With the correct education and communication, everyone can work together to help improve the management and mitigation of risk. In turn this will help to reduce claim volumes and therefore your insurance premiums.
Mark Gilbert from A2Dominion Group says ‘˜we will be ensuring communication levels across the business continue to rise. With the easy reporting functionality in LACHS we can provide trend analysis to staff and provide relevant training to assist with any problem areas that show repeat claims. We also aim to communicate the outcome of claims to individuals who highlighted an issue or dealt with a case. We hope that this improved visibility will encourage greater involvement in managing and mitigating risks.’
If you would like to know more about JCAD’s claims handling solution, LACHS, please visit: www.jcad.co.uk or call 01730 712027.
About A2Dominion
A2Dominion is a residential property group with almost 37,000 homes across London and southern England, and thousands more in the development pipeline.
It provides affordable, private and social rented homes, student, NHS and temporary accommodation, as well as supported housing and homes for older people.
