Airmic to publish best practice guide for commercial insurance buyers.
Airmic is set to name and shame insurers who fail to pay claims with the first comprehensive claims performance index, due to go live next year.
The risk managers’ association is also set to publish a claims best practice guide for commercial insurance buyers ahead of next year’s launch.
At the Airmic conference in Edinburgh this week, the association said the index, dubbed a ‘willingness to pay’ index, will have two key elements: an audit of insurers’ claims capabilities, using the guide as a benchmark; and an assessment of client experiences of claims services.
It said the index would be qualitative and would not assign scores, but the trade body would express an opinion on whether or not
a company’s claims operation met minimum requirements.
All seven of Airmic’s insurance partners have agreed in principle to support the proposed outline.
The trade body said it would approach other insurers later in the process.
The claims best practice guide, which should be completed by the end of this year, will describe what to look for in evaluating an insurer’s claims service.
Airmic technical director Paul Hopkin said: “Ultimately it will be for the individual buyer to assess each insurer in light of the organisation’s requirements.
“We decided that a conventional league table benchmarking exercise would be exceedingly difficult to administer and would inevitably over-simplify matters.”
Hopkins added: “An insurer that meets the needs of one buyer admirably may not be right for another. There’s no substitute for human judgment, but this index should ensure that it is very well informed.”
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