A number of years ago, Eaco Systems was approached by organisations in the general insurance industry that were looking to:

  • Investigate the operational application of a ‘direct engagement’ model that would:
  • Improve speed of claim resolution
  • Improve customer satisfaction
  • Reduce the cost of claim, and
  • Reduce the number of ‘clips of the ticket’ in any single claim
  • Create a Collaborative Online Claims Management System to bring together all parties related to an insurance claim including: the Consumer, the Staff of the Insurance Company, Assessors, Suppliers and Sub-Contractors;
  • Reduce the costs associated with insurance claims, particularly small claims; and
  • Create a scalable network of quality suppliers for times when insurance claims increase in the event of a catastrophe.

Key Challenges

The key challenges for the general insurance companies were:

  • Maintaining positive brand experience and expectations of high quality work and service.
  • Ensuring the upholding of all Compliance Standards.
  • Maintaining clear and current communications between all Stakeholders of each Claim.
  • Creating and Managing a national network of high quality independent contractors.
  • Distributing Work to Independent Contractors and Managing to Completion.
  • Impressing Customers with Phenomenal Customer Service, Quality and Safety.
  • Managing the Supplier Invoices and Payments for thousands of jobs per month.
  • Maintaining Transparency for the Insurance Company throughout the entire Claim process.

Result

A Trial Program, limited to 300 general trade claims (<$2,000) was established. To overcome the challenges, the team at Eaco configured and customised the Eaco Software Suite to provide a Claims Management System that (over the period of the trial program) delivered significant savings of 13% of the overall cost of a claim on the insurer's Claims Management process.

This result was achieved whilst simultaneously maintaining the brand and reputation of the Insurer.

Where the Savings Came From

Predominantly the savings came from two areas

  1. Going directly to the trades and eliminating (or partially eliminating) usual players such as Builders, Loss Adjusters and assessors, and
  2. Streamlining the Administration tasks, including information capture, information processing and reporting

In the following section, we outline a long list of the solutions used in the design of the Insurance Claims Management System, which demonstrates the extensive nature of the Eaco System's capabilities. The power of these capabilities enabled a confluence of efficiencies, which led to the vast savings being achieved as a result of:

  • Reduced costs associated with managing repairs of a claim by going directly to the frontline tradespeople undertaking the repairs.
  • Enabling all stakeholders (Claimants, Assessors, Insurance Builders, Tradespeople, etc) to refer to the Eaco System at any time for an update on the status and progress of each Claim. This ultimately reduced the need for dedicating human resources to tackle large volumes of inbound and outbound calls.
  • Reducing the administration related to the processing of Supplier Invoices and Payments.

Solutions Implemented

We worked with the insurance industry to customise and configure a number of Eaco's tried and trusted solutions in a way that embraces the use of technology in a unique collaborative and self-service approach.

Eaco's Control Centre was used to create a Collaborative Works Management Platform where all Stakeholders could log into their respective Portals and view the latest updates in regards to each Claim. Stakeholders were granted permissions, which were set in accordance with their role in the Claim, meaning they could only view and update all information relevant to them.

The Stakeholders provided with a Portal included:

  • Insurance Company Staff
  • Claimant (Consumer making the claim)
  • Assessors (where relevant)
  • Insurance Builders (where relevant)
  • Tradespeople making the repairs
  • Sub-Contractors (where relevant)

Eaco's National Contractor Management Solution  was used to create and manage a Network of Tradespeople based on upholding an insurer's need to maintain compliance standards and delivery of high quality work and service. Furthermore, this solution created a platform where the tradespeople could manage claims directly on behalf of the insurer.

Eaco's Automated Job Distribution and Tracking Solution was used to distribute Insurance Claims to the preferred tradespeople based on a customised Job Matching algorithm programmed to take into account a broad array of factors such as:

  • Type of Service(s) required
  • Licences and Insurances required
  • Inductions completed
  • Location - Live Location or Pre-Determined
  • Pricing
  • Availability
  • Reputation

Eaco's Job Safety and Quality Management System was used to ensure that the exact Job Safety and Quality Management requirements for each Claim were met. The insurers were able to establish the specific process to be followed and the information that needed to be collected, including:

  • Job Safety Analysis
  • Pre-Work Checklists
  • Situation Analysis
  • Photos
  • Customer Sign-Off
  • Etc.

Eaco's Supplier Invoice and Payment Management System was used to streamline the significant amount of back-office work involved with managing invoices and payments to Suppliers. In particular, this solution helped save significant administrative burdens, by:

  • Creating a Template for a standard Schedule of Rates for all contractors within an organisation's supplier network;
  • Creating customised Schedule of Rates for specific contractors within the supplier network that have agreed to alternative rates;
  • Automatically tracking the details of the works undertaken (type of work, travel distance, work duration, completion certificate, status, etc);
  • Automatically creating invoices on behalf of the suppliers and providing them to the organisation that hired them;
  • Automatically flagging supplier invoices that are outside the parameters of pre-agreed rates;
  • Organising the supplier invoices and listing them for approval; and
  • Facilitating the importing of approved supplier invoices into accounting systems.

Eaco Software Suite

The comprehensive solution for the Insurance Claims Management case involved using the full suite of Eaco's Software, particularly:

Eaco's Control Centre configured with relevant permissions for:

  • Insurance Company Claims Management Portal
  • Suppliers/Tradespeople for Supplier Portal
  • Consumer Portal

Eaco's FieldWorker App for the frontline management of Claims on site.

Call Eaco Today to discuss your Insurance Supplier Management needs

To commence a discussion about your particular supplier management needs in the insurance industry pick up the phone and call us today on 1300 739 814. Alternatively, you can email the Eaco team at support@eaco.me

Looking forward to seeing how we can work with you to help in the very near future.  

#claimsmanagedwell

Case StudiesIndustriesSupplier Networkssupplier managementinsuranceinsurance supplier management