In light of the recent revisals to the Ogden tables – the tables used to calculate future losses in personal injury and fatal accident cases – the changes have been an unwelcome strain on the transport sector to say the least. Such implementations will see sectors most likely to submit a claim involving serious injury or fatalities hit harder than others.

As a result, insurance companies are now looking at transport operators to utilise systems which minimise their overall risk. Any technology which offers reduced incident reporting time whilst providing the insurance company or broker with the necessary information to start processing the claim as quickly as possible, will help achieve this.

For all sorts of different reasons, it turns out that it can often take a long time for commercial insurance claims to be reported, never mind resolved. FACTS got talking about this to Alan Ruthven, Director at GS Group, a specialist commercial and transport insurance brokerage which is one of the leading exponents of new ideas and new technologies in the insurance broking business.

“GS Group constantly look to manage claims as quickly and as effectively as possible, while also always seeking to work with customers to find ways to reduce the number and value of claims they make in order to manage their premiums down rather than up. And we are also a technology led company, always looking at how we can harness new systems and new ideas to solve old problems. That is where our new Incident Claims App comes from. We listened to a customer and the problems they were facing and an idea was born.”

Alan was kind enough to step us through the App and the ideas behind it. The concept is actually very simple. In the commercial motor fleet arena it is not uncommon for there to be very significant delays between an incident occurring and an insurance claim being made. There seem to be many different factors behind this kind of delay, but the obvious result is that incidents are more difficult to clear-up because it is no longer possible to work out exactly what happened, or to find witnesses, or to prove things one way or another. This simply causes more delay and therefore also more expense, and the cost of the claim spirals ever upwards.

The new GS Incident Claims App is a great way of speeding up every aspect of the reporting process, including the capture of all relevant data, on the spot; and the immediate submission of that information to both the claims-desk at GS Group and to the Fleet Manager at the home depot.

GS Group have been piloting this new idea for the last few months and the level of user acceptance has been fantastic. They are now rolling the product out, working with their customers to explain the benefits of the idea and how it works.

The idea is for the customer to get all their drivers to download the App to their smart-phone or tablet. Once they have done that they simply open the App, type in their own details and save pictures of their driving licence, and they are ready to go.

From then on, any time they experience a possible claims incident on the road, they simply open up the App and step through a logical sequence of steps, including initial simple reminders:

• Stop at the scene, make sure everything and everyone is safe.
• Check if anyone needs the emergency services to attend.
• Look for witnesses.
• Capture as much information as you can.
• Don’t admit fault or liability. Once the situation is safe and stable, the driver then goes through a 10 point sequence.
• Everything can be captured using the phone or tablet including photographs and recordings, and all the data can be easily typed into the App.
• On completion, the driver can hit the ‘SUBMIT REPORT’ button and all the information will be instantaneously downloaded and the claim management process can begin.

Alan Ruthven described the reaction to the new App: “The great thing about the Incident Claims App is that it is easy and free to download, and the initial set-up with the driver’s details takes a matter of a few minutes. After that it just sits there on the phone, tucked away out of sight until such time as an incident occurs.

“The driver will have been trained on the use of the App, and instructed to access it as soon as he or she has made sure everything is safe. But even if they forget, as soon as they phone the head office to report in, they will remind the driver to open up the App and capture everything they can.

“To do that they simply step through the stages as they appear, putting in all the information they can before hitting the submit button which automatically down-loads everything. Right now it all comes to the GS claims desk, including detailed GPS data and other ‘scene captured’ evidence that will help an insurer defend a claim. Tie this in with telematics data and camera footage and we have a powerful tool on the side of the GS Group insured driver.”

“And that’s the key thing. The customers we have trialled this with absolutely love it, because it is pretty much fool proof. But we have also shown it to several of our cover providers and they love it too. They believe that it could significantly reduce the cost of many claims, potentially by as much as £2000 and around £500 on average, and have already indicated that they might be willing to cut premiums for any customer who implements the App as a fleet standard – once again helping GS Group to help our customers.

“One last thing. This App is aimed at commercial fleets, but we have already thought of many other areas in which the same principle can be applied, and are looking at how the Incident Claims App can be enhanced specifically to suit fleets with specific needs.

“We will be discussing the App with all our fleet customers over the next few months, but anyone out there who is interested in looking at how the App could help them save time and money, should simply get in contact with us here at GS Group. We will be very happy to talk to them.”

View the article online on Pages 20 & 21 of FACTS magazine.