News/Announcements Are Your Cats Out Of Control? Tame the beasts early and you’ll have them purring in no time... By Thomas Brown - Featured in Claims Magazine, January 2007 Adjusting a catastrophe loss is not that different from any other loss, in terms of the adjustment process itself. The basics are the same: contact, inspect, scope, estimate, adjust, and report. So what makes catastrophe claims so difficult to handle? One word - VOLUME... Managing the massive volume of claims produced by catastrophes requires a specialized approach. Using daily claim procedures and systems to run a cat operation will create a situation that fails from the outset. Flawed processes quickly snowball into a massive mess of mistakes and mishaps that cripple the claims operation to a degree that is usually impossible to overcome. Enter the angry insured... Inefficient operations cause unwelcome delays, wasted man-power, and unnecessary expense, all of which create unhappy insureds. Unmet expectations of anxious claimants add pressure to a boiling pot of frustration in the poorly-managed cat operation. When a claimant feels neglected, he picks up the phone, usually calling his agent first. Then agent calls carrier, carrier calls IA firm, and IA firm calls the adjuster - the cycle begins. If the situation is not quelled, the calls continue, next time around to public adjusters, attorneys, and finally the DOI. Before long, claim handlers are spending a major portion of their time responding to complaints, rather than adjusting claims, creating a perpetual cycle that plagues the operation through the bitter end. Can the cycle be avoided? Yes, by establishing immediate contact with insureds, so they know their claim is being handled. Sounds easy, but the volume of claims produced by catastrophes makes timely contact a real challenge. Burdening field adjusters with this task, when claims are often stale before hitting the adjusters’ hands, is not only unfair, but a sure way to doom your operations from Day 1. Claim managers must rethink the way catastrophe claims are handled and understand that daily claim processes won’t work when dealing with large volumes. Effective catastrophe management requires smart uses of technology to replace inefficient manual tasks, and it all begins with a specialized Claims Management System. ClickClaims CMS is a Web-based application designed specifically for high volume claim operations. With over 50 features and modules, ClickClaims CMS manages not only your claims, but also your business operations, including HR, accounting, and client management. Below are two key features that will ensure that your cat operation gets off to a smooth start, and cause insureds to smile instead of complain. Claim Intake and Transfer - automating claim file intake eliminates the bottleneck of claims transfer by automating the processing of up to 100,000 claims/day. Claims can be transmitted via file upload, email, or fax, direct to the CMS application, with no human interaction, no systems integration, and no changes to the normal transmission process by the originating party. Integrated Electronic Call Center - with an unlimited capacity, CMS can contact any number of insureds within hours of claim setup. Our multi-lingual system calls at specified times and auto-documents the claim log. Customizable campaigns query the answering party for identity information and solicit answers to questions pertaining to their loss, such as: did flood water enter your home, is the building exposed to the elements, are you able to live in your home, etc. Responses are auto-recorded into ClickClaims CMS, where all parties can run reports to assess needs and effectively allocate and deploy resources, based on real-time information. ClickClaims CMS is a comprehensive application that allows claim managers to proactively manage any number of claims, while saving time, money, and headaches. As a true Web application, users have no hardware or software to manage. The application can be deployed in under 24 hours, to any number of adjusters, with no dedicated training required - it's that simple. Keeping the customer happy is the key to successful claims management, and ClickClaims makes it possible, even under the worst of circumstances. These valuable, cutting-edge features earned ClickClaims CMS the 2006 A.M. Best E-Fusion Insurance and Technology Award, in the category of Claims Management. To schedule a demo, please contact: Thomas J. Brown President, E-Claim.com, LLC Company Website: www.E-Claim.com Product Website: www.ClickClaims.com