Claims management still needs a human touch and should not be replaced by technology, according to Asteron Life EM Claims Neil Borthwick.

“The person making the claim is suffering both physiologically and with physical pain,” he told the Financial Services Council Life Insurance Conference in Sydney last week

“And now they are going to deal with a life company, and if we are going to build a better level of service we will have to empathise with them.”

Mr Borthwick says he accepts case managers deal with hard claims and as a result can become cynical of the facts in front of them.

“We have to be positive when dealing with claims, and that means we need to find the right people,” he said.

“In the past we have hired technical people to deal with claims, but now we want people capable of engaging with clients.

“Technology has enabled shortcuts to be made, but it can have an adverse effect on the claims process.

“It is more important we get the triage right and leave the case manager to find out what is really going on with the claim.”

Mr Borthwick says the triage process should look at what incremental changes can result in the claim being extended.

“We want to stop people having an extended claim. If we do that we will save millions of dollars.”

He says the fact that life insurance claims tend to be in smaller numbers than general insurance means the life insurer can take more time managing the claim.

“If we focus on operational efficiency, we will have more time to understand the claim,” he said.

“But we do have to spend more time and money training our claims staff to handle the process properly.”