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For internal use only. This communication is intended for internal use only and information of NFU Mutual employees, NFU Mutual agents and their employees. It must not be shown to and should not be relied upon by private clients.
NFU MUTUAL TIMES
FREE
South Regional Newsletter, Christmas Edition 2015
Mike Porter, High Net Worth Department Manager:
•
One new claims handler has been recruited from the South CS Claims team.
Product
•
Highest engagement score in South RSC for 2015.
•
•
•
Product enhancements have been made to the policy wording ensuring it comfortably retained its Defaqto 5* status for 2016. A full review of covers and selling points will be carried out in 2016 to ensure Bespoke stays a market leading HNW insurance product. Bespoke rating refinements have been identified where disproportionate loading was being applied to older properties with listed status. This adjustment will be live in IFaces in early 2016. A full review of the HNW claims process is being carried out in 2016.
Technical •
Four members of the Underwriting team have been given significantly more authority in 2015 and additional increases are planned for 2016.
•
Two claims handlers have been given additional authority to handle claims up to £250,000.
•
The referral process to both Head Office and Axa Art has been streamlined, enabling underwriters to turn work around quicker for our Agency partners.
•
The HNW department has had two excellent audits, one internally from NFUM and one externally from Axa Art. Both have resulted in more authority being awarded to the HNW underwriters.
•
Submission workshops for Agency sellers have been rolled out across most regions to help increase technical skills and support agencies improve their Submission Quality and strike rate. Since these have been rolled out the HNW department has seen a considerable increase in the quality of knowledge and skills from our sellers.
People •
Underwriting team has been bolstered with three new underwriters joining us in 2016 from Specialised, Pine Underwriting and Gray’s, bringing additional market knowledge and expertise. An additional underwriting vacancy is also being recruited for.
Ashley Jones, Technical Claims Department Manager:
conclusion with payment in far more than just Frankincense and Myrrh. We can now replace most items like for like.
Tales of great joy I bring this Christmas from the Bristol Claims Teams...
In Technical Claims we have seen a reduction in needless and expensive litigation caused by delay in agreeing the liability decision or the amount we should pay. Less donkey work for all!
If we had to do a census, Technical Claims and Service Claims jointly have 74,673 claims between them, with £240m reserved against them. Claims have reduced by 1266, reserves by £6m over the last six months – that has been a result of a targeted effort of settling claims quicker at the right cost. In Motor there has been a focus on the ‘start’ of the claim; shining out on the right path, ensuring the customer has benefited from our comprehensive offering, establishing liability quickly and managing expectations.
Service claims have maintained the king of all telephone service levels; 90% (for a few months now). We also get customer insight feedback every day praising our Claims service. We all know it’s delivered by a cast of angels within the agency network and here in Bristol! Happy Christmas and Best Wishes for 2016! I look forward to working with you all to deliver the birth of our Centre of Excellence.
In Household and Commercial, we have gifted Gold customer contact and again, aiming to get the claim to a swift
Stay tuned – next month we will be hearing the latest from the Underwriting Department…
The limitation period for bringing any claim is governed by the Limitation Act 1980 and, for a normal personal injury claim, a claimant must commence an action (i.e. commence proceedings) within three years. The proceedings could be the first notification of the incident for an insurer, or they could be issued because the claim has not been resolved within this time period.
two years and four months, after which no claim can be made (the four months is to allow time for court papers to be issued). It should be noted that where the claim involves a minor, the limitation period commences on their 18th birthday so we must wait for three years and four months after this date before we can close our files.
The three year period begins to run on the date the cause of the action accrued (i.e. the date of the accident) or the ‘date of knowledge’ of the person injured, if later. ‘Date of knowledge’ is defined as being the date when a claimant first had knowledge of the following: • •
•
That the injury was significant That the injury was attributable to an act or omission that is alleged to constitute negligence/nuisance/breach of duty The identity of the defendant
An injury is deemed significant if the person whose date of knowledge is in question would reasonably have considered it sufficiently serious to justify their instituting a claim for damages against a defendant. If a court determines that a claimant’s date of knowledge is more than three years prior to the date of issue, then the claim is statute barred (i.e. the claim cannot be made). The court does have the power, however, to allow an action to proceed, notwithstanding it may be outside of the prescribed period, at their discretion and they may consider the following:
It is not unusual for claims departments to receive notification of claims some time after the incident has occurred. Therefore, just because a claim has not been made it does not mean that it never will be. We have also received notification of claims within Bristol Technical Claims which are sent to us along with court papers because limitation has been reached, where we knew nothing about the incident previously.
Conduct of the parties Length and reasons for delay in bringing proceedings The duration of any disability of the claimant after the date their cause of action accrued
You can assist us in the investigation of these claims by ensuring that policyholders report incidences which could give rise to a claim to us as soon as possible. This allows us to investigate the matter fully so that we are best placed to reach a prompt settlement where appropriate, before the need for formal proceedings arises.
If NFU Mutual are aware of a serious injury (reserved at £35,000 +) where we may be liable, even if no claim has been made, we must keep our files open, with a reserve, for
Laura Hewett, Team Leader, Technical Claims
• • •
What should we record?
in Word, then follow the instructions here to copy this into iFaces and Archive it.
You should record any instruction you have taken from a client along with compliance and sales process information as outlined in a bulletin issued on 23/09/2007 entitled ‘Recording Customer Notes and Compliance Checklist’. Remember, if you have included any of this information in your covering letter there is no need to repeat this in the notepad. In cases where workflow actions are generated, there should be no need to repeat any information held in the workflow action in the notepad. Underwriters will record any underwriting decisions or terms applied in a workflow action so there is no need to repeat this in the notepad. Sometimes you may discuss a case which you have referred to the underwriters via workflow action over the telephone. In these cases a record of the telephone conversation can be made by the underwriter in their action description or by the agency staff in the description field when closing the workflow action.
For more information on the use of iFaces in notepad, including what you should record under client and risk sections please refer to this document:
There will be some cases that you discuss with an Underwriter where no workflow action has been created. In these circumstances the underwriter should note any relevant points in relation to the cover in the notepad to ensure the decision and who made it is recorded in iFaces.
You may also find the Notepad Standards document useful. These standards are issued to ensure we are consistent in our approach to using notepad on iFaces in relation to Training & Competence file checks and Delegated Underwriting Authority Audits.
Please do not copy post call letters into the notepad. The post call letter must be stored in documents on iFaces and not in the notepad.
In the New Year you will be receiving training for the new style post call report. More details can be found on Mutualnet.
If you are experiencing issues with the formatting of letters in iFaces, we recommend that you create and print your letter
Sadie Holt, Team Leader, Commercial Team A
Starting on the 1st March 2016, we are applying the increase rate of Insurance Premium Tax (IPT) to our policies, which means that it will look like renewals have increased by more than they actually have by about 5%. All agencies need to take this into account when looking at increases in comparison to last year.
Renewable energy is becoming more and more popular and we are seeing an increase in requests to add solar panels and biomass boilers. When completing your client reviews please ensure you ask whether the client has installed any renewable energy products as they may not realise that they require specific underwriting terms.
Prior to underwriters completing the renewal review for large fleet policies you will receive a request for the up to date vehicle schedule with an accompanying Motor Insurance Database listing. Please provide this information as soon as possible in order that reviews can be completed in good time and please ensure that the vehicle list is up to date and has been verified with the client to minimise the need to rework the renewal if the vehicle list is not correct.
Christmas Market On the 26th November we hosted a market day, where a number of craft sellers offered up their wares. Stalls included ‘Card and Prints’, ‘Decorated Glasses’, ‘Forever Aloe Vera’, and much more. There was also a bring-and-buy sale and a raffle. Altogether, we managed to hit a grand total of £215.54 towards our Guide Dogs fundraising target. Motor & Personal’s Pop-up Gym ‘A Close Shave’ for Key Accounts We’ve had some fantastic team fundraisers this year, and Key Accounts took up the mantle on Friday 13th November with a sponsored head shave for three of their team.
Hot on the heels of Key Accounts’ efforts, M&P set up their fundraising event on the 19th November, holding a number of sports competitions and serving up juice and smoothies to rehydrate our budding athletes.
Harry Watmouth, Andy Muller and Mark Rogers (pictured right, from left to right) agreed to take the chop if we raised £150 for Guide Dogs and Children in Need.
Their event raised £45.65 and was of massive significance for tipping us over the finish line on our Regional target.
We really excelled ourselves with this one, raising over £500!
Why does Santa have three gardens? So he can ‘ho, ho, ho’! What did Santa say to the smoker? Please don’t smoke, it’s bad for my elf! Why are Christmas trees so bad at sewing? They always drop their needles! What do you call Rudolph with lots of snow in his ears? Anything you want, he can’t hear you! What do snowmen eat for lunch? Icebergers! What carol is heard in the desert? O camel ye faithful! What is the best Christmas present in the world? A broken drum, you just can’t beat it!
That’s right – we have raised £5,000 for Guide Dogs this year (and that’s with a month to spare!). A tremendous achievement!
E U M R D S F Z N M S J F E P
A N V I L Y R Y I T N Y Y S S
X A I E N E G S A U O D Q N D
K B I W K C T O M R W K T E V
S G Q C D L E Z L K B R Z C I
H A A R E E J P R E A P C N R
D R N T Q Z L V I Y L S U I D
C I O T N Z W L W E L U N K R
R E K C A R C T U N D C Y N V
H O L L Y B M S X M N N J A P
R U D O L P H J H P A H D R I
J A D S J Y K G X U L E J F E
N I D W E N T Z M N R I W W Z
X I Z N W E C P I O A F E S L
S L O R A C C W G C G M K T K
Carols, Cracker, Frankincense, Garland, Holly, Mince Pie, Mistletoe, Mulled Wine, Nutcracker, Rudolph, Santa, Sleigh, Snowball, Turkey, Yule Log
This is your newsletter! To propose articles you’d like to see, or suggest ways we can improve it, please contact Mark Fitzgerald ([email protected]) or Luke Foster ([email protected]).
NFU MUTUAL TIMES
FREE
South Regional Newsletter, Christmas Edition 2015
Mike Porter, High Net Worth Department Manager:
•
One new claims handler has been recruited from the South CS Claims team.
Product
•
Highest engagement score in South RSC for 2015.
•
•
•
Product enhancements have been made to the policy wording ensuring it comfortably retained its Defaqto 5* status for 2016. A full review of covers and selling points will be carried out in 2016 to ensure Bespoke stays a market leading HNW insurance product. Bespoke rating refinements have been identified where disproportionate loading was being applied to older properties with listed status. This adjustment will be live in IFaces in early 2016. A full review of the HNW claims process is being carried out in 2016.
Technical •
Four members of the Underwriting team have been given significantly more authority in 2015 and additional increases are planned for 2016.
•
Two claims handlers have been given additional authority to handle claims up to £250,000.
•
The referral process to both Head Office and Axa Art has been streamlined, enabling underwriters to turn work around quicker for our Agency partners.
•
The HNW department has had two excellent audits, one internally from NFUM and one externally from Axa Art. Both have resulted in more authority being awarded to the HNW underwriters.
•
Submission workshops for Agency sellers have been rolled out across most regions to help increase technical skills and support agencies improve their Submission Quality and strike rate. Since these have been rolled out the HNW department has seen a considerable increase in the quality of knowledge and skills from our sellers.
People •
Underwriting team has been bolstered with three new underwriters joining us in 2016 from Specialised, Pine Underwriting and Gray’s, bringing additional market knowledge and expertise. An additional underwriting vacancy is also being recruited for.
Ashley Jones, Technical Claims Department Manager:
conclusion with payment in far more than just Frankincense and Myrrh. We can now replace most items like for like.
Tales of great joy I bring this Christmas from the Bristol Claims Teams...
In Technical Claims we have seen a reduction in needless and expensive litigation caused by delay in agreeing the liability decision or the amount we should pay. Less donkey work for all!
If we had to do a census, Technical Claims and Service Claims jointly have 74,673 claims between them, with £240m reserved against them. Claims have reduced by 1266, reserves by £6m over the last six months – that has been a result of a targeted effort of settling claims quicker at the right cost. In Motor there has been a focus on the ‘start’ of the claim; shining out on the right path, ensuring the customer has benefited from our comprehensive offering, establishing liability quickly and managing expectations.
Service claims have maintained the king of all telephone service levels; 90% (for a few months now). We also get customer insight feedback every day praising our Claims service. We all know it’s delivered by a cast of angels within the agency network and here in Bristol! Happy Christmas and Best Wishes for 2016! I look forward to working with you all to deliver the birth of our Centre of Excellence.
In Household and Commercial, we have gifted Gold customer contact and again, aiming to get the claim to a swift
Stay tuned – next month we will be hearing the latest from the Underwriting Department…
The limitation period for bringing any claim is governed by the Limitation Act 1980 and, for a normal personal injury claim, a claimant must commence an action (i.e. commence proceedings) within three years. The proceedings could be the first notification of the incident for an insurer, or they could be issued because the claim has not been resolved within this time period.
two years and four months, after which no claim can be made (the four months is to allow time for court papers to be issued). It should be noted that where the claim involves a minor, the limitation period commences on their 18th birthday so we must wait for three years and four months after this date before we can close our files.
The three year period begins to run on the date the cause of the action accrued (i.e. the date of the accident) or the ‘date of knowledge’ of the person injured, if later. ‘Date of knowledge’ is defined as being the date when a claimant first had knowledge of the following: • •
•
That the injury was significant That the injury was attributable to an act or omission that is alleged to constitute negligence/nuisance/breach of duty The identity of the defendant
An injury is deemed significant if the person whose date of knowledge is in question would reasonably have considered it sufficiently serious to justify their instituting a claim for damages against a defendant. If a court determines that a claimant’s date of knowledge is more than three years prior to the date of issue, then the claim is statute barred (i.e. the claim cannot be made). The court does have the power, however, to allow an action to proceed, notwithstanding it may be outside of the prescribed period, at their discretion and they may consider the following:
It is not unusual for claims departments to receive notification of claims some time after the incident has occurred. Therefore, just because a claim has not been made it does not mean that it never will be. We have also received notification of claims within Bristol Technical Claims which are sent to us along with court papers because limitation has been reached, where we knew nothing about the incident previously.
Conduct of the parties Length and reasons for delay in bringing proceedings The duration of any disability of the claimant after the date their cause of action accrued
You can assist us in the investigation of these claims by ensuring that policyholders report incidences which could give rise to a claim to us as soon as possible. This allows us to investigate the matter fully so that we are best placed to reach a prompt settlement where appropriate, before the need for formal proceedings arises.
If NFU Mutual are aware of a serious injury (reserved at £35,000 +) where we may be liable, even if no claim has been made, we must keep our files open, with a reserve, for
Laura Hewett, Team Leader, Technical Claims
• • •
What should we record?
in Word, then follow the instructions here to copy this into iFaces and Archive it.
You should record any instruction you have taken from a client along with compliance and sales process information as outlined in a bulletin issued on 23/09/2007 entitled ‘Recording Customer Notes and Compliance Checklist’. Remember, if you have included any of this information in your covering letter there is no need to repeat this in the notepad. In cases where workflow actions are generated, there should be no need to repeat any information held in the workflow action in the notepad. Underwriters will record any underwriting decisions or terms applied in a workflow action so there is no need to repeat this in the notepad. Sometimes you may discuss a case which you have referred to the underwriters via workflow action over the telephone. In these cases a record of the telephone conversation can be made by the underwriter in their action description or by the agency staff in the description field when closing the workflow action.
For more information on the use of iFaces in notepad, including what you should record under client and risk sections please refer to this document:
There will be some cases that you discuss with an Underwriter where no workflow action has been created. In these circumstances the underwriter should note any relevant points in relation to the cover in the notepad to ensure the decision and who made it is recorded in iFaces.
You may also find the Notepad Standards document useful. These standards are issued to ensure we are consistent in our approach to using notepad on iFaces in relation to Training & Competence file checks and Delegated Underwriting Authority Audits.
Please do not copy post call letters into the notepad. The post call letter must be stored in documents on iFaces and not in the notepad.
In the New Year you will be receiving training for the new style post call report. More details can be found on Mutualnet.
If you are experiencing issues with the formatting of letters in iFaces, we recommend that you create and print your letter
Sadie Holt, Team Leader, Commercial Team A
Starting on the 1st March 2016, we are applying the increase rate of Insurance Premium Tax (IPT) to our policies, which means that it will look like renewals have increased by more than they actually have by about 5%. All agencies need to take this into account when looking at increases in comparison to last year.
Renewable energy is becoming more and more popular and we are seeing an increase in requests to add solar panels and biomass boilers. When completing your client reviews please ensure you ask whether the client has installed any renewable energy products as they may not realise that they require specific underwriting terms.
Prior to underwriters completing the renewal review for large fleet policies you will receive a request for the up to date vehicle schedule with an accompanying Motor Insurance Database listing. Please provide this information as soon as possible in order that reviews can be completed in good time and please ensure that the vehicle list is up to date and has been verified with the client to minimise the need to rework the renewal if the vehicle list is not correct.
Christmas Market On the 26th November we hosted a market day, where a number of craft sellers offered up their wares. Stalls included ‘Card and Prints’, ‘Decorated Glasses’, ‘Forever Aloe Vera’, and much more. There was also a bring-and-buy sale and a raffle. Altogether, we managed to hit a grand total of £215.54 towards our Guide Dogs fundraising target. Motor & Personal’s Pop-up Gym ‘A Close Shave’ for Key Accounts We’ve had some fantastic team fundraisers this year, and Key Accounts took up the mantle on Friday 13th November with a sponsored head shave for three of their team.
Hot on the heels of Key Accounts’ efforts, M&P set up their fundraising event on the 19th November, holding a number of sports competitions and serving up juice and smoothies to rehydrate our budding athletes.
Harry Watmouth, Andy Muller and Mark Rogers (pictured right, from left to right) agreed to take the chop if we raised £150 for Guide Dogs and Children in Need.
Their event raised £45.65 and was of massive significance for tipping us over the finish line on our Regional target.
We really excelled ourselves with this one, raising over £500!
Why does Santa have three gardens? So he can ‘ho, ho, ho’! What did Santa say to the smoker? Please don’t smoke, it’s bad for my elf! Why are Christmas trees so bad at sewing? They always drop their needles! What do you call Rudolph with lots of snow in his ears? Anything you want, he can’t hear you! What do snowmen eat for lunch? Icebergers! What carol is heard in the desert? O camel ye faithful! What is the best Christmas present in the world? A broken drum, you just can’t beat it!
That’s right – we have raised £5,000 for Guide Dogs this year (and that’s with a month to spare!). A tremendous achievement!
E U M R D S F Z N M S J F E P
A N V I L Y R Y I T N Y Y S S
X A I E N E G S A U O D Q N D
K B I W K C T O M R W K T E V
S G Q C D L E Z L K B R Z C I
H A A R E E J P R E A P C N R
D R N T Q Z L V I Y L S U I D
C I O T N Z W L W E L U N K R
R E K C A R C T U N D C Y N V
H O L L Y B M S X M N N J A P
R U D O L P H J H P A H D R I
J A D S J Y K G X U L E J F E
N I D W E N T Z M N R I W W Z
X I Z N W E C P I O A F E S L
S L O R A C C W G C G M K T K
Carols, Cracker, Frankincense, Garland, Holly, Mince Pie, Mistletoe, Mulled Wine, Nutcracker, Rudolph, Santa, Sleigh, Snowball, Turkey, Yule Log
This is your newsletter! To propose articles you’d like to see, or suggest ways we can improve it, please contact Mark Fitzgerald ([email protected]) or Luke Foster ([email protected]).
