A day in the life of a Keoghs’ case handler

As the team leader of one of our pre-proceedings credit hire team­­­­­, whenever I review our monthly performance, I also take time to reflect on how I have negotiated and settled credit hire claims to see if there are similarities in approach, problems and/or issues, that we can learn from.

The frictional nature of some of the discussions are certainly similar, as is, perhaps surprisingly, the length of time we spend chasing agreements with CHOs who are often reluctant to even answer the phone, let alone resolve any potential disagreements. In addition, although thankfully to a much lesser degree, we also seem to spend a lot of time on the other side of the fence, chasing third party insurers for their input.

Despite Keoghs currently having an 80% settlement rate inside of 30 days of payment pack, my handlers regularly tell me that they could settle quicker if they spent less time listening to music played to them whilst on hold and more time resolving contentious issues.

It is ironic that CHOs tell us of the problems they face from insurers. I therefore find myself questioning whether the same points still cause delays in settlement and what, if anything, has changed or improved. With this in mind, I tasked one of my handlers, Adam, with providing an overview of what he sees as being the main issues and barriers to settlement; what we can do further to improve; and whether, over time and in what circumstances, he has seen any evidence of CHOs becoming more willing to engage.

Looking over Adam’s actions in the course of a single day I came, logically in my view, to the assumption that this is a market which has failed to find the solution to problems that may be of its own making. CHOs often complain that insurers and / or their representatives are inadequately resourced to deal with their claims and that they have no interest in settling claims within 30 days.

As the graphic shows however, over the course of just one day in our volume operational team (40 handlers), we often lose up to 30 hours over and above an expected hold time (five minutes) just waiting to discuss settlement. This is an operational challenge in itself, which ultimately inflates costs for all sides, but how many claims could we pay in that time? The solution - which I hear often - could be a Credit Hire Portal.

Having experienced similar software previously I am all too aware that tools such as these sometimes do little to reduce the frictional issues of credit hire that continue to persist – particularly over rates and duration. However, removing the personal interactions at claims handler level would only serve to increase the distance between the CHO and the paying party, at a time when this is often the only relationship which exists between them.

No doubt some would see this as a positive, but at Keoghs we have found that our approach works pretty well - our litigation rate is less than 1.5%. Indeed, we dual monitor each claim just as a CHO would - ensuring that we have most of the information we want at the point the invoice arrives to pay it. This means that we often know more about the lifecycle of their claims than CHOs do.

Although using a portal is perhaps a more efficient approach than a team of 40 spending 30 hours a day on hold (although they are all now extremely skilled multi taskers!) the fact is CHOs have to be called because contentious points need to be discussed. I am not convinced that a portal will fix this and it may even hinder them. Negotiation is defined as a, “discussion aimed at reaching an agreement,” so surely that discussion becomes far more difficult if undertaken through a computer screen.

I would say to CHOs that place ourselves and insurers on hold for 15 mins and more (before we even discuss a claim) that they are equally culpable for claims not settling as quickly as they could and should be. Being on hold when a claim is capable of settlement is frustrating for all so the final message to all CHOs and third party insurer teams is to please check your telephony timings and if possible improve them for the benefit of all.