Improving Claim Satisfaction: A Case Study

TRC

A case study on applying full-service market research to help an insurance company improve their client satisfaction with claim handling.

Background
A major insurance company was interested in improving client satisfaction with their claim handling operations. As a large company, they had substantial claim operations and a comprehensive effort was required in order to make significant improvements. TRC designed a complete satisfaction measurement and analysis system that has helped the client obtain tangible improvements in key metrics. This system included qualitative, quantitative tracking and advanced statistical analysis components.

The process began with a series of focus groups among risk and insurance managers drawn mainly from the clients’ largest commercial customers. The objective of the focus groups was to understand the basic issues and problems experienced by the managers in their dealings with the clients’ claims department. Using this qualitative approach upfront provided us with a good understanding of the spectrum of problems experienced by the managers.

Results from the focus groups were synthesized to develop a quantitative survey instrument that covered all aspects of the claims process. This survey was then administered, by phone, to a large representative sample of claims managers drawn from the client’s database. Conducted annually for the last several years, this survey provides a reliable, quantitative view of the entire claims process. Advanced statistical analysis, using TRC’s proprietary analytical technique Satiscan ^TM, helped to identify key drivers of satisfaction and to prioritize improvement opportunities.

The second major quantitative component was transactional in nature. Our client had dozens of claims centers in different regions of the country catering to different lines of business. While the annual telephone study provided overall guidance on improving the claims process, specific recommendations for improving the performance of individual centers required an understanding of the problems that arose on specific claims. In order to accomplish this we designed a transactional study.

We started by drawing a large representative sample of managers who had recent transactions. They were invited by letter to visit a dedicated website and complete a web survey on their recent transactional experience. Follow-up postcards were also used to increase the response rate to this study. This study was conducted on a quarterly basis with sufficiently large sample sizes to provide the client with reliable feedback at the individual claims center level. Individual key drivers identified from the phone study were also tracked in this study thus providing the client with continuous feedback on their performance on these important measures.

Results
Our client tells us that this measurement process has given them exactly the information they need to manage the claims offices’ performance. Two different groups—claims office managers and product line managers—use the survey results to coach claims personnel on the key drivers where they need to improve performance.

As one would expect in an organization this large, at the claims office level performance moves up and down. But managing using the survey results has helped our client produce marked improvement overall. While improvements were seen in many important areas, one is reported here in detail.

In the first full quarterly transaction survey conducted a few years ago, 40% of the claims handlers rated their reaction to our client’s overall performance “very satisfied,” and 40% rated it “satisfied,” a top-two box total of 80%. At the other end of the scale, 2.5% were “dissatisfied” and 4.5% were “very dissatisfied” for a bottom-two box score of 7%. In the latest wave, 52.% were “very satisfied,” and 34% were “satisfied” (for a top-two-box total of 86%), while only 4% were “dissatisfied” or were “very dissatisfied.”

While there are improvements to be seen at both ends of the scale, our clients’ greatest success has been in reducing the number of customers dissatisfied with the claims process. Claims processing by its very nature will not lend itself to complete satisfaction. Given that, reducing the dissatisfaction to the minimum possible level is an important goal, especially if it can be accomplished by training the personnel to handle claims appropriately. The recommendations we made have helped our client do precisely that, and as a result, the study continues to be seen by our client as a very successful use of research for reaching business goals.

This case study was provided by TRC, a full-service market research provider located in Fort Washington, PA.

[Dec 07, 2009]