ILC ARTICLE

Davies director highlights rising risks

9th January 2023

Climate change, a skills shortage, and rising fraud have been identified as the three key challenges facing the property claims sector.

Andy Dakin, Director, Strategic Accounts, Davies, believes that all three issues are going to stress the industry in the coming 12 months, but believes data and technology can help organisations minimise their impact.

In terms of climate change, he warned that both the severity and frequency of extreme weather events are going to put intense pressure on claims departments in the next year.

He said, “We have recently seen one of the driest and warmest summers since records began, which impacts us enormously in the claims market, and increases costs exponentially, with increased subsidence claims and wide scale flooding once the rain does arrive. This challenge will remain prevalent and impact the availability of labour, as professionals will leave the industry in search of consistent workloads causing a real inter-dependency of challenges.”

He said insurers need to establish a surge plan that includes effective triage while automating as many administrative functions as possible to free up claims handlers.

Meanwhile, Andy has also encouraged business leaders to embrace apprenticeships to tackle a growing lack of skills and future-proof the sector, while warning that the cost-of-living crisis will see fraud incidents increase and insists that anti-fraud technology will be critical to mitigate a growing risk.