Insurance claims happen. Even a great moving or shipping company will experience them. This does not, however, mean that the claims should be ignored. When looked at properly, they can provide useful insight into your company.
Putting Your Insurance Claims to Use
Think of your claims as another source of data. By analyzing the claims, it’s possible to find weaknesses in the company – and to gain the knowledge necessary to fix those weaknesses.
Is Your Company Improving – or Declining?
Although some insurance claims are to be expected, having too many of them could indicate a problem.
Have claims gone up? An increase in claims could be indicative of a decline somewhere in your company. Maybe you’re cutting corners to save money, or perhaps you’ve gotten lax about your policies.
Are the claims in line with industry expectations? If you have significantly more claims than other international shipping companies, you need to take a good, hard look at your practices.
If your claims are low or decreasing, you’re doing something right. Make sure you know exactly what that is, so you can keep doing it.
Does Your Company Have Trouble Areas?
Whether or not you have a particularly high volume of claims, you should determine whether your claims tend to be associated with a specific issue.
For example, you might find that one particular route or port sees a high occurrence of claims. If so, you may be able to reduce claims by seeking an alternative route or port.
If, on the other hand, a significant percentage of claims are associated with a specific process, this process requires assessment.
Similarly, if the same claim type occurs over and over, it’s important to identify the root cause of this. Is rough handling or improper storage methods leading to damaged goods? Is poor tracking leading to lost items? Is a lack of climate control leading to heat-damaged or water-damaged shipments? Use the claims to identify your company’s weaknesses.
Is Your Company Committed to Bringing Claims Down?
While it may be impossible to bring the occurrence of claims down to zero, your company should still strive to bring it down as low as possible.
Identifying a pattern in your claims data is just the beginning. Once you’ve done that, you need to act on the information by assessing your shipping practices and looking for ways to improve.
Are Customers Satisfied with Claims Handling?
Because some claims will always occur, how you handle claims is just as important as reducing claims.
Although you may assume that any customer who has to file a claim will be an unhappy customer, this is not necessarily true. In fact, the happiest customers are sometimes those who experience problems – as long as those problems are resolved in a prompt and professional manner.
This is why it’s essential that you provide excellent insurance coverage. The coverage should provide adequate protection against losses, it should be clearly understood by the insured and it should be provided with exceptional service.
In the end, your insurance claims say a lot about your company. What you do to reduce claims shows how much you care about your business, your reputation and your bottom line. How you respond to claims shows how much you care about your customers.
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