Claims Education

Educating claims managers, managing an agreement on arbitrating disputes between carriers and giving back to the community are all priorities for the Ontario chapter of the Canadian Insurance Claims Managers Association (CICMA), says Alex Walker, who began his two-year term as association president in September.

Walker, director of claims relationships at RSA Insurance, took over the reins from Jo-Ann Eccleston.

“The goals for the next two years will be to continue to focus on education and information for our members by providing seminars, motivational speakers and individual speakers,” Walker says.

One major event is the 47th annual joint conference with the Ontario chapter of the Canadian Independent Adjusters’ Association.

Technology support for claims investigation, data mining and cyber risk will be among the topics discussed at this year’s joint conference, scheduled for February 4 in downtown Toronto.

The CICMA Ontario chapter also has four meetings annually, where attendees can hear from invited guest speakers. At the chapter’s March 2013 meeting, for example, a panel of speakers from RSA, Aviva, Desjardins and CGI Group Inc. discussed using computer software as a means of detecting fraud in auto claims.

The most recent chapter meeting in December hosted author and motivational speaker, Martin Latulippe, who survived a hockey accident in 2001 at the World University Games in Poland.

“He gave a great lecture on leading in changing times,” Walker says of Latulippe. “He was a really, really engaging speaker and we always try to make sure that we have a motivational speaker in December.”

GETTING INVOLVED

Walker became involved in the CICMA Ontario chapter in 2008. At the time, he was president of the Ontario Pond of the Honourable Order of the Blue Goose (known as Blue Goose Ontario), a fraternal organization of property and casualty insurance professionals whose activities include generating money for charity.

While serving as Blue Goose Ontario president, “I was asked by a member of the CICMA executive to join CICMA and to consider joining the executive branch,” Walker says. He did so in 2009.

That year, Walker became CICMA Ontario’s director for qualifications and arbitrations. Each CICMA regional chapter has a director who administers the Canadian Inter-Company Arbitration Agreement, which is intended to provide an informal alternative to litigation when there are subrogation claims between insurance companies.

Walker later became treasurer and vice president before serving in his current role as president. His term as president is scheduled to end in the fall of 2015.

“When I first joined, executive positions were a year,” Waker notes, and a person rotated up one position each year. “But then when I transitioned from treasurer to vice president, we decided that in order to make the executive branch a little more stable, that the positions should be a two-year term.” 

REFLECTING MEMBER NEEDS

That may also help with education themes, which Walker says are usually determined by the local chapters.

“When the executives meet, we do go to our members and ask if there are any specific topics that we want to talk about,” he reports. “With the past year of cat activity, in terms of storms, one possible topic in our meetings this year could be storm activity and the industry response.”

Two catastrophes that the industry had to respond to last year were the floods in southern Alberta in late June and the July 8 rainstorm in and around Toronto. Heavy rainfall June 19 to 21 in Alberta (200 millimetres in some areas) combined with late snow melt resulted in Canada’s more expensive natural disaster to date. When measured by insured losses, it is expected to exceed $1.7 billion.

Less than three weeks later, Canada experienced its third-costliest natural disaster (to date, estimated at about $850 million) when the Toronto area was hit by two separate storm cells that dropped 126 millimetres of rain on Toronto Pearson International Airport. With the normal rainfall for all of July being 74.4 millimetres, the July 8 deluge caused widespread sewer back-ups and power outages.

“I found myself troubleshooting escalations, making sure RSA was communicating clearly to our broker partners and letting them know what to expect, but also making sure that the right people were available to handle theclaims,” Walker recalls, commenting in general on the major Canadian catastrophes of 2013.

“People come to us insurers to get peace of mind, so if they have a claim, that is really when the stakes are high and you want to make sure that you are looking after people in a helpful and empathetic manner,” he adds. 

PATH CLEAR

While studying at the University of Toronto, Walker says that he already knew he wanted to pursue a career in either banking or insurance. He attained his CIP designation in 1998 after six years in the industry.

Walker started his career in 1992 as a claims clerk with Zurich Canada, where he later worked his way up to adjusting commercial claims. In April 1996, he moved to RSA as an intermediate auto claims adjuster, and five years later in 2001, he moved to Chubb Insurance Company of Canada, where he was a claims service centre manager. But it was back to RSA in late 2006, where Walker currently works out of RSA’s office in Mississauga, about 30 kilometres west of downtown Toronto.

“My focus is to strengthen the relationship between our brokers, claims, underwriting and sales,” he says of his current role at RSA. “There are not a lot of Canadian p&c carriers that have a role like this, that recognize the importance of the relationship between claims and underwriters and brokers.”

COMMUNITY FOCUS 

For the CICMA, one of its priorities is to “give back” to the community, Walker says. Last year, for example, the CICMA Ontario chapter donated about $30,000 to Camp Oochigeas, which offers summer camp and year-round programs for children with cancer and their siblings, he reports. “You will continue to see us have that charity element,” he says of the CICMA Ontario chapter.

While technology is clearly important to claims management — as evidenced by the related content scheduled at the joint conference — computers cannot replace the people skills of claims managers, Walker emphasizes.

“I think that technology is definitely going to be playing a major role as we move forward as an industry,” he says. “All the carriers are looking to streamline their claims processes and make sure they are efficient while serving the customer,” he says. Still, he adds, “at the end of the day, technology cannot necessarily replace delivering quality, helpful empathetic claims service.”

In addition to managing claims, insurance professionals are also “anxiety managers,” Walker suggests. “We are there to help minimize people’s fears of having a loss,” he says. “So the proof is in the pudding when somebody actually does have a claim. You need to make sure that your claims proposition is robust and that it responds exactly as you said it would.”