In the summer of 2021, in cooperation with insurer Nh1816 and authorized agent Helviass Verzekeringen, ANVA launched a pilot for the introduction of Direct Claims Processing (DSA). Through DSA, an insured reports and processes his or her damage to a private passenger car directly in ANVA Backoffice. In conversation with Kevin van Etten (product owner and business analyst at Nh1816 Verzekeringen), Valentina Visser (NVGA board member and general manager of Helviass Verzekeringen) and Jaap Carlier (product owner at ANVA) we look back on the past few months, during which DSA has already been deployed frequently.
Valentina Visser starts, "I have been involved in the NVGA as a board member for two years and my portfolio includes the introduction of DSA. DSA came about as a result of a substantial chain collision in Zeeland a few years ago, which involved a lot of cars. Normally, in a two-car collision, it is fairly quickly clear who is liable. The "guilty party" is then held liable by the (intermediary of the) other party, after which all necessary information is transferred. In a rear-end collision with many cars as in Zeeland, it is one big ambiguity as to who is liable. Quite a delaying factor, which according to insurers could be organized differently. This is how the desire for DSA was born, after which we first introduced this new way of working for private car owners."
On May 1, 2021, just before the official introduction of DSA, Kevin van Etten started as product owner at Nh1816 Insurance. He was allowed to elaborate and set up DSA within Nh1816. "A start like that always takes some getting used to and exploring, but we made a conscious decision to jump into the deep end and go for it. That has worked out quite well so far," Kevin says. He continues: "For DSA to succeed, a change in thinking is desirable. After all, normally you work primarily for your own insured and only receive the claim when liability is actually confirmed. Through DSA, you put your own client first and help your client(s) by going on the stage for them. It's up to you, up to us, to make sure the insured is satisfied. That means creating a lot of customer satisfaction, but also picking up extra work. Work you may not have had before".
During the start-up of DSA, there were still some doubts among insurance offices for this reason. The central question was often: does the added value create much more work than they are used to? Kevin: "By now we have the process in place and it is perfectly manageable. The fear of the unknown is of course always present at the start of something so new. Now it works fine and we are very satisfied with the speed of implementation."
Valentina adds: "In practice, I see that it does take some effort from all of us to actually get it implemented in the end. A trustee has limited IT development capacity or even hires it in completely. At the same time, the process around it has to be examined. For example, what does a claims handler have to do differently? What does it mean for the finance department? The changes led to a new release of ANVA and the authorized representative had to implement it in a timely manner. This often takes a few months, but we didn't have that time now because of the January 1 deadline. It is precisely for this reason that I am so pleased that ANVA deliberately chose to have DSA tested by a number of pilot offices first, before introducing it to the market as a release."
Jaap Carlier: "I'm actually curious what it means concretely. Do you have any idea if everyone is already using it?". "Our goal was to have everyone using it by January 1, 2022. As far as I know, that has been achieved - except for a handful. The offices that are not yet over have a specific reason for that and then have to notify the proxy themselves," Valentina said. She continues: "Meanwhile, insurers and underwriters have already processed over 10,000 claims using DSA. A great score! More information on numbers and customer satisfaction we can start to see during the2nd quarter."
"Absolutely! Looking back, as far as we're concerned, there were a lot of questions at the beginning. What does this mean? What do our customers need? I think Nh1816's requirements helped us very much to get that much more specific and insightful. A good example of that is that in addition to the practical side for claims handling, you also have to be able to separate the general ledger in terms of journal entries. That is a point that was defined and worked out along the way, with a few others of course," says Jaap.
ANVA's decision to make DSA available for the first few months only to a selected group of pilot offices was based on a very conscious decision. In our view, a new way of working like DSA cannot be handed out just like that. In that case, many offices will take no action and first wait to see what happens. Jaap: "Moreover, the pilot revealed quite a few points that we adjusted prior to the release. Fortunately, we were still able to quickly roll out DSA and patch it back to all kinds of versions that were in use by the Managing General Agents at the time. That was a big job and meant we had to build in and deploy DSA in all previous versions as well. Fortunately, that too proved successful, which in my view certainly increased adoption among the proxies!".
"I can fully concur with that, Jaap," says Kevin. "The intensive cooperation between ANVA and the affiliated pilot offices absolutely ensured that we met the final deadline. Meanwhile, DSA has spread like an oil slick within Nh1816 to become an adopted way of working. Starting such a major process change well prepared takes a lot of preparation time. I am glad that ANVA was able to support us in this where necessary".
The same goes for Helviass Insurance. Valentina: "I think that the impact of this trajectory has not been underestimated, but is greater than thought. This is in the case of DSA, but you can also see it in a trajectory such as, for example, the standardization of data. Knowing that before January 1, 2022 (almost) the entire market will be converted, I think this is a very strong example of cooperation."
And Jaap? He is especially happy to hear this. "Fortunately, there are now a lot of offices that have already invented the DSA wheel. Above all, let's collectively see how we can get the rest of the market to hitch a ride on that. Help each other, ask where necessary and make use of it. Just do it!".
Haven't you started DSA yet? Then sound the alarm and start today! DSA is officially effective as of Jan. 1, 2022, which means that you need to offer DSA from within the outsourcing process.
