HCB sponsors The Virtual Network

HCB are delighted to have recently become sponsors of The Virtual Network, an industry group which meets fortnightly under the Chairmanship of Peter Le Beau to discuss hot topics and issues, including those emerging in the Protection world.

Our inaugural meeting as Sponsors of The Virtual Network considered how the industry can improve both the product ‘packaging’ and claim process to make it more meaningful for both employers and employees and how we could generate meaningful dialogue between insurer and customer between policy inception and the date of a potential claim form!

Scott Machin, Product Manager from iPipeline kickstarted the meeting with a presentation on how digital transformation helps to remove the frictions in the claim process ensuring a more positive and time efficient outcome to the advantage of all stakeholders.

HCB’s Managing Director, Jim Harris and Debbie Thompson, Head of Technical Services & Operations followed and spoke of the perception that in Protection Insurance, ‘Claims are still thought of as the Cinderella of the industry!’

As pioneers of Early Intervention service delivery many years ago and as is now statistically proven, the earlier an employee engages with the employer or insurer following sickness, the quicker, better and more sustainable the outcome will be. Aggregated across the HCB portfolio, (now many thousands of cases), 80% of referrals achieve a positive outcome, typically within around 4-6 weeks. Excellent news for the employer, the employee and of course the insurer.