These posts are all about the ethics of insurance claims. It's a big subject and you'll find posts that provide you with guidance, insight and challenge.
The £5.28m fine handed out by the UK regulator to Liberty Mutual last week fired two warning shots across the bows of the insurance sector. This week's blog post examines their repercussions for insurers.
Every claims director in every insurer should be looking to include an assessment of conflicts of interest in their plans for 2019. It's going to be their number one ethical risk. Here's why...
2019 will see ethical risk becoming more personal, especially for senior executives. Ethical frameworks need to be checked to ensure they're still robust.
How do you make sure people are opening and reading your code of ethics? My review found that insurers were missing out on some significant opportunities.
Codes of ethics tell people about a firm's ethical commitments. I’ve completed a detailed review into how insurers do this. The first finding was a surprise!
Ethics initiatives often launch with a flurry of activity, but then lose momentum as they progress. Why does this happen, and what can you do about it?
Actuaries are approaching an ethical crossroads, where the opportunities of data and analytics will meet a new era of accountability in insurance. How they respond will set the scene for how trust in insurance develops over the next five years.
Are conflicts of interest in insurance being taken seriously enough? It’s a question that needs to be addressed, given recent headlines. So what should insurance firms check for when it comes to being better at conflicts of interest? Here are nine suggestions.
In the midst of demanding situations and time pressures, there will be occasions when it will be important that we make a fair decision. What can we do to make this as easy and straightforward as possible? Here are two skills that will help.
The most ‘ethically questionable’ practice to have emerged out of the innovation currently transforming insurance is ‘claims optimisation’. As key pieces of accountability and data legislation go live in 2018, what should claims directors weigh up in relation to this controversial practice?
We need to think differently about trust in insurance. Digitisation makes this more important, not less. Firms need to organise their thinking, and not just leave trust to chance. If there’s a new ‘trust story’ to be told, it’s insurers who need to write it, before someone else does in their place.
Insurance is being transformed not by data or analytics, but by personalisation. Yet personalisation has some inherent flaws, which I examine in this post. What we could end up with is a cauldron of disruption, fuelled not by innovation, but mistrust.
Researchers have found clear evidence of gender bias in artificial intelligence. The growing use of AI by insurers means that the sector needs to address this quickly, in order to maintain public trust and avoid regulatory scrutiny.
Insurers want to share claims data in order to improve the accuracy of their new analytics systems. It sounds quite straightforward, but lift the lid and it’s a proposition with several ethical implications.
Tackling fraud is an ethical thing to do, but the way in which insurers tackle it has an ethical side too. Here are 14 ethical questions for insurance fraud people to consider, along with a look forward into a new era of accountability.
Privacy in insurance has been getting lots of attention recently, largely because of the EU’s GDPR. Yet there’s a danger that this surge in legal and compliance activity will overly focus minds on the policy and process detail, while leaving scant time to think through the big privacy issues that the insurance buying public is concerned about.
The use of artificial intelligence in claims represents a 'significant opportunity’ for the sector, said Ageas. It also introduces some slippery slopes, four of which I explore here.
Aviva have a new system called Ask it Never, designed to eliminate the need to ask customers any questions when giving them a quote. The list of implications is impressive!
Telling claimants that you’re collecting data to combat fraud, and then using it to optimise claims settlements, could turn out to be the Achilles Heel of insurance fraud.
Insurers’ use of private investigators has been criticised for being “aggressive and inappropriate”. In response, their trade body, the Association[...]
3 ‘distinctly ethical’ questions stand out from the provisional findings of the Competition Commission’s investigation into the UK private motor insurance.
Conflicts of interest look to be the big ethical risk for insurance firms in 2014. How are your firm's being handled? Here are 8 steps to get you started.
People working in the UK insurance sector are wanting more training on ethics and the ethical issues that matter most to their work. How can firms respond?
If a firm's corporate culture doesn't emphasise the importance of ethical behaviours, then their capacity for innovation will be diminished. Here's why.
With insurers under a lot of pressure to reform their claims operations, could the ethical culture at a firm contribute towards its capacity for innovation?
What are the ethical implications of insurers using predictive analytics for underwriting purposes? There's a clear line that underwriters should not cross.
Predictive analytics offers many benefits for insurers, but there is one vital rule that must never be forgotten, especially with regard to potentially fraudulent claims
Is the FCA's use of thematic reviews taking control of the setting of best practice standards within the insurance and financial planning sectors? And if so, should those sectors accept this?
Claims departments are under pressure to reform how they work. Here's why they need to stand back, see the bigger picture and reflect upon why they do what they do.
Encouraging staff to talk about their firm’s values is one big gain from using ethical dilemmas in training, but there are other gains of much wider impact for the business.
The way in which insurers handle anonymised data can raise all sorts of ethical questions, with implications for policyholders, underwriters and regulators
Part 5 in my series about ethics and insurance claims. Ethical culture is at the heart of how staff engage with claimants and determines the conclusions about fairness and trust that claimants are left with.
Balancing openness and privacy can be a delicate task for claims departments, but it’s a crucial one that benefits us all, as individuals and businesses.
For the insurance sector, being in a conflict of interest is like having the flu – there’s nothing unethical about it; it’s just something that happens to us all. So the ethical question to be addressed is not how you avoid conflicts of interest, but how you recognise and respond to them.
Insurance is an important part of how compensatory justice is delivered, but there are big ethical implications if this is not done efficiently and fairly.
In the second post about ethics, claims and information asymmetry, I’ll look at some examples and outline how insurers can take some first steps to managing it.
This is the first in a series of posts about the ethical issues associated with insurance claims. I’m going to start off with what is probably the most significant of all such ethical issues, information asymmetry.
Insurance claims are pivotal experiences in the relationship between the insurer and the policyholder. In a series of posts, I'll be exploring the key ethical issues associated with insurance claims, starting this week with information asymmetry.
Measuring ethics is tricky, but necessary. Here are some of the pitfalls that measuring ethics can encounter, during the design, implementation and use phases.
The FSA is reviewing how well insurers have been managing private investigators. Here's a quick checklist to help insurers do a quick assessment of where they stand.
You're a claims manager tasked to 'do something on ethics in 2013'. So where do you start looking for ethical risks associated with how your people work?
Insurers need to challenge engrained thinking about consent to reflect the new regulatory and reputational landscape. Here are some examples for a proactive insurer to get started with.
As many firms accumulate data about us to build a competitive advantage, the question of their right to know versus our right to privacy comes to the fore.
Identification is one of the key privacy issues that insurers need to attend to. It is however perhaps the most difficult one for them to get right. Here's why.
How well have insurers been managing the balance between the privacy concerns that surveillance can give rise to and the need to effective counter fraud measures? And what's in it for the insurance sector for doing so?
Surveillance is one of the key privacy issues that insurers need to pay attention to. In this post, I’ll outline why surveillance can be so unsettling and later this week, set out why it’s an issue that insurers need to manage carefully.
Secondary use has been a problematic ethical issue for insurers, causing the motor market to be labelled as dysfunctional. It creates a tension for insurers that needs to be resolved in order for trust to be rebuilt.
Over the next 5 years, I believe tensions between the insurance industry and the general public around privacy issues will grow to be as controversial as the misselling of payment protection insurance is today. This is the first of a series of posts exploring privacy and insurance.
If a policyholder takes steps to reduce the risk, surely that's a good thing. This doesn't seem to be the case with flood insurance. Insurers want to rely on big structural defences. It's an approach inherent with dangers, not least that it might not work.
Today's launch of the Insurance Fraud Register represents a big step for the UK insurance sector, not least in how it has to now deliver a necessary service in a fair and transparent way. Several issues have clearly been resolved, but others remain to put support from the public at risk.
If the recommendations of a recent report by an influential group of UK MPs are adopted, the way in which insurance fraud is investigated will come under heightened public scrutiny
How should insurance fraud investigators handle everyone's innate tendency towards egocentrism, especially when deciding on fraud cases outside of the court system?
How much can we expect from telematics? Some huge claims are being made for it, but a short cast back in history shows why expectations need to be cooled.
The practices described in the recent OFT report into motor insurance may well have led to all sorts of unintended consequences for insurers. A couple are outlined here, along with some thoughts relating to a central issue for consumers: fairness.
A more detailed analysis of the ethics of what the OFT found when investigating motor insurance claims. Are referral fees unethical? How did corporate cultures appear to leave ethics by the wayside? The FSA and MoJ have some questions to ask, of individuals, insurers and themselves.
The OFT's report into UK private motor insurance makes for grim reading. It turns a spotlight onto practices that range from the dysfunctional to the wholly unethical.
If insurers become the lead provider of telematics technology, then spin-off services could produce all sorts of unintended consequences, particularly around the public's view of fairness.
What should insurers do to resolve the question of who will own the data created by their use of telematics in products like motor? One particular step might make a real difference, if handled properly.
The second of two posts about the ethical dimension to how insurance fraud should be tackled. Insurers need to look at these six themes as a step towards securing the long term support of consumer groups, and the public at large, for this important initiative.
Tackling insurance fraud is an ethical thing to do, but the way in which insurers go about tackling it also has an ethical dimension. In this and a subsequent post, I set out the key themes around which a set of principles could be fashioned to embed some ethical thinking into how insurers tackle fraud.
A delay in the launch of the Insurance Fraud Register should allow time for some key issues to be resolved. Heading up that list is consumer representation on its governing body.
Those selling insurance add-ons need to remember the lessons from payment protection insurance. This policy has its opt-out so hidden that it deserves investigation by the regulator.
As three insurers plead guilt in an Irish court to having information obtained illegally by a private investigator, is it now time for the insurance sector to see a clearer and stronger tone from the top to drive out these practices once and for all?
UK motor insurers are using a business model that is ethically dysfunctional. The recent OFT report is a precursor to demands for some significant market reform.
EL insurers need to be much more proactive in responding to claimants searching for details of their employer's EL policy. That’s what acting with integrity is all about.
I explore how the move of larger adjusting firms to a multidisciplinary model could have weakened the profession's handling of conflicts of interest and compare this with the experience of accountancy firms. It's clear that perceptions matter and a 'trust us' response is insufficient
In this second post about loss adjusters and conflicts of interest, I look at the guidance on conflicts of interest issued by the sector's professional bod.y
Conflicts of interest have been a divisive issue for the loss adjusting profession in recent years. I explore the issues in a short series of posts. Part 1
The insurance sector needs to take great care in how it manages the use of private investigators on potentially fraudulent claims, otherwise it could find its ethics sliding down the same slippery slope as the media
Do senior directors in the insurance market understand what conflicts of interest really are? There are lessons to be learnt from Allianz's venture into corporate litigation funding.