Crawford & Company is excited to be exhibiting at BIBA 2022 on 11-12 May as the insurance industry’s largest conference returns to in-person format for the first time since 2019 under the theme ‘Our Insurance Community’.
“I'm expecting the mood to be buoyant as we reunite face-to-face,” says Lisa Bartlett, president, UK & Ireland, who is attending the event for the first time since assuming her leadership position. “We are indeed a community and I can’t wait to reconnect with clients, colleagues and industry contacts under one roof and at the networking events.”
According to Bartlett, the BIBA conference comes with the industry at a tipping point, with talent, technology and customer-centricity all key themes that need to be addressed.
“We have to put the customer first in everything we do and their expectations are changing,” she says. “With appetite for on-demand and self-service apps, for example, increasing during the pandemic, we need to adopt a multi-channel approach.”
Climate change and sustainability have also risen up the agenda for consumers and also for Crawford, which will exhibit an eco-friendly, recyclable booth at BIBA 2022. “We’re doubling down on a wide range of sustainability initiatives in 2022, from social impact programs to reducing carbon footprint in our operations and supply chain,” Bartlett says.
Employee expectations have also evolved in the last two year as people have become used to agile working and have spent time evaluating their work-life balance. This, says Bartlett, only intensifies the “war on talent” that is gripping the industry.
“As we emerge from the pandemic, we are all competing over the same pool of talent,” she says. “Employee experience has become a top priority and employers have to keep up – you need to have a value proposition for employees today, not just for clients.”
That includes focusing on learning and development, investing in employees’ careers and helping them get the professional qualifications they need.
With automation replacing many entry level roles and data and analytics playing a central role in all aspects of the insurance process, attracting talent with the right skillsets and developing early careers through apprenticeships and graduate programmes is key.
"Organisations need to take an enterprise-wide approach to talent management to bring attract people and move them around within their business,” Bartlett explains.
Technology will play an increasingly mission-critical role in helping companies deploy talent more effectively as well as meeting the growing demands of customers.
In an increasingly complex claims environment, Crawford is taking a ‘Technology + People’ approach, delivering service excellence through a combination of deep expertise, specialised solutions and digital tools that simplify the claim process. Self-service apps, intelligent triage and estimate review, virtual reality, IoT integrations and on-demand services are just a few examples of how technology has reshaped Crawford’s offering.
“We are at a tipping point as an industry,” she states. “Technology helped us through the pandemic. We now have to commit to doing things differently rather than reverting back to our old ways. Ultimately, all insurance innovations should revolve around better serving the customer - and the customer wants an increasingly digital experience.”
