Crawford Australia has moved to strengthen its bench when it comes to major and complex property claims.
With 30 years of insurance industry experience, Matt Donnelly has been appointed Head of Global Technical Services, Australia. Donnelly returned to Crawford in September 2023 to lead both the Victoria and Tasmania GTS teams. Prior to this, he spent seven years in General Manager roles for two buildings companies primarily servicing the insurance industry. He worked as one of Crawford’s loss adjusters for over 12 and a half years between 2004 and 2016.
Donnelly noted that since returning to Crawford seven months ago, he’s been most impressed with the quality of the young talent in the business and the commitment of more senior adjusters to mentor them.
“We have some very sharp operators across not only Global Technical Services, but also in areas like liability loss adjusting, as well as within our forensic accounting team. Crawford is fortunate to have a number of highly experienced industry veterans who are totally committed to mentoring more junior colleagues which supports the overall customer experience that we deliver,” he said.
Craig McLeod, who leads the entire Specialty Loss Adjusting unit for Crawford Australia — which also handles claims arising from the construction, energy and marine sectors, and incorporates teams managing commercial and liability claims – said Donnelly’s impact on the culture in Victoria had been notable.
“Having Matt now lead our GTS teams nationally is a strategic decision to increase the consistency of service across national borders. We have highly competent and technical people who know their craft and appointing Matt in this role is about ensuring that the experience for a client feels the same whether that client is in Queensland or Perth,” McLeod said.
Donnelly added: “I’m a big advocate of human touch; what I mean by that is that there are always nuances when we are dealing with these large and complex claims and the policyholders rely on us to guide them through the process. They will have a better experience and our clients, whether it’s an insurer or a broker, are going to receive higher customer satisfaction scores if we have engaged with the policyholder with empathy and respect.
“What we do is about more than just going through the motions of a claim and reporting back to the insurer; we are people interacting with people and the quality of those interactions are paramount. This is what my leadership of GTS in Australia stands for.”
Donnelly believes that while technology will play an increasingly important role in the claims process into the future, knowledgeable humans will always be required on the types of claims his team handles.
“Technology will help gather information from claimants faster and more seamlessly, and make reporting back to our clients easier. Initial triage is an obvious area where AI has real value. However, the nuts and bolts of assessing these major losses which sit at hundreds of thousands of dollars and sometimes millions, still very much require human technical expertise to ensure fairness to all parties involved.”
