During the recent Steadfast Convention in Adelaide, Crawford Australia assured the market that it remains serious about specialty loss adjusting. The three-day Steadfast Convention was the first convention in more than two years due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Crawford Australia’s Chief Client Officer James Merchant said the event proved an invaluable opportunity to reconnect in person.
“A lot has happened in the past two years – not just across the world, but within Crawford as well."
“In that time, we have grown our third-party claims administration business, become stronger across public liability claims, acquired HBA Legal, and celebrated 10 years of offering managed repair services via Crawford Contractor Connection.
“If it suits your business, we have the expertise to manage your claims from ‘first notification of loss’ through litigation where necessary – the complete claim lifecycle,” Merchant told Steadfast delegates.
However, he explained that while the business had diversified, its expertise across all types of loss adjusting, particularly in large and complex loss, remains market-leading and a primary focus for Crawford.
“Some may believe that our full spectrum offering of claims services somehow means that we are no longer experts in large and complex loss. That’s a total myth – and it was great to be at Steadfast to speak with brokers about how we can support them across their claims portfolio with our unrivalled expertise.
“Without a doubt, the reality is that Crawford has specialists at every single stage of the claims journey. We are incredibly proud of the fact that no other claims management business in Australia does that, or can even go close to offering that full claim lifecycle service."
“Potential clients have been interested to talk to us about how they could take the full end-to-end service if needed – but if they only want specialty loss adjusting or TPA services, then we can work with them on just those elements too. It’s not an ‘all or nothing’ approach.”
Crawford Australia President Tim Jarman weighed in, noting that the ability to offer a single supplier service can often mean a more seamless claims process for clients and their policyholders at a lower cost.
“When clients are only dealing with one company for any given claim, there are efficiencies to be gained. Time is money – if we can do things more efficiently, we’ll pass that saving onto our clients. To give you an example: a client might use a specialty loss adjusting house that only does specialty and nothing else. Then the claim becomes litigated, so the adjusting house must engage a third-party law firm. That law firm then must get up to speed on the claim, often on an hourly rate.
“When you work with Crawford, we are one team. If a claim becomes litigated, our loss adjusters can speak to our lawyers at HBA Legal and move the claim along quicker.
“What client doesn’t want to get ‘more for less’? Our motivation for diversification in our business has entirely come from delivering better value for our clients,” stated Jarman.
