I’ve approached several Executives from different areas of the claims market to share their thoughts and opinions on a number of topical issues impacting the sector and looking at the key challenges and opportunities for the future.
Today’s review is with Veronica Grigg, CEO, Sedgwick in Asia.
What is your journey to being part of the insurance industry and vision in the industry?
I have enjoyed navigating the insurance industry for over 25 years. I grew up the youngest of three girls on a cattle farm outside the NSW country town of Braidwood. This area is no stranger to natural perils and catastrophes including drought and bushfire. This helped me develop a fierce degree of independence which served me well in my education and business. My career path has expanded through working in all areas of business, from investment to consulting, underwriting and claims management, and multiple geographies including London, New York, Sydney and Singapore, to give me a unique view to support the changes in the insurance market. Since joining Sedgwick Asia I have had the opportunity to support our dynamic and experienced colleagues that handle thousands of claims across the Asia Pacific region daily. My focus is always on finding a pathway through innovation and unlocking the talent of our over 600 colleagues. It fills me with great pride to have joined a truly industry-leading organization that prioritizes quality, care and integrity, which is at the heart of all the work we do. As an executive leader within Sedgwick International, I see firsthand the power of leadership in building a culture of engagement and customer centricity.
What is unique about the Asia Insurance market?
We call our team in this region Sedgwick Asia, but it’s really nine separate countries that we operate in that encompass the region. That’s nine different cultures, with different languages, laws, and claims handling requirements. Even though our teams report into our Regional Head office in Singapore, we ensure that we take a country-to-country approach whilst ensuring the Sedgwick culture is embedded across the entire region. This makes the challenges from market to market, country to country, so interesting. I certainly think this unique challenge that’s what attracts people to this region and to the Sedgwick team. Our client base is diverse corporates, carriers, cedants, brokers, agents and reinsurers. They all have one thing in common – returning value to policyholders where Sedgwick care can be counted on.
What are the unique challenges of preparing for a surge in Asia?
In planning for surge claims in Asia, you must factor in very different geographies across the region. This can result in a wide variety of types of events from typhoons, as experienced recently in Japan, Vietnam and Taiwan, widescale flooding events such as those in Thailand and Malaysia and of course the ever-present threat of earthquakes – most recently in Taiwan in April and in Japan this month.
When activating an expert team to an area of need in this region, success starts with striking the right balance between local knowledge and global resources. Sedgwick has years of experience doing this, all while maintaining business-as-usual services. We understand how to prepare to mobilize experts from across Asia and beyond, handling everything including adjuster licensing, visa and entry requirements.
We have a worldwide database of colleague availability with a knowledge of language skills, experience and unique skillsets. This preplanning step means that we can move quickly and efficiently to respond to a surge. Asia really offers a depth of untapped talent to meet the demands of both our clients and their customers at their time of greatest need. When that time comes, we know the logistics of moving large numbers of people quickly and efficiently, with the arrangements in place to allow them to be fully effective from day one.
Our understanding of all the above alongside our global digital strategy also means our colleagues in Asia are capable of swiftly supporting the Sedgwick business globally. We also ensure that the teams who participate in surge events are cared for with additional resources and support including compensation, training, and tools. The responsibility of being an early responder is not taken lightly.
We have demonstrated this to support events across the Asia Pacific region and beyond, including the Taiwan earthquake, Northeast English floods and Malaysia weather-events and as far afield as Caribbean and Australia. As one team, with one technology platform, and one business culture, we are ready to go when our clients need us.
How do you see technology changing the way in which adjusters work?
Adjusters continuously must adapt to and adopt new technologies and at Sedgwick we seek to make technology game-changing enabler to our work across the claims space, but at the end of the day we remain very firmly a people-driven organisation. Our colleagues are skilled, accredited, technically competent, and customer aware. Our technology tools make them even more efficient and better equipped to help clients, but without smart people handling the toolbox, nothing can get fixed.
For higher volume commercial and personal lines claims, we’ve seen how automation can give clients a more straightforward path to getting a claim processed. Sedgwick’s award-winning technology tools eliminate some of the stress from an auto claim, for example, simply by automatically initiating calls to towing services and starting the claims process with location-based data intake at the site of an accident once a coverholder reports the issue. At the other end of the spectrum, technology can assist greatly in a surge, giving adjusters a massive rapid response advantage with the aid of tools such as digital site notes and connected adjusting tools.
There isn’t one digital tool or one master technology that does it all. Instead, it’s about picking the right technology solution that fits the job. At the centre are skilled and empathetic claims experts looking for the right combination of tools to best serve their client – that’s what will differentiate insurance leaders using technology. Sometimes policyholders, in times of challenges, distress or fear, just want to speak with a human being who can serve as a “human doing” to support them.
How do Sedgwick seek to stand out in attracting the future talent into loss adjusting?
Between the global pandemic and the next generation of talent entering the workforce, the past several years has seen some exciting and promising shifts ahead for future loss adjusters. Future claims executives, especially young talent, particularly look for clear career pathways and progression with opportunities that offer mobility, flexibility, and work that connects to a greater purpose.
The claims and adjusting profession have much to offer new talent that aligns with these qualities they’re looking for. This is especially true at Sedgwick, where the global scale of our organisation can support a workforce that wants to travel, learn, and grow across many disciplines. At Sedgwick we offer multiple-pathway training development and leadership programmes alongside many short-term assignments, secondment and long-term relocation opportunities. I also actively support Women In Insurance (WIN) as an advocate for diversity, equity and inclusion in our region and see this work as another avenue to expanding our reach to future insurance talent.
Our drive to create a truly global business means that colleagues arriving at a Sedgwick office – whether it’s in Tokyo, Singapore, Jakarta, Kuala Lumpur or wider than Asia – can immediately and easily connect to a familiar Sedgwick environment. Even when national cultures within a region are so different, as is the case in Asia, or when Sedgwick colleagues travel across the world, the Sedgwick mission to care is what unites us globally. Our people-focused culture is another strength that I think really attracts smart, diverse, and motivated workers – and keeps them performing at their fullest potential at Sedgwick.
Right International are market leading recruiters to the loss adjusting, claims management, and wider Insurance market.
If you are looking to add to your team now or in the near future or are considering your next career move, please contact myself or one of the team.
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All the best,
Gary Pike
Founder & MD Right International
