Dutch focus on claims

Around a hundred risk or insurance managers gathered to discuss key issues within the Dutch risk management market.

Claims management was discussed in workshops, where the market grappled with the idea of achieving high quality and speedily resolved claims. NARIM wants to continue the tradition of special interest groups – which Hans Gorrée, who stepped down after five years as chairman of the association at the conference, set up to benchmark things like claims handling – to discuss key issues in the domestic market.

The new NARIM chairman, Peter den Dekker, corporate insurance risk manager, Stork, also thinks claims handling is one of the important areas. ‘We are all to blame. Clients, insurers, we all need to improve and work better together to get a process in place,’

Outsourcing to loss adjusters was a solution considered by the delegates, but bulk and repetitive claims where seen as obstacles. The insured should speed internal communication to report if the claim is for a covered or disputable event, suggested den Dekker. He said getting that clear early in the process would allow risk managers to report to the board and manage their expectations. The new chairman aspires to implement market wide procedures to tackle such questions.

Another of the risk manager’s main responsibilities – whether or not a risk is worth taking and whether it can

be transferred or accepted – was also discussed.

Keynote Melvin Redeker invited NARIM to consider the role individuals can play in influencing the decision making of a whole team. A mountaineering expert, Redeker explained the idea in the context of his attempted ascent of Thalay Sagar, one of the toughest 7000m peaks in the Himalayas. Redeker wanted to abandon the climb in bad weather and his two part