Claims Management & Adjusting (CMA), the UK’s oldest loss adjuster specialising in vehicle-related insurance, has been praised for its “proactive” approach to the new Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) Consumer Duty standard.
The finance regulator’s first new Consumer Duty rules come into force on 31 July 2023, requiring firms “to put their customers’ needs first”. CMA began building up to this deadline in Q4 2022, engaging with the purpose of the Duty, and has helped its clients do the same.
Malcolm Clemitson, Claims & Compliance Director at Eridge Underwriting Agency, said: “CMA have been extremely proactive with regards to the rules and spirit of the FCA’s new Consumer Duty. We had no hesitation in agreeing their work in this critical area which made already efficient processes even more transparent, to the benefit of our policyholders.”
Philip Swift, a former detective and now managing director of CMA, commented: “As with the Data Protection Act, while others simply seek to comply with it, we have gone further by actively embracing Consumer Duty. We applied its principles to every aspect of our service, which led to some important improvements, notably in terms of clarity and efficiency.
“The biggest area of complaint in claims handling is processing speed. Following a car crash or theft, policyholders are understandably keen to get their insurance claim resolved quickly. Our job is to provide due diligence, by obtaining and corroborating information. After reviewing our Claims Help advice through the lens of Consumer Duty, we recognised it could be much more user friendly, so we made significant changes.
“For example, our new Quick Claim Checklist – a free download – helps consumers to see at-a-glance what data we commonly request. It is split into three sections – about you, about the vehicle and about the event. To complement this, our revised Claims Help webpage explains in layman’s terms exactly why we need each piece of information and, importantly, how the claimant can find it. Getting a full checklist to us promptly can shave days, even weeks, off the claim settlement timeline – better for us and certainly better for the motorist.”
For more on CMA’s new Claims Help guidance see: https://cmaclaims.co.uk/help/
For more on the FCA’s Consumer Duty see: https://www.fca.org.uk/firms/consumer-duty