Farmer’s Insurance Group, the third largest insurer in USA of private passenger vehicles and homeowners insurance, has received mixed opinions on a customer survey. The company has been doing business for more than 80 years. The website of Farmers is convenient and easy to use. The company streamlined its claim process system by creating the Farmers Circle of Dependability (COD) program in the year 1992. The streamlining effort has earned the support of numerous customers as their claims are settled within hours instead of days. Thus Farmers has become a great choice for anyone looking for auto insurance.
Farmers Auto Insurance automation of claims settling process
This program has standardized the claims handling process which was mainly paper based before. There was the time consuming shifting of papers from one department to another department. It took many days to go through all the procedures of claims processing and manual handling was the reason for the delay. So Farmers took the help of technology to streamline their claims process to speed up their service their customers. This effort has lead to the formation of Customer Restoration Network CRN in short. The ClaimsPort is also notified simultaneously and the customer information is sent to the repair shop.
They have enlisted 2000 repair shops into their preferred vendor program. The repair shops have access to ClaimsPort and receive this information and get ready to attend to attend to the customer even before he arrives at the shop. Then the repair shop assesses the damages, the cost of labor for repair, replacement if any including photos they upload along with their report in an electronic file format. Farmers then approve the estimate.
They also took steps to reduce the time their customers would go without cars, while their car is getting repaired. Farmers also automated its claims resolution process and several other organizational and process improvements as well. The claims are processed by centralized office at Oklahoma with customized and automated business rules. Then they are routed automatically to the appropriate claims representative. Minor claims are thus handled electronically. This eliminates the need for field claims adjusters saving much time and work for small routine claims. Other serious claims are sent to the specialized processing.
Advantages of streamlining the auto insurance claims process
Due to streamlining Farmers has achieved better streamlining of operations and better use of its claims staff. By monitoring repair shop performance Farmers could eliminate inefficiencies and bring new dimension to the key systems of functioning. The ClaimsPort solution is based on the .NET framework and has automated the system of claims processing restricting the claims settlement in just 4 hours.
The quick process and efficiency is seen as value addition as the customers. 83% of customers have rated the claims processing service of Farmers as 6 or 7 on a 1 to 7 scale. The policy holders of Farmers auto insurance, the website offers multiple options on the website to manage their accounts and make payments file claims or even track the status of their claims. New visitors to the site can make use of the free quotes and the detailed information on the range of products offered by Farmers insurance group.