Claims Traveler

John Russell has an interesting window on claims trends across the country and, in particular, the nasty spate of weather surprises that have hit Western Canada in recent times. As assistant vice president of property claims for Aviva Canada for seven years, he was responsible for managing all property catastrophe claims west of Manitoba. Tornadoes in Pine Lake, AB, wildfires in Kelowna, B.C., hail storms across the Prairies (and the fire in Great Slave Lake) and severe flooding; he has pretty much seen it all.

Russell was recently tapped by the Toronto head office of Aviva to help in the implementation of a national claims technology platform, so he missed the historic flooding in southern Alberta in late June. No matter; he was in the GTA when record rainfalls swamped the city July 8 and caused more than $850 million in insured losses. Sometimes, it seems, no matter where you move in Canada, the bad weather can follow.

Russell took over as president of CICMA at the group’s annual general meeting in September, by coincidence held in southern Alberta in Kananaskis. In addition to the AGM, traditionally the CICMA national organization meets with the local chapter to discuss current issues and challenges in their region. According to Russell, there was no shortage of topics with the Southern Alberta Chapter.

“With the flooding in southern Alberta, there was a lot to talk about – the CAT response, the role of the media, the evolving role of social media, and some of the challenges that we faced as an industry,” he says. “There is a huge benefit in sharing this kind of information; what lessons were learned, what worked, what didn’t work, and how as an industry we can do better the next time.” It is not about sharing strategies of each company, but a sharing of information on how we as an insurance industry responded.

Russell adds that the conversation included the flooding that quickly followed in Toronto. “We were also able to compare this to what happened in Ontario, how resources were stretched in terms of contractors and adjusting staff, how companies had to shift people to Ontario after being in Alberta,” he notes. “We got a chance to discuss these types of challenges first-hand.”

This informal networking across CICMA’s regional chapters (there are 11) is invaluable for the association, Russell says. It is a complement to the formal education sessions that he says are one part of his three priorities as CIMCA president. He notes that continuing education, driven by the regional chapters, is essential for claims managers across the country, whether in the form of breakfast meetings, lunch-and-learn sessions or all-day educational seminar.

“We would like to encourage sharing of educational sessions as much as possible across the country,” Russell says. “So if an issue, such as preservation of evidence, is presented by an expert or generally discussed at an Ontario session, it can be possibly leveraged out in BC, either for that content or for another speaker to be brought in.”

The formal education also extends to partnerships with the CIAA. “CICMA and CIAA have a long history of sharing information and hosting joint educational sessions,” Russell says. “My goal is to solidify and continue that relationship going forward. I know that in B.C. we had many excellent joint sessions with CIAA that involved rotating responsibilities for speakers and educational topics. I want to continue that information sharing and increase the communication back and forth.”

Another member-driven goal for the CICMA is to leverage its web site. “We want to provide significant value for our members online, whether that is educational material, sharing of information, or just a one-stop shop for services, documents/forms, membership,” according to Russell.

Not surprisingly, CICMA faces many of the same membership challenges that confront the CIAA, in terms of ongoing industry consolidation. “As with most associations, maintaining membership is an issue,” Russell notes. “We face issues with mergers and acquisitions as well, where some companies may be consolidating or closing certain branches. The old joke with M&A is that those two people you see sitting across the table are now one.”

However, Russell says that membership in the CICMA is open to more than just the traditional Claims Manager. “For example, a claims department may be centralized into one office, but there may be claims leaders in property, casualty, accident benefits or auto physical damage lines. These people can become members of the CICMA; you don’t have to be a traditional claims manager to join the association and derive value from it,” he says.

A third priority for CICMA this year is to continue to promote the Inter-Company Arbitration Agreement (see page 30). “We find that some pockets of the country are not as aware of it, while others are using it, we want to push it down to the front line members and file handlers at a desk level,” Russell says. “We have an educational video in both French and English on our website, and we want to educate all claims professionals that for those claims under $50,000 (and even for some above that amount when agreed upon by the parties involved), this is an excellent way to avoid legal fees to get a dispute resolved.”

He observes that Alberta has made good use of the agreement, perhaps due to the nature of the auto insurance system (most claims in the agreement involve auto).

For Russell, his term as president of CICMA will involve a blending of informal networking and structured educational opportunities to raise the profile of the association. As someone who has risen from road adjuster to supervisor to AVP to business-technology specialist over 17 years with one company, he has experienced the claims management side of the p&c industry from the ground up. And Russell says there are several opportunities to share this information with independent adjusters.

“There are less formal networking and information sharing we have (with adjusters), Russell notes. “We don’t get into specific company claims philosophies, procedures and how they use or don’t use independent adjusters; that’s not really what we are about,” he says. “However, we can share our approaches what may work for one company to the next.”

For example, Russell explains that during a CAT situation, such as the floods in southern Alberta, Aviva tends to use its own adjusters for consistency of claims service. It then looks to independent adjusters to pick up the “regular, business- as-usual claims.” Other companies have different approaches, and may look to independents to handle all CAT claims, bringing in additional resources from other regions or even other countries.

“There is no cookie-cutter process to when companies respond to CAT claims, ” he says. “It is ‘all hands on deck’ when it comes to a CAT, as our goal as an industry is to help our customers as quickly as we can in often some very tragic circumstances.”

For Russell, this open and back-and-forth sharing of general industry information between adjusters and company claims personnel marks a big opportunity and a departure from an “us versus them” mentality in the industry. As CICMA president, and someone who knows a fair bit about the regional issues facing the claims management profession, he is eager to leverage that opportunity across Canada.