British Insurance Awards 2021 - We are finalists
We are proud to have been shortlisted for 8 awards at this year’s British Insurance Awards including General Insurer of the year, Personal Lines Insurer of the year and Commercial Lines insurer of the year.
Here’s a roundup of the other initiatives we’re hoping will catch the judge’s eye!
Digital Innovation of the Year
Sprout.ai and Zurich have worked together to create an innovative, industry-first AI claims solution that redefines claims processing using Natural Language Processing and Knowledge Graphs to deliver a ground-breaking new capability: Automated Policy Checking.
This is a step-change innovation, replicating a handler with 100 years of experience and a reading speed of 10,000 words per micro-second. The AI engine is driven by Zurich’s handlers; it surfaces and adds layers of context (including a market-leading comparison against the Ombudsman database), in a simple, digestible format, to aid decision making.
Claims can be intelligently triaged and processed within a matter of hours.
Personal lines policies have an average of 30 pages and commercial lines over 60 pages. This means that handlers can spend up to 80% of their time reviewing policy documents and notes when they pick up a claim they have not worked on previously.
The Sprout and Zurich AI solution means claims can be assessed in minutes. It reduces complexity, improves efficiency, increases accuracy and aids effective decision making. Most importantly it improves customer outcomes.
Claims Initiative of the Year
The introduction of Zurich Support services to our claims proposition demonstrates the passion and commitment we have to doing the right thing for our customers. We recognise that events leading to a claim have wider impact than just the physical and to ensure we are truly there when our customers need us most, we are proud to offer this free counselling and wellbeing service.
Whether it be a car accident, burglary or the impact of extreme weather or fire, the toll on a customers’ wellbeing can be just as damaging,
Alongside the devastating effects of the pandemic, the ever-present risk of climate change continues, and the extreme weather events of 2020 challenged many with flooding not just testing the physical resilience of buildings but also the mental resilience of those who live in them.
Over the last 12 months, we have worked in partnership with Work Place Options to extend a free counselling and wellbeing service to all Zurich Customers and their immediate families who are making a claim.
The service includes up to 5 face to face counselling sessions (offered remotely during the pandemic) and alongside this, offers a host of other benefits such as career and life planning, financial services, childcare and legal support ensuring that we are able to support our customers across any number of concerns/ issues that they may be encountering.
To find out more about the Zurich support services click here.
The Major Loss Award
At 16:21 on 21st April 2020, a fire occurred at Springfield Mill, Bridge Street, Sandiacre. The seat of the fire was within Apartment 52 situated over the third and fourth floors with the cause most likely to have been electrical in origin. Springfield Mill is a Grade II listed Victorian Mill complex built in 1888 and converted into 105 self-contained apartments in 2005. The four storeys plus attic conversion building has two wings, and the resultant fire, smoke and extinguishment water effectively destroyed one complete wing.
The fire displaced residents from 50 apartments located in the destroyed wing who subsequently required long term relocation. The affected residents in 41 apartments in the wing with less damage, required emergency short term accommodation at the outset for a two-week period. Thus 91 apartments with 105 residents required attention in an environment significantly constrained by COVID-19 restrictions.
Personal engagement was key to giving each resident comfort in not only their hour of immediate need but throughout the period of disruption. We dedicated our own team resource to ensure quick and positive responses were supplied for unique and individual requests. We offered varying accommodation options, arranged online viewings of potential rental properties, paid a mortgage to enable one resident to buy their new home and agreed reasonable rates with some of the resident’s employers to allow them to live on site at their place of work. Appreciating the financial distress of many individuals due to the furlough environment we also funded all deposits on temporary accommodation.
We have managed and monitored the repairs with completion due in October 2022. The surveyor team have created an online portal which enables owners to view progress on-site and enables them to select finishes in their home.
You can read more about the Major Loss at Springfield Mill here.
Business Sustainability Initiative of the Year
The global pandemic has reinforced the need for businesses to fully embed sustainable sourcing practices and drive positive social, environmental and ethical outcomes. At Zurich, we continue to show market leadership and have accelerated efforts in this space.
Zurich are one of the founding members of Social Enterprise UK's "Buy Social" Corporate Challenge, which commits 10 large UK companies from diverse industries to have spent £100m with social enterprise firms. In 2020, Zurich engaged with one of our Social Enterprise partners, WildHearts, to provide a global training program centered on sustainability and created an entrepreneurial mindset across our global procurement team in order to significantly build on the fantastic progress made.
We have now created a community of change champions throughout our Sourcing and Procurement network as we work to expand the infrastructure and subsequent spend with Social Enterprises throughout Europe, ensuring that our sourcing practices align with our purpose, values and sustainability commitments.
Two examples of solutions that were implemented as a direct result of the training initiative are:
The Zurich Tech Poverty project which gives school children equal access to technology by Zurich employees recycling their unwanted gadgets and media and make a real difference to children’s lives in the UK. 12% of children in the UK are living in poverty, and with only 40% of 12-15 year olds having access to their own device for home learning, the 'digital divide' is real. The project aims to use the proceeds from those devices to fund new devices for children in the South West of England. Zurich’s own charity, the Zurich Community Trust will be matching the value of all proceeds generated. If just 10% of our employees recycled a mobile phone, we could provide 200 devices for disadvantaged children
The Go Green@Home initiative looks to drive sustainable practices at home, more important than ever due to the pandemic. Employees can now purchase goods including Coffee by Change Please who train people experiencing homelessness to be baristas and provide them them with a Living Wage job, accommodation and a bank account. Go Green@Home is a network driving a sustainability mindset amongst our employees lives at home and beyond.
Visit our sustainability hub to find out more about the work we are doing
The Risk and Resilience Award
Our Hotwork Smart Permit is the first of its kind to the UK market. Developed to support contractors to better comply with Hot Work processes and procedures; it enables customers and site managers to have greater confidence and oversight of Hot Work being carried out on their sites.
Hot works are regularly undertaken during construction and maintenance projects and are a high-risk activity that require careful and active risk management.
The fully digital solution streamlines the whole process ensuring that any contractor completing hot work is taken through a quick and simple permit process which will support them in following Zurich’s approved approach to managing hot work. This includes reference to Risk Assessments, alternative methods, notifications and watch periods. Their responses are digitally passed to the site manager for approval in the app and if the permit is agreed, the contactor starts their work. Once approved, the completed Smart Permit is sent to the contractor for their records and can be shown on demand.
Contractors are required to take photo’s before, during and after the work. An important part of the works being completed is the ‘wait period' or 'fire watch period’ where contractors need to stay on site after the work has been completed to ensure the area of work has cooled down. The app will monitor this period and inform the site manager when satisfactorily completed.
To ensure commencement of work is not delayed, SMS reminders are sent after a certain period to the site manager to remind them they have permits awaiting approval. Site Managers have a single view of all the permits. The dashboard supports multiple sites, and permits can be viewed in multiple ways; e.g. by contractor, date, approval status.
All of this has significantly increased confidence for our customers site managers, providing increased visibility to the customer and accountability to contractors for their hot works.
To find out more about planning for hot works risks click here.
