Whose Customer?

The proliferation in early 2011 of new mobile applications offering touch-button access to claims processing activities by both insurers and non-insurers alike has raised an interesting question: In an age of expanded choice for consumers, whose customer is the claimant?

Representatives of the Toronto Automobile Dealers Association (TADA) posed this very question to the Canadian Collision Industry Forum (CCIF) in Toronto on Jan. 23, 2011. TADA serves more than 340 new car dealers in the Greater Toronto Area and represents every manufacturer’s brand and franchise. It also has a new mobile technology, called ‘Renewit,’ that provides assistance when a person’s car has been damaged in a minor collision.

Anyone in an accident can launch the Renewit app on his or her mobile or smart phone. The app will provide a number linking the caller to collision support agents, who can provide the caller with instant information about what to do; help coordinate towing services; and can send callers to their own or their nearest dealership for repairs. [A Nissan car owner, for example, would be directed to the nearest Nissan dealership if they didn’t want to go to their own.] The app also includes a form claimants can email to their insurers immediately to provide details about the collision, thus expediting the claims process. Also, once at the dealership, the dealers can help the caller by contacting the insurer to determine what kinds of repairs are covered under the policy.

The Renewit app is intended for use by anybody. But it is particularly useful for people who already have an ongoing relationship with their dealers. TADA representatives saying 60% of the dealers maintain a service relationship with their customers after the vehicle is sold. They say the Renewit mobile app allows dealers to enter the collision services space, thus boosting customer retention.

“Dealers have been very good at sales…and service,” says Jerome Flanagan, general manager of TADA’s Renewit program. “But one area that they have abandoned, so to speak, is the collision and paint work area of the business. Dealers saw a need for it and there’s been an effort to assist dealers in helping their customers in this area.”

Flanagan made his Renewit presentation to a number of insurers and car collision repair facility representatives at the CCIF, asking: “Who’s customer is the claimant?”

TADA sees an opportunity for the dealers to share the claims support space with insurers and their networks of car collisions repair centres. “The dealer doesn’t want to interfere with the insurance company,” Flanagan says. “The dealer wants to work with the insurance company. It’s their customer, too. Some of these [collision repair] shops with which [insurers] do pre-arranged business, they will probably be doing business with some of our members or dealers…. If the dealer has a relationship with a CARSTAR, A FIX Auto or an independent auto collision centre, that’s where we will send the car.”

Ultimately, Flanagan notes, dealers “want to work with the insurance companies to make that [claims] process as pleasurable, as seamless and as efficient for the customer, because it’s both of our customers.”The mobile app market has quickly evolved since that TADA presentation in January. Insurance companies are rapidly filling the mobile technology space, increasingly linking customers with insurers’ claims support services.

State Farm Canada, for example, has been in the mobile app space for some time, offering The Pocket Agent. The app is available to all Canadians and provides State Farm customers with the My Insurance Card feature allowing them to access their policy information. It also directs the driver to the company’s Select Service program, a network of participating auto repairers in Ontario, Alberta, and New Brunswick. Once directed to a Select Service repair facility, the facility arranges towing services.

State Farm also offers features standard to many insurance company mobile apps, including the ability to locate a claims agent, submit a claim, take and submit pictures using a mobile phone camera and record accident details and vehicle damage.

Johnson Inc., a subsidiary of RSA Canada, launched a mobile app for the iPhone in mid-April. It contains many of the features listed above. Johnson’s iPhone app will soon be made available for Blackberry devices. One after Johnson’s announcement, Aviva Canada jumped into the pool, launching a new Web site designed for use on smartphones or other mobile devices. Drivers can access the new site at avivacanada.com from any browser-enabled smartphone, not just iPhones or Blackberries.

So with all of this mobile choice for consumers, who are they going to call first in the event of a collision?

Well, insurers, say the insurers.

“The reason why you go to your insurance company is that’s who the policy of insurance is with,” says Irene Bianchi, vice president of claims and corporate services at RSA Canada, which also has a mobile app in development. “You have paid for a policy of insurance and when something happens, when you want to make a claim against that policy of insurance, you have to go to the insurer.”

An insurer is “going to take care of the whole customer,” Bianchi added. “We’re not just going to fix the bumper. We’re going to take care of you if you are injured. We are going to take care of you if you need a replacement vehicle. We will take care of you if you need any kind of emergency assistance, in terms of medical care or counseling, we take care of the entire picture. Not just the bent metal.”

John Bordignon, spokesman for State Farm Canada, emphasizes the ability of insurers to handle complex claims involving injury. “In some cases, an auto accident involves more than vehicle repairs,” he wrote in an email to Canadian Underwriter. “State Farm prides itself on its service to customers who may have been injured in an accident or whose possessions were damaged. Each case or claim is different so it’s best to talk about your particular auto insurance needs with [an insurer].”

Debra Ambrose is senior vice president for national sales marketing and broker distribution at Aviva Canada. She says insurers’ preferred networks of collision repair centres have identified, high service standards, and can guarantee their repairs.

They also have the option to repair using recycled parts, which cost less than Original Equipment Manufacturing (OEM) parts that some dealerships may use. “When we work with a network, thinking about the cost and expenses associated with this is important,” says Ambrose. “We try to drive down the expenses. If you work with a network, you have an opportunity to keep those costs down. It streams through to the customer, which is very important to the customer.”

In fairness, TADA says cars fixed through its Renewit program may not necessarily be fitted with OEM parts, particularly older vehicle models.

As for working with insurers, dealers already do this every day, just as car collision repair centres do. “In a perfect world, the dealer has a relationship with that customer pre-accident, and so why wouldn’t that relationship continue in this [Renewit] example?” says Bob Redinger. president and general manager of Ready Honda Powerhouse, and co-committee chairman of Renewit Inc. “Dealers that have body- shops deal with insurance companies every day. It’s not like it’s a new relationship.”

Adds Flanagan: “We use a three-legged stool metaphor: If we take the dealer, the customer and the insurance company, everybody wins in this [Renewit] process.”