Confident Futures: Helen Rich on caring for our customers

Supporting our customers is important to us – that means being there from the point they buy a policy and supporting them when they claim.  We also understand that across our commercial and personal lines businesses, we have very different customers, with different needs.

Delivering excellent customer care is a key focus of our corporate responsibility strategy, Confident Futures. We recognise that we can’t fulfil our responsible business ambitions unless we put our customers at the core of our business.

Last year we formed the UK Customer Committee, chaired by Karl Helgesen, which ensures that we consistently deliver good customer outcomes, across the entire business. The committee has oversight of our customer conduct and considers industry and regulatory changes that impact our business and customers.

“We really try to understand our customers and adjust our approach according to their needs.”

However, we know that delivering good customer outcomes goes beyond committees and policies, and how we support our customers in their time of need is incredibly important. This means we have to adapt our thinking and also focus on supporting our customers and the local communities we’re part of.

As one of our technical unit leaders for major damage claims the work in my team is aligned to the commercial lines business and I regularly have to deal with customers whose businesses have been directly affected when they have to make a claim.

I caught up with Sara Lane, team leader for household claims, to understand how we handle claims for our personal lines customers. Last year she was on her hands and knees looking for one of our customers diamond rings as the lady who’d lost it had a severe visual impairment – this is just one of the ways our customer teams go above and beyond.

We understand that the support we offer to our commercial and personal lines customers is very different, but we can learn a lot from each other by sharing our ideas and practice.

Find out more on efforts to integrate responsible business practices into our everyday operations in our Confident Futures hub.