Taking on responsibility for over 320,000 employers and more than 3.2m workers would be a daunting task for anyone. But since 2015, Beth Uehling has been helping icare do exactly that. As the organisation’s group executive of personal injury, she’s helped oversee the amalgamation of disparate bodies from the workers’ compensation scheme into the current centralised model.
“Really, we were looking to create a more customer-centric process across our policy and claims services,” Uehling says. “The easiest way to do that was to bring the customer-focused operational aspects under one umbrella so that we could ensure greater transparency.”
Though icare has only been around for four years, there are real benefits for customers coming through the system. Claims can often be resolved in weeks, and premiums have remained stable for businesses, Uehling notes.
“In workers’ compensation, we want to keep costs predictable for NSW businesses and help people recover and get back to work as soon as possible,” she says. “And if there’s a more serious injury, we want to ensure that our customers have effective care in place. It’s a vulnerable time for the injured person and their families, so we want to smooth the process as much as possible.”
Uehling is open about the shortcomings of past systems, freely admitting that they tended to be process- rather than peoplefocused, with adversarial and inconsistent levels of service. Nonetheless, she is positive about the bulk of changes that icare has implemented and believes they will ultimately lead to a better and fairer process for both brokers and customers who deal with icare in the future.
“It’s a long-tail business, but that doesn’t mean we want to make excuses,” Uehling says. “Rather, we’re still working to build on our existing strengths and to fix the things that need fixing to ensure the system is fairer for everyone.”
In practical terms, this means providing brokers, customers and front-line claims staff with better tools to manage their policies and claims. Today, a claim can be lodged 24/7, in around 15 minutes, and policies can be taken out instantly with icare via an online portal. In addition, claim allocation rules now mean that claims with an expected incapacity of more than two weeks have a dedicated case manager, whereas lower-complexity or medical-only claims are managed within a claims support centre.
Better communication tools are also in place; SMS functionality between case managers and customers enables customers to schedule a call with their case manager when it’s convenient for them.
It’s clear customers are noticing the change, too: icare’s Net Promoter Score for injured workers has shifted from -23 three years ago to 4 as of September.
Pushing for prevention
Like many working in the industry, Uehling didn’t necessarily see herself becoming involved in insurance when she was younger and took a roundabout path into the field.
“I came to Australia from the US to do something completely different, just like everyone else in the field,” she says.
Yet she can point to certain experiences that shifted her towards her current career. As a young woman growing up in snowy Minnesota, she saw a lot of live sport. Ice hockey was a favourite – her hometown team, the Minnesota North Stars, introduced her to the sport, as well as the reality of injuries that can occur during the game.
“Since coming to Australia 20 years ago, I’ve spent most of that time in workers’ compensation,” Uehling says. “Maybe all that time I spent watching hockey had more of an influence on my career than I realised.”
The difference between workers’ compensation and many other varieties of insurance, as Uehling sees it, is its humanistic focus.
“A lot of insurance is steered towards assets,” she says. “That’s important, but here we have an additional level of complexity. People haven’t just lost a possession; they’ve often lost their health or livelihood. We’re trying to return people to a state of independence – and work, if possible.”
The organisation also works with brokers and businesses to help them implement safety and preventative measures. Customers are rewarded with lower premiums if they’re able to demonstrate a commitment to taking preventative measures. Mobile engagement teams are available for regional areas, too, holding town-hall-style forums to talk to employers directly.
“The cheapest claim you’ll ever make is the one you don’t have to pay,” Uehling says. “But even more importantly, we want people to be going home safely to their families at night.”
Uehling uses Buildcorp Group as an example of the success of this approach. In September 2018, the family-owned construction business won the icare Aware Award for putting the safety of new workers first. Buildcorp used its accident data to determine the staff most at risk, to drive the new safety campaign.
“As part of this campaign, we gave out green hard hats to all our new workers, so it was easy for experienced staff to offer additional mentoring, and everyone could support them to stay safe,” says David O’Toole, Buildcorp’s health, safety and environment manager. “We produced a safety video where workers shared what it meant for them to return home safely every day. It’s now part of our induction because it appeals to the emotions of our workers and makes them more aware about our safety culture.”
Buildcorp’s safety campaign was so successful that it reduced injuries among new and young workers to zero and embedded a proactive safety culture across the organisation. The end result has been that premiums have stayed 50% below the industry average for the last three years – up to 2019 – by making processes safer and developing a culture where staff are encouraged to speak up when something doesn’t look safe.
Future care
Given the continually evolving state of the insurance industry, Uehling is well aware that icare will inevitably undergo upgrades, growth and change in the coming years.
“One challenge we’re seeing is around a 40% rise in medical costs since 2015, which is putting a lot of pressure on claims servicing costs,” she says. “We’re implementing a medical strategy to alleviate this and to enhance medical decision-making protocols, but much of this is driven by overall medical inflation.”
Despite the challenges, icare has a variety of customer-focused initiatives already underway. Uehling points to the online portal as a significant upcoming milestone for the organisation. “At the moment, brokers and customers can call in a claim 24/7 – but we still want to be able provide greater control over both policy and claims via our online portal,” she says.
Additionally, the existing claims model hasn’t always allowed for the level of choice that some customers and brokers prefer. Accordingly, after more than 12 months of piloting an authorised provider model and gathering customer feedback, icare announced in August that it will be offering the model to qualifying customers in early 2020 to provide a broader range of insurance options.
“The authorised provider model is expanding to more large employers from the first quarter of 2020, which will allow for more choice,” Uehling says. “The industry wants more tailored solutions, so we’re looking at how we can do more to meet that.”
In line with providing greater choice, icare has also established an Industry Engagement Team, which will work across a variety of industries to better understand the specific needs of businesses and create better products for workplace safety risks.
