When AFCA's Deborah Jenkins took the stage at the Claims Leaders Summit, she singled out avoidable complaints as the "easier fruit to pick" - a pointed reminder that much of the friction between insurers and their customers can be seen as self-inflicted. Insurance Business put Jenkins' key concerns to Darren Trott (pictured), executive general manager of business development at Ambrose Construct Group, one of the country's biggest names in claims rebuilds. He said the fixes aren't necessarily complicated but they do require discipline.
For Trott, the cure for avoidable complaints starts before the first hammer is swung. "The secret sauce is setting up customer expectations right from the beginning of the claim," he said, arguing that transparency, realistic timeframes and empathy at the outset head off the small grievances that later balloon into formal disputes. In his view, "unnecessary complaints are usually over small things that could have been addressed early on in the piece" - a diagnosis that lines up squarely with AFCA's own data.
Jenkins also took aim at insurers for failing to keep their contractors in check during rebuilds - a thornier problem, and one that sits right in Ambrose's lane. Trott didn't shy away from it. Ambrose runs a network of about 4,000 independent contractors nationally, and Trott said the company has built an internal function whose sole job is to vet who comes in and who gets shown the door. "If we find trades that are not doing the right thing, they are exited and will no longer represent our brand," he said.
He was blunt about where the line sits: "We've got a zero tolerance when it comes to occupational health and safety issues." But he was equally candid that not every player in the market operates with the same rigour - "there'll be others that perhaps don't have the same rigour" - a tacit acknowledgement that Jenkins' concerns about contractor oversight aren't unfounded.
The pressure intensifies during catastrophes, when capacity becomes king and quality control gets tested. Trott pointed to a long-standing industry pattern: "Our industry has historically had examples of where you've had fly-by-nighters come in from different states who perhaps don't have the right licensing." The answer, he argued, isn't auditing every job - it's auditing enough of them. "You've got to do enough that you can look for systemic issues, and that's what we've got in place."
If contractor oversight is the structural issue, communication is the human one - and Jenkins flagged it as a perennial driver of complaints. Trott agreed, and said Ambrose tackles it head-on with a customer welcome pack issued the moment a claim lands. This pdf booklet walks insureds through stakeholders, obligations, timelines and the questions many consumers don't know enough about to ask.
His critique of the broader industry was sharp. "Most people, when they make an insurance claim, it's the first time they've ever had a claim," he said. "As an industry, I think we've been pretty ordinary at, right from that moment, explaining this is what is likely to happen." The welcome pack, he said, "keeps everyone on an even keel because we're answering the questions before they come up."
When it comes to the delays that fuel so many complaints, Trott's approach is pragmatic: ask the customer how they want to hear from you. Some generations won't pick up the phone; others won't open an email. "We give them a choice, and from the moment that a customer makes a claim on our system, we flag the communication preference." From there, contact is locked in - by code and by calendar. "The General Insurance Code of Practice means that we have an obligation to do that," Trott noted, adding that Ambrose dedicates every Wednesday to stakeholder updates so insureds hear from a supervisor at least weekly.
For brokers fielding the fallout when claims go sideways, Trott's playbook points to where the pressure is likely to land and what can be done by all stakeholders in the claims process to help prevent it.
