Insurance firms in the UK are losing around £222.1 billion every year due to poor time-keeping and lost billable hours, according to a new study.

Conducted by telecommunications firm Movius.ai, the research examined new business activity data from the Office of National Statistics along with responses from over 1,000 senior managers across different professional services industries.

It was found that a significant 21.6% of billable hours worked by staff are not accounted or charged for. Overall, the entire professional services industry is seeing £437 billion worth of lost billable hours every year.

On average, according to the study, an insurance company is potentially losing around £30.1 million a year due to lost billable hours, which is significantly higher than the benchmark loss for a typical professional services business of around £617,000.

“The lack of sufficient time recording, management, and billing of hours worked by staff in insurance firms is having a large impact on the profitability of companies and the mental wellbeing of their staff,” Movius.ai vice president of sales John Clear said.

“A big part of the problem is that time sheets make it difficult to record time, as they rely on employees remembering everything they have done and effectively guessing the length of tasks, such as voice calls.”

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