The Society of Claims Professionals (SOCP) has released a new guide that outlines actions that claims professionals should keep in mind when dealing with subsidence cover.

SOCP’s Good Practice Guide for Subsidence lists four actions that claims professionals should take, namely: treating each claim and request for cover individually, establishing the potential risk or cause of subsidence to action an effective triage routine, identifying what other cover is available if subsidence is only one reason for damage, and clearly outlining timelines to clients.

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The six-page guide also highlights other materials on subsidence produced by the insurance profession that underwriters and claims professionals should be aware of.

“Customer expectation of how quickly a claim will be resolved can sometimes be out of sync with the reality of investigating the claim,” said Jeremy Trott, non-executive director of SOCP.  “Try to be clear with your customer about the different processes involved and reasonable timeframes for each stage of that process. Managing expectations will allow you the time needed to process the claim properly as well as reassuring the customer.”