For IA firms, 2025 could be a big year. With severe weather and natural disaster losses on the rise, nuclear verdicts surging, and ongoing economic pressure, managing claims effectively has become more important than ever. IA firms that stand out and deliver value will be in a good position to achieve growth. However, they’ll need to take decisive actions to capture this opportunity.
Preparing for Opportunity
When opportunity knocks, you need to be ready to answer the door. However, for IA firms that are struggling with staffing shortages and an overwhelming amount of administrative work, this isn’t always possible. It doesn’t matter if you’re facing a sudden, temporary surge in claims or a gradual increase in cases. If you can’t accept the extra work, your competitors will.
Being able to take on more work is only half the picture – you also need to make your IA firm the go-to choice for insurers and TPAs that need claims handling support. To do this, you’ll need to differentiate your firm from its competitors.
Can you deliver more value than your competitors? This doesn’t necessarily mean being the cheapest option. Rather, you need to provide the best overall experience through:
- Fast resolutions. If you deliver a fast claims process that helps insurers maintain good policyholder relationships, you’ll help them improve their bottom lines.
- Responsiveness. Whether you’re dealing with claimants who want a status update or insurers who want a report, responsiveness is key.
- Competitive prices. Although cost isn’t the only factor, it may be a factor. It’s important to keep your own overhead costs down so you can offer competitive pricing to your clients.
Selecting Your Claims Management System
We’ve already looked at how IA firms should prepare a winning technology strategy for 2025. Leadership will determine whether this happens. Some leaders may want to take a wait-and-see approach as technology continues to advance. Whereas this may seem wise, there’s always the risk that your competitors will pull further ahead.
No one knows what the technology of the future will bring, but there are a few things that technology is making possible now:
- Auto assignment of claims and acknowledgement to get claims off to a good start.
- Intuitive document management and time-logging to make claims processes go smoothly.
- Mobile apps that allow claims handlers to work effectively in the field.
- Claims reporting tools to simplify reporting (even the tricky Lloyd’s bordereau) and empower better decision-making.
Rallying Your Team
We’ve also already looked at how IA firms can overcome talent challenges. As insurance worker shortages loom, it’s becoming extra important to focus on recruitment and retention. Leadership should help by getting everyone excited about the possibilities ahead.
This is especially critical now because workers are generally stressed and disengaged. According to Gallup, worker engagement hit an 11-year low in early 2024. Only 30% of employees are engaged, whereas 17% are actively disengaged.
One issue may be that workers worry they’ll be left behind as companies focus on technological advancement. A survey from AuthorityHacker found that 55% of U.S. workers are worried about job security. Company leaders should take steps to ease concerns and boost engagement, such as by communicating the company’s plans, framing new technology as being positive for workers, providing professional development to help workers thrive in a more technologically-advanced work environment, and recognizing the contributions of employees.
Embracing Change
Change isn’t just scary for workers who are worried about becoming obsolete – it’s also scary for company leaders. Some leaders may want to stick with the old way of doing things because this has always worked before. However, the world is changing – and IA firms need to change to keep up. As loss trends and new technologies continue to put pressure on the claims sector, 2025 will be a pivotal year. IA firms will either drive growth or fall behind.
VCA’s claims system helps IA firms embrace progress and drive growth. Our suite of solutions is packed with automations, reporting tools, and all the timesavers file handlers need to excel in today’s claim environment – and yes, you can cost effectively deploy it in just a few weeks and train your team to use it in less than one hour.
