It has been a year since I moved from the U.S. to lead Broadspire UK and it’s safe to say it has been an extremely busy and transformational 12 months.
The most obvious change is our new state-of-the-art office in Milton Keynes, the doors of which have not stopped revolving with clients, prospects and job applicants. However, our transformation runs much deeper.
Over the past year, we have overhauled virtually every aspect of the business, aligning Broadspire UK with the global structure of Crawford and revitalizing the brand both internally and externally.
There have been changes to our leadership structure and we’ve reordered the entire claims operation to better meet the needs of our clients. This restructure has pulled everyone together, allowing us to use our resources more efficiently and leverage best-in-class expertise from across Crawford.
We have also updated our IT infrastructure to use a multilingual, multi-currency claims system to allow us to work seamlessly with our colleagues around the world for the benefit of our clients.
It is no exaggeration to say that the Broadspire UK brand has been reborn.
The role of technology
Technology is set to play a huge role going forward, and we have made major investments to create what we hope will be the first fully connected TPA claim solution.
No TPA has yet really delivered a truly digital service, and that is what we are aiming for, having taken a key step towards that goal by becoming a fully paperless organization last year.
We are also bringing automation into the workflow where possible to improve processing efficiency across all lines of business, enabling us to provide the flexibility, technical proficiency, and speed of response that our clients demand.
In the future, no employee should be involved in any process that does not require a human touch, but it is important to stress that claims business is, and will always be a people business.
Human expertise remains central to what we do, but by streamlining processes and relieving employees of mundane triaging and inputting tasks, we free up our experts to do what they do best and to deliver on important outcomes like indemnity spend.
We are also working with strategic technology partners to develop bespoke solutions for clients and will soon be rolling out numerous cutting-edge innovations.
Growing the UK business
With all this in mind, our sights are now firmly set on a period of strategic growth.
Broadspire has an excellent client retention rate of 95 percent, but only now do we have the capacity to grow. The past year has seen several key hires including Jason O’Sullivan, who now heads up Broadspire’s UK sales effort, which has already set us on a new trajectory.
We see huge potential in the UK and are targeting growth in all classes of business in which we operate, but particularly across lines such as motor, which is increasingly technology-driven, and corporate accounts, which is where TPAs can really shine.
Third-party administration is all about relationships. TPAs are involved in every stage of the claims process and the way we add value is by building strategic partnerships through account managers who are really invested in their clients.
For many years, TPA clients have not had a huge amount of choice in who they partner with. We are hoping that over the next three-to-five years we can bring something different to the market, with technology and service at the heart of our improved offering.
Overhauling multiple processes has been a huge undertaking, and at times we have had to take a step backward to move forward. But much of the hard work has now been done. We have reset and are ready, having built a strong foundation from which to flourish and grow.
