The first anniversary of the Official Injury Claims Portal (OICP) will soon be upon us. But a year after its inaugural launch, claims volumes continue to remain below expectations and both claimants and compensators continue to face challenges.
Suffice to say, although claims frequency is reduced, the intended outcome of reform in enabling claimants to bring low value claims in person seems some way off - circa. 90% of claimants are still retaining representation.
There are several potential factors at play. First, the pandemic has reduced both driven miles and claims frequency. However, the pandemic isn’t the root cause of everything… whilst the portal was designed so anyone injured in a car accident ‘can claims without specialist knowledge’, critics have highlighted that the 64-page user guide proves otherwise. And for insurers and claimant representatives, whilst the frequency of portal updates and bug fixes is improving, they’re still relying on manual processes to settle claims.
When faced with new processes, the imperative is to be able to deliver real-time claims strategies to keep abreast of ever changes claims patterns and trends. A key functionality delivered by 360Globalnet is “Know Your Opponent” analysis. Understanding the behavioural propensities of individual firms - and even individual practitioners within firms - is vital to enable an ability to develop bespoke responses. This will become increasingly important as new firms enter the market.
Alongside these changes in process for low value whiplash claims, a new macro-economic climate is developing. Increasing financial hardship is an inevitable reality for many people, and history demonstrates that such conditions encourage opportunistic fraud. And having access to 100% of available OICP data, both structured and unstructured, enables sophisticated interrogation and profiling of all reported claims to identify emerging patters and trends.
Our unstructured data management technology, 360Retrieve, can access, manage and analyse all the data within the OICP. We deliver all SCNFs in a structured data format, enabling our clients to identify any types of claims – thus delivering a competitive edge when making important business decisions, driving strategies and refining best practices.
Furthermore, we deliver all the Settlement Forms in a structured data format, again allowing our clients to drive data driven claims strategies. Added to this, our analysis of medical reports extracts all the relevant information, assisting our clients to semi - automate the negotiation process as well as improving their data analytics for settled claims. Although medical data within the OICP is still very much in its infancy, the majority of claims already include a non-tariff injury type, and the judicial guidance that will be needed to direct how such cases still seems some way off.
360Retrieve delivers a ‘universal’ view of all of all available OICP data enabling you to make the most informed decisions in a highly dynamic claims environment. If you’d like to find out more, get in touch today.
