Crawford TPA: driving down claims costs

Vol 47: Issue 3 | October 2024

Crawford & Company Australia has a unique set-up that has allowed it to not only deliver a three-quarters reduction in claims-handing costs to a client on its liability portfolio but also create a flow-on effect that reduced that client’s indemnity spend by more than 60 per cent.

But liability claims are just the beginning. Crawford Third-Party Administration (TPA) is Lloyd’s accredited and delivers claims-management services across most lines of insurance, including property, professional indemnity, motor and directors and officers.

In an era when all businesses are seeking ‘more for less’ and attempting to keep a lid on costs, keeping TPA and associated expert fees under control when managing claims is essential.

If this is the best third-party administration process you’ve never heard of, it might pay you (literally) to read on. 

So, how does Crawford TPA do it?

“It’s purely the fact that at Crawford we have a TPA, an adjusting business and a law firm. It’s about the direct ability to keep a lid on the expert fee component associated with claims management,” says James Merchant, Crawford’s chief client officer.

“For example, in the liability space our ability to tap into the legal minds at HBA Legal reduces the likelihood of an external law firm dragging out the claims process in an environment where time is money,” he explains.

Iona Sjahadi, a partner at HBA Legal, says: “Our people know where they dip in to add value and where they dip out. It’s not an environment where it’s a fight for revenue; we see ourselves as all on the same team and our only motivation is the right result for the client.”

Head of Crawford TPA, Milia Xystros, joined the business in September this year. Xystros says she has seen numerous cases over her career in which an underwriter will instruct a preferred law firm where a junior lawyer takes a legalistic and time-intensive, rather than strategic, approach to the claim.

While investigating a claim, a TPA may engage a law firm to confirm where liability lies. This can be a long, sometimes wasteful and expensive process. But it doesn’t have to be that way when working with Crawford TPA.

“Often, all the TPA really needs is a quick, informed opinion to double-check a contentious point or two on which the case stands or falls — something that’s possible given the unique relationship between TPA and HBA,” says Xystros.

Xystros has more than 25 years’ experience across the insurance industry. Holding a law degree, she is experienced across legal advice, claims handling, litigation management, dispute resolution, vendor management, operational support functions, risk and compliance, continuous improvement and quality assurance.

Her career has included a decade in private-practice law firms focusing on public liability, compulsory third party, self-insureds and property claims, followed by 11 years with IAG. Most recently, she has managed Lloyd’s syndicates and local underwritten, casualty, financial lines and property claims within a TPA environment.

Xystros is quick to point out that there is nothing new about TPAs and law firms working together in partnership (and she should know, having worked in law firms for more than a decade). But the proximity of each cog in the Crawford system can be as simple as walking over to another cubicle in the same office and asking for a quick confirmation of critical claim-outcome determinants.

When working with Crawford TPA, the same synergies are applied to the management of property claims where, in many cases, the skills of a property loss adjuster are necessary. Crawford is home to the largest property loss-adjusting team in the country.

“When we work with our colleagues in loss adjusting rather than go externally, there are undoubtedly efficiency gains in terms of time spent on the claim … and we all know time is money,” says Xystros.

Crawford TPA has no issue if clients want to use their chosen law firm or adjusting house. “We understand that there are times when clients want to use someone else for a variety of commercial reasons,” she says.

The loss-ratio improvements achieved by Crawford TPA can be dramatic and it’s therefore easy to understand why customers are rating its service so highly. For one client, its loss ratio fell from 150 per cent to 42 per cent.

“The longer claims are open, the more it costs. Our focus is to resolve claims as quickly as we can and as effectively as we can to support financial and customer outcomes,” says Xystros.

With pressure to keep costs down in a more uncertain economy, these savings can be important to the bottom line and can significantly boost business confidence. But there is also the more intangible benefit of an improved claims experience overall.

Read this article and all the other articles from the latest issue of the Journal e-magazine.

 Read issue 3 of the Journal