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Freedom251 › Blog › claims handling

How to Improve Customer Service in the Insurance Industry

By Freedom251 Team · · 7 min read

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Improve insurance customer service by making support easy to find, explaining policies and claims in plain language, keeping customers informed through the claims process, and adapting help to individual needs. Then use complaints, repeat contacts, quality reviews, and customer feedback—not speed or contact volume alone—to find problems and check whether changes produce better outcomes.

Start by mapping the customer journey

Map how a customer gets help at every consequential point: before buying, when changing a policy, when making or tracking a claim, at renewal, and when raising a complaint. Include telephone, agent, web, and other channels the insurer actually offers. For each step, record where contact details appear, what information the customer must provide, how many handoffs occur, and how the customer can get help if the first route fails.

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This is not just a website-navigation exercise. A customer may find a phone number but still be transferred repeatedly, or submit a claim online without knowing what happens next. Review the entire journey from the customer’s perspective and remove avoidable barriers, including unclear ownership between the insurer and an intermediary.

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The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) reported in a 2026 publication of its Financial Lives 2024 survey that 19% of recent financial-services contacts or attempted contacts involved difficulty finding, or being unable to find, the right contact information. That figure covers financial services overall, not insurance alone. It is a warning to test contact access, not an insurance-specific benchmark.

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Make answers and expectations understandable

Use plain, consistent language in policy explanations, claim-document requests, decisions, and updates. Tell customers what they need to do, why it is needed, what happens next, and when they should expect another update. If a timeframe changes, explain the change and give a new expectation rather than leaving the customer to chase.

  • Replace internal terminology with wording customers can act on; define unavoidable insurance terms where they appear.
  • Use the same explanation across policy documents, web pages, scripts, letters, and claims updates.
  • Make current policy information accessible to employees who answer questions and handle claims.
  • Test revised communications with customers or through structured quality reviews. A rewritten letter is not evidence by itself that customers understand it.

The FCA’s 2026 publication reporting Financial Lives 2024 found that 13% of financial-services contacts that reached a person involved an answer the customer found very or fairly difficult to understand. Again, this is a cross-sector consumer finding, not an insurance-only rate. The FCA’s outcomes work also cautions that changing a process does not establish that understanding improved: firms need to assess the effect of the change.

Treat claims handling as a core service journey

For many customers, the claim is the moment when the practical value of insurance becomes clearest. Provide an accessible route to submit and track a claim, explain the stages and required documents, and tell the customer how and when the insurer will provide updates. When a claim takes longer than expected, communicate the reason and the next step.

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Monitor more than claim speed

Measure end-to-end journey time, but interpret it alongside claim acceptance and decline patterns, settlement amounts, customer feedback, complaints, and file or call reviews. A faster process is not necessarily a better one if decisions are poorly explained or settlements do not match reasonable customer expectations. Review fairness as well as timeliness.

Keep oversight when another organization handles claims

If a third-party administrator or intermediary handles part of the claim, the insurer still needs enough information to understand what the customer experienced and identify problems. Agree how claim status, delays, decisions, complaints, and customer feedback will be shared and reviewed. FCA reviews describe weaknesses in information-sharing with third parties and cases where combining claim, complaint, feedback, and call-monitoring data exposed policies that were not paying in line with expectations.

The FCA’s 2023 press release, updated in December 2025, emphasized the importance of timely and fair claims handling during a cost-of-living squeeze. The point for service leaders is practical: monitor whether customers receive fair, understandable claim outcomes, not merely whether cases close quickly.

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Adapt support to the customer’s situation

Customers may need a different channel, more time, a clearer explanation, or another adjustment to resolve an issue. Train frontline and claims staff to recognize when additional help may be needed and to offer an appropriate response. Review higher-risk journeys such as bereavement, financial difficulty, and cancellations, where a rigid process can add avoidable stress.

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FCA reviews describe examples such as specialist staff training, support hubs, voice analytics, and waivers of fees or excesses for customers in difficulty. These are examples of approaches firms have used, not universal requirements or a checklist every insurer must adopt. The relevant question is whether the help offered fits the customer’s circumstances and whether it helped resolve the issue.

Make complaints a source of operational insight

A complaint is not only a case to close; recurring complaint causes can reveal a broken process, unclear communication, or a mismatch between customer expectations and outcomes. Make the complaint route visible, acknowledge and track issues, classify causes consistently, and send recurring themes to the teams that can change the underlying process.

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  1. Record the customer’s issue and the stage of the journey where it arose.
  2. Group complaints by root cause rather than relying only on broad product or department labels.
  3. Assign a process owner and a date for a corrective action.
  4. Check later complaint themes, repeat contacts, quality findings, and customer feedback to see whether the change worked.

Regulatory context matters. In the UK, FCA general-insurance value measures include claims complaints as a percentage of claims, alongside measures such as claims frequency, acceptance, and average payouts. In the United States, the National Association of Insurance Commissioners (NAIC) describes a state-based market-conduct system that uses complaint monitoring, market-conduct examinations, and data analysis. In India, an IRDAI guidance page cited for this topic says insurers should resolve grievances within two weeks and that customers may escalate to IRDAI if they remain unresolved or are dissatisfied; insurers should confirm the current rule and its applicability before relying on that period. These are jurisdiction-specific contexts, not interchangeable global rules.

Use a balanced set of measures

Set a baseline for each important journey, then combine operational data with direct checks of quality and customer outcomes. Contact volume and wait time describe parts of the service, but neither proves that customers got appropriate help. The FCA’s consumer-support review reported that 13% of surveyed firms said they performed no quality assurance on support channels; this is a firm-level finding and is separate from the consumer survey figures above.

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What to assess Useful evidence What it can reveal
Access and responsiveness Ease of finding contact details, response time, end-to-end journey time, and handoffs Where customers cannot reach the right team or face avoidable delays
Resolution First-contact resolution, repeat contacts, reopenings, and escalations Whether the issue was resolved or merely moved to another channel or team
Clarity and interaction quality Customer feedback, call listening, file reviews, and quality-assurance findings Whether explanations were understandable, accurate, and useful
Claims outcomes Claim journey time, acceptance and decline patterns, severity, payouts, complaints, and review findings Whether claims are timely, fair, and consistent with customer expectations
Recurring problems Complaint themes, root-cause analysis, and changes after corrective action Whether the same process failure continues after a fix
Policy administration Lapses, mid-term adjustments, and take-up patterns Where administration or product processes may create friction
Additional support Quality reviews and outcome checks for customers who may need extra help Whether the support offered addressed the customer’s particular difficulty

Use the measures together rather than setting a single headline target. For example, a lower average claims time should be considered alongside acceptance patterns, complaint causes, customer feedback, and file reviews. Segment results where possible to find whether a particular journey or group of customers faces barriers that an overall average conceals.

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Improve digital service without making it a dead end

Digital self-service can make routine tasks easier, but customers need a suitable next route when a task is complex, their circumstances do not fit the online flow, or the digital service fails. Evaluate channel accessibility, privacy, suitability for the task, handoff quality, and whether a customer can reach resolution without repeatedly explaining the issue.

A PIAM and NielsenIQ report published in 2023 on its 2022 Malaysia Insurance & Takaful Customer Satisfaction Survey said 21% of surveyed customers preferred digital channels for future insurance or takaful purchases. That finding is limited to the survey and geography; it is not a global measure of preference for service, claims, or support. The report also discusses agent education and clear service-charter communication as complements to digital channels.

Run a repeatable improvement cycle

  1. Choose a journey. Start with a consequential customer task, such as getting help with a policy change or tracking a claim.
  2. Establish the baseline. Combine journey times and repeat contacts with complaints, customer feedback, and quality reviews.
  3. Locate the cause. Use case files, call listening, and complaint themes to identify where access, handoffs, instructions, or decisions break down.
  4. Make a targeted change. Give the action an owner and a date; change the step causing the problem rather than adding a broad service slogan.
  5. Check the outcome. Compare the same evidence after the change and look for unintended effects, including whether a faster or more automated route leaves some customers unable to resolve their issue.

Smaller insurers do not need sophisticated analytics to begin. Periodic call listening or file reviews, combined with existing complaint, repeat-contact, and customer-feedback data, can reveal issues and show whether a focused change helped.

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Frequently Asked Questions

Should every insurance question be handled through the same channel?

No. The right route depends on the task and the customer’s circumstances. A routine request may suit self-service, while a complex claim or a customer needing additional help may need a person or another supported route. Assess whether the channel is appropriate and whether the handoff works.

Does a shorter claims cycle always mean better service?

No. Speed is one useful measure, but it does not establish that the decision was fair, the explanation was clear, or the settlement met expectations. Interpret journey time with decision patterns, complaints, customer feedback, and quality reviews.

Can an insurer use the same complaint deadlines in every country?

No. Complaint-handling requirements depend on jurisdiction and product context. The two-week period described in the cited IRDAI guidance is India-specific; it should not be treated as a universal deadline or substituted for applicable local requirements elsewhere.

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