General Insurance Article - Insurers have not coped well with new legislation

 Only one in three (32%) UK insurance intermediaries believes insurers have coped well with the raft of new legislation they have had to face in recent years. One in five (21%) believe they have been poor in dealing with this. The findings are from new research from EDM Group. The company has also surveyed insurance executives, and the corresponding figures here are 35% and 16%.

 Alarmingly, 73% of insurance intermediaries believe that customer service levels have suffered as a result of the resources insurers have had to dedicate to dealing with the new legislation. The corresponding figure for insurance executives is 23%.

 Some 68% of insurance executives interviewed believe that poor information/data management has had a big impact on the ability of insurers to implement recent new regulation. One in three (35%) intermediaries agrees with this.

 Craig Campbell, head of Insurance Sector at EDM Group, comments “New legislation has been one of the biggest challenges facing insurers, and our research suggests that poor management of information and data has had a negative impact here.

 However, one key way in which insurers are addressing this issue is by digitising more of their information and relying less on paper-based sources of data. This will not only improve their levels of efficiency and reduce costs, but also help ensure that they are compliant with all of the legislation they have to adhere to.”