Big Interview: Neil Gibson, Sedgwick

When Neil Gibson was passed the reins of Sedgwick’s UK business in November 2023 a lengthy handover note from his predecessor simply wasn’t required.

As he was chief operating officer prior to being promoted to the position of UK CEO, and had been with the business since it was formed by the merger of Cunningham Lindsey and Vericlaim in 2018, he was fully immersed in the way Sedgwick works.

His close working relationship with former UK CEO Paul White, who was promoted to regional CEO for the UK, New Zealand, Middle East, Africa and Asia, meant, according to Gibson: “There was no change of plan or direction. It was to continue to work on the plan we developed.”

The plan was to do three things: continue to grow Sedgwick in the UK by focussing on customer service outcomes and colleague development.

When it comes to that first target, Gibson observes: “Like all loss adjusting businesses you never know what is around the corner in terms of storms, snow, etc, and very quickly after I became CEO there was the start of the winter storm season. 

“There were 10 named storm events, none of which were individually enormous but collectively they created quite a lot of work for property adjusters.

“We picked up an additional 20,000 additional storm claims over that winter period, which kept us pretty busy. We got off to a very busy start in the earlier part of the year.”

Broader church

To chase further growth in the UK, Gibson says Sedgwick continues to look to diversify what it offers to the insurance industry.

When he took charge, Sedgwick already had a law firm, a resource solution business that places colleagues with clients to help with recruitment, plus it offers managed repairs plus business consultancy.

In the last 12 months, Gibson says Sedgwick has invested “a lot of time and energy” in growing speciality services.

He says: “We were on the cusp of announcing our new aviation business, this time last year, and that launched at the start of the year. I am responsible for that as well as running the UK business.

“We’ve hired in 50 colleagues from around the world as part of that new aviation business. We’ve also invested in our natural resources and financial lines, finance specie, and our environmental and forensic investigation services, so quite a lot of strategic targeting those specialist areas.

“Last, but not least, is TPA [third-party administrator]. That is an area that particularly in our US business we have a very large team, and we have ambitions to grow TPA in the UK too.

“We are expanding our digitally enabled services and have won quite a lot of business in the home emergency space.

“We’ve also been pretty successful in motor and liability and also accident and health. They are the lines of business we have been focusing on in TPA. It has been a busy time in term of growth.”

Unlike the Sedgwick’s US TPA activity, which is concentrated on workers compensation claims, in the UK he says the focus has been expanding home emergency to deal with claims that may start as a burst pipe and join that up into a full home claim and repair.

Essentially, Gibson says by offering a broader church claims specialist services, Sedgwick will grow by working with a wider array of companies, directly with corporates for TPAs, and through engaging more deeply with providers that already deal with his business today.

Going green

Reflecting on his first 12 months in the top job, Gibson says increased incidences of extreme weather plus a growing focus on environmental, social and governance issues has also driven his organisation’s activity.

“Many (providers) have signed up to (achieve) Net Zero by 2030, as have we, and that isn’t too far away,” he notes. “A lot of activity is required for that. We’ve been working with our clients to support them, and also get ourselves into the right shape to be ready for that.”

On the efforts required to hit that Net Zero target in little more than five years’ time, Gibson says Sedgwick has spent the last couple of years achieving carbon neutrality across the whole business.

A calculator has been created so that business repair costs can be scheduled and how much carbon is used with every repair item calculated, detailing on a claim or portfolio level how much carbon is being spent so that alternatives can be considered.

“We can say to a homeowner, the total carbon to put your this back together is X but we could do it another way, which is more carbon efficient,” he says. “Increasingly insurers are focusing on that.

“We’ve worked with our contractor network to increase the carbon efficiency and have managed to save over 1400 tonnes of carbon, CO2, on scope 3 emissions, which is a step in the right direction.

“That has been the main activity we have actually achieved and then we’ve been working towards our science-based testing initiatives.

“Our submission for that went in last month. We had two years from when we announced we were going to become Net Zero by 2030 to submit our plan. There’s been a lot of work taking place for that.

“We’ve had various strategic plans in place within our business units. Every one of them has a plan to get to where we need to be by 2030.”

When asked how Sedgwick pulled together that plan, he says it was a real collaborative effort with the finance and operational teams getting together the data to understand what the business is doing today and what could be done tomorrow.

“Things like our premises strategy,” he says. “How are we heating and lighting our offices? So, we put ourselves in the best place to transition towards Net Zero by 2030.”

That plan is now being independently assessed, and Gibson is hopeful the conclusion is Sedgwick is on track to hit that Net Zero goal by 2030.

Once that plan is given a thumbs up, he continues Sedgwick will have an annual audit tracking progress towards carbon neutrality that insurance providers.

“Five or 10 years this (Net Zero targets and monitoring) was a good idea that was further down the agenda. It was an ambition,” he says. “(Now) There’s an awful lot more focus.

“So, for example, if we get an RFI (request for information from a provider), there’s now a weighted question in there. There is much more importance placed on: ‘Tell us about your ESG credentials. Tell us about how you can help us, as the insurer, reduce our carbon emissions?’

“That might have been further down the importance level five to 10 years ago. Now it is, it’s much more prominent.”

Such a focus on ESG reporting and the price tag to achieve such monitoring could, some predict, result in fewer entrants to the loss adjusting market in the years to come.

However, Gibson reckons ESG reporting requirements won’t necessarily create a loss adjusting market where you either have to be a major player with scale like Sedgwick or focus on a niche that is simpler to monitor.

“There are lots of smaller boutique firms still out there,” he says. “I think it will inevitably get harder as you’re expected to provide not just your insurer clients, but society as a whole, more reporting about your activity and independent verification of your activity.

“That will make it potentially harder for new entrants to the market, but I think loss adjusters are very innovative.

“If you go back to the way things have evolved over the past few decades, there’s always something new that is an insurmountable problem but then there is a solution to it.”

Political prospects

Another pressure on Sedgwick’s provider partners since Gibson took the helm has been the new Labour government’s focus on motor and home insurance pricing, with a taskforce looking for ways to slash premiums launched in October.

Gibson says while inflation has levelled off, the double digit price and wage leaps of the last few years, mean the cost of parts and labour remain significantly more than they were pre-pandemic.

He notes this has also coincided with parts and labour supply issues, and changing customer expectations in a digital age of how frequently they’ll be updated on the progress of their claim and repair.

“That’s been a real challenge for clients and continues to be for those who operate in an incredibly competitive space,” he observes. “Consumers have a lot of choice. It’s easier for them to switch insurers so there’s a lot of sensitivity around that.

“The impact that’s had on us is around how we can help clients with insights not just on what is the overall claims cost, but on specifics per costing and what is driving that.

“Why are claims going in a certain direction? We are helping the insurers understand it so they can plan, and we can plan our business as well.

“Other things like the availability of alternative accommodation as a driver of claims cost. Rental properties and hotel availability isn’t as abundant as you’d like.

“There’s been an impact for customers too. If I went back five or 10 years, typically a customer would prefer a cash settlement and to arrange the repairs themselves.

“Increasingly, and particularly since the pandemic, customers are saying: ‘Actually I can’t find the builder. Can you help me? Can you organise my repair?’

“We’ve had people who’ve come back and said: ‘My builder has put the price up since they gave me the quote.’ That’s had a real impact for consumers as well.

“Increasingly we are fully integrated with clients,” he says. “We have an exchange of data multiple times a day of new claims data, reserve movements...

“We then provide much more frequent analysis of why/what’s going on. Increasingly, the role of our client relationship team has become more than just looking after the commercials and the contract.

“Systems have evolved where we can give our clients a dynamic view of their portfolio as a whole at all or an individual claim or subset of their claims. That’s really how it has evolved.”

Customer expectations

What good looks like today, when it comes to customer service, has shifted, Gibson notes, with Sedgwick having to adapt accordingly.

“Last year we moved from 60 (Fenchurch Street) to 30 (Fenchurch Street) and we went through all of our cupboards and we had a big throwing out session,” he says.

“I found someone had kept a staff handbook from Ellis & Buckle from 1996, which set out what customer expectations were and what our service level agreements were.

“It was a booklet covering everything from personal conduct to what we expect you to do in terms of customer service. To see how things have evolved… fax machines were in there and how many days you had to write up your report after the visit.

“Now the expectation of consumers is driven by the digital age that we now live in.

“Nobody makes a telephone call into the switchboard anymore and leaves a message for somebody. They expect to just be able to get instant access and instant responses.

“So, it’s evolved, and I think the Consumer Duty as well is something that is going to continue to drive that. I think it’s a very positive thing, personally.”

It is pointed out the 1996 manual highlights how much easier it was to handle customers in an era where communication had to wait until you could be found at your desk and the turnaround time of snail Royal Mail deliveries had to be factored in.

Anyone disappointed at a delay to receiving their settlement cheque would have to deliberate whether it was worth typing a letter, purchasing a stamp and popping their message in the post box rather than Tweeting a complaint in seconds.

Clearly, Sedgwick can no longer hand out a tick box list of how to satisfy customers, but how can it manage expectations in today’s world where instant gratification is believed to be a right rather than an aspiration and the Consumer Duty is a regulatory requirement?

Gibson feels service standards have to evolve beyond booklets to understanding the range of expectations based on an individual’s needs.

He says: “For many of our customers, it’s the first time that they’ve ever experienced this (the need to claim). They’re in a distressed state and they have the power of social media and the internet to find out what to do if they’re not happy with the way things are going.

“It’s about spending more time than ever before helping the customer understand what needs to be done, why it needs to be done and how it can be done.

“If it’s a claim that might involve a personal lines customer having to have alternative accommodation, understanding the impact on them and their family.

“Another thing that we’re having to navigate is the number of vulnerable customers. Just in the last year we have doubled the number of customers we’ve recorded as vulnerable.”

In Sedgwick’s claim system, Gibson says there is a method of recording whether someone is “visibly” vulnerable and criteria worked on with clients based on age, disability, financial circumstances, etc.

“It’s allowed us to think about the needs of those customers and to differentiate the service,” he says.

“There’s really no such thing as the standard – it is what is the right thing for that customer on that claim. It is really helping and supporting colleagues through that journey.”

So, now rather than turn to a booklet claims handlers have to grasp how to adapt their approach to communications, repairs, etc, based on a claimant’s characteristics.

“I think it speaks to diversity,” he says. “You have people in your employ from different backgrounds and mindsets, who can really understand that the ever-broadening church of customers.

“It’s also having some specific skills. One of the things I’m really proud about is our vulnerable customer care team. We have a group of people who are from nursing backgrounds. We get them involved where we have extreme vulnerabilities.

“We might have someone who’s living with dementia, for whom doing anything for themselves is an absolute challenge.

“We see a lot of people who are retired, on their own, suffer a lot. They need to make a claim but they cannot cope. The way you might go about things normally just wouldn’t be acceptable to them.

“You still need to get the property repaired. So, for example, how do they choose a kitchen or how do they choose carpets? Unless they make a choice, you can’t actually progress the claim.

“It might be we take them to the showroom or bring the manufacturer to show them the samples. We think things through differently for that type of customer. That’s just one example of how have - and how we will continue to - evolve.”

Developing talent

While it was third on his plan list, Gibson is keenly aware that key to hitting growth targets and satisfying customers is winning the industry’s war for talent.

Historically, he observes, when he entered the claims adjusting profession there were few women working in the sector but today, 52% of Sedgwick’s workforce is female.

“There is a shift,” Gibson says. “We’ve changed how we recruit. It’s not all about just technical skills. We’ve deliberately brought people in who’ve come from a customer service background. Have they got the personal capabilities and qualities to align with an empathetic approach?

“We’ve brought people in who maybe worked in hospitality or some sort of other service industry and then we’ve upskilled them into the technical skills. We’ve done that quite a bit in particularly in our home claims.”

Indeed, when it comes to pushing ahead with that three-point plan in 2025, he says he intends to put down deeper roots into the areas Sedgwick have moved into in the last few years and make additional hires to those teams.

“That really takes us to the key enabler to make it (growth) happen: colleagues,” he says. “This is predominantly a service business. Finding people with the right skill set to join us. There is still a war on talent out there.

“Having a pipeline of talent is really important. One of the most important departments we have is our learning and development area.”

Last year, Gibson says Sedgwick “proudly developed” 109 new loss adjusters for the business, but adds he would have liked to bring on board even more: “We have a graduate scheme. We have an early careers programme. We might bring people into the business in a support role, internships, a variety of things, and then really attract talent from there.

“One of our major successes is having people who’ve come and work for our organisation, maybe in the claims handling role internally and then we’ve upskilled them into an adjusting role.”

Some fear the insurance industry may be shifting away from being a sector where you can leave school and work your way up to CEO, something Gibson has achieved.

He left school, had no career in his sights, and got a job as a trainee insurance broker.

“I entered insurance straight from school. Worked for Bowring, who are now Marsh, a global broking firm. Had two fantastic years there. Really enjoyed it.

“One of the things that I did in my first two years was I had to appoint loss adjusters. I remember getting this loss adjuster’s report through. Gold embossed paper. I read it and thought: ‘wow, that’s a really good, great quality piece of work.

“As my relationship grew with that loss, adjusting firm, the manager invited me round for a coffee and a career chat about what I might do. I went into loss adjusting in 1989 as a trainee adjuster and worked my way through from there.

“What appeals is it was actually delivering promises to customers. Making sense out of the chaos and the complexity. It was for me. I have thoroughly enjoyed all of the experience that I’ve had.

“I was really lucky to work with some great people who trained me up.”

In the late 1990s, he was given responsibility for “some management”, became a branch manager, and “just enjoyed the leadership side of it and developing that sort of business operational mindset”.

“It’s transformed from being a paper-based service to a digital service now.

“How we work, where we work from has changed, but actually what we do is fundamentally the same. It’s helping people recover when something bad’s happened to them.”

Gibson is convinced Sedgwick’s approach to talent will ensure success stories such as his aren’t confined to the past.

“People have got great choices of what they can do,” he says. “Many choices of where they spend their time.

“To win the war for talent, we have to make and elevate the claims profession as one where people should come and aspire to work and have a great career.

“I think the claims profession is a fantastic, dynamic environment for people who want to come and help people.

“With the frequency and severity of weather events that we are seeing all around the world, you know the need for loss adjustments and other claims professionals is going to be there.”