BIA 2026 winner Q&A: Policy Expert chief claims officer Gary Barker

Gary Barker, chief claims officer, explains how moving from an outsourced solution to an in-house one laid the foundations for Policy Expert having significantly faster claims resolution than the industry standard by blending tech, expertise and proactive support.

What does it mean to win the Claims Initiative of the Year – Insurer?

My team and I are thrilled to have won this award. We feel like we are doing something really different and really special for our customers and our shareholders, so to be recognised by the biggest and the best awards for our industry is massive for us.

The award is amazing recognition of us standing by what we know is right for our business, and what works when it matters for our customers. That’s what we pride ourselves on – taking control of the moments that matter.

As I say, there’s a whole team of experts behind this award, so this award is for them – I’m just the one who gets to talk about it.

Can you explain the genesis of the winning initiative, especially the decision to move from an outsourced solution to an in-house one?

The decision to move to an insourced model was born of frustration at the limitations of supply chains within the home insurance sector. Too often, they add delay and cost in a way that could probably be avoided. It felt to us that the only thing stopping us from changing that was inertia and convention, so we decided to change that.

We know that trust is key to helping ease the strain of these difficult situations for our customers. We want to provide assurance and confidence from the first moments and, for me, that starts with the little things

In 2019, we purchased the drying and restoration business, adding to the existing team of in-house loss adjusters and surveyors. Since then, we’ve continued to develop and own our in-house claims proposition for our customers.

Ultimately, this is all about transforming the speed at which we can operate, controlling costs and elevating the customer experience.

How easy was it to transition from using third-party providers to managing property claims in-house by creating the nationwide First Response team?

It was a challenging process that we have spent a long time honing, particularly the system integration that sits behind our fleet of vans and our teams of technicians. We have been running this system for over six years and we’re still finding things we can further improve.

But that’s one of our real strengths – the ability to flex and adapt as conditions around us change. It’s not an easy challenge to face up to, of course, but one that we’re proud to be undertaking. Like any good business, we’re never standing still and always looking to learn and improve the customer and claims experience.

As anyone will tell you, a big transition like this takes time to embed and refine, but ultimately it creates resilience, sustainability, and delivers consistently stronger standards.

What have you done in terms of training staff to empower and upskill them for the change?

We understand that our experts are the key to our success. We provide our colleagues with the technical skills and qualifications they need to support our customers and give confidence in our services. In fact, we now have the largest BDMA-qualified team in the industry.

We’ve created a huge amount of bespoke training support for our teams. Our ‘Zero to Hero’ programme, for example, can take a total layperson and turn them into a trained drying and restoration technician in 12 weeks, albeit while maintaining supervision.

We also have our own academy for training buildings surveyors and about 10% of our business is involved in an apprenticeship scheme of some sort.

All of this training and support is brought together through our integrated IT platform which brings together all of the relevant data we need to process the claim.

This combination of training, experience and technology enables us to support our customers in a real end-to-end way, and we can even utilise our integration proactively – such as at the time of a flood alert – to mobilise quickly to the areas we predict will need our teams the most.

First Response employees wear branded uniforms, drive branded vans, carry photo ID and wear body cameras. Why does this matter?

Insurance is fundamentally to protect against peril. So by that logic, when it’s being used, it’s often a very stressful time for our customers.

Knowing that one of the first people on the scene are from your insurer, that they are verifiable through their uniforms and ID passes, that they have the right kit, and that they represent a business that invests heavily in caring for its customers creates a really important first impression.

This is supported by the feedback we get, like our 4.9 star independent Trustpilot rating for our first response services.

We know that trust is key to helping ease the strain of these difficult situations for our customers. We want to provide assurance and confidence from the first moments and, for me, that starts with the little things.

How has the change impacted claims cycle times – and what has been the customer feedback?

Rapid response operates seven days a week, making contact with customers within two hours and attendance on site in 24–48 hours.

This combination of training, experience and technology enables us to support our customers in a real end-to-end way, and we can even utilise our integration proactively – such as at the time of a flood alert – to mobilise quickly to the areas we predict will need our teams the most

We’re the UK’s only in-house home first response team and have significantly faster claims resolution than the industry standard.

Our cycle times are typically 20% lower than the market average and the increased control we can apply to the claim manifests in houses that are dry much quicker and losses that are settled faster and at a lower cost.

The customer feedback is overwhelmingly positive. We’ve got an overall rating of ‘Excellent’ on Trustpilot from over 90,000 reviews, and a rating of 4.9/5 for our First Response Team specifically.

What have been the biggest lessons learned from the change, and how do you see the in-house solution evolving in the future?

The biggest lesson learned is that home claims do not improve with age.

To do the right thing for the customer, we must act swiftly and decisively and apply our expert knowledge of the pathology of houses to get the customer’s home put back into its pre-loss condition quickly.

To do this, we blend tech, expertise and proactive support to deliver a better experience, lower cost and faster resolution.

If we can continue to deliver what we have done so far, and refine and evolve our processes even further, then we’ll have happy customers, better loss ratios and a highly motivated workforce. Our teams really are experts and they really do love getting things done.

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