Ahead of the Insurance CX Awards 2023, Modern Insurance Magazine sat down with David Vella, Executive Director UK and Ireland at GT Motive, to discuss Next Gen talent, claimant concerns and industry predictions for 2023 and beyond…
Q. Hi David! It’s great to have you on board as a sponsor for the 2023 Insurance CX Awards!
Why don’t we start by talking about GT Motive and the work you’re up to over there at the moment? Tell me more about that.
A. We provide an open eco-system for claims estimations to allow multiple stakeholders to connect within one platform. As the first cloud-based platform within the UK market, we enable our customers to benefit from a platform that connects them within the claims process simply and efficiently, in order to benefit their operations.
We’re passionate about bringing choice and collaboration to the market and providing solutions that truly benefit our clients.
Q. In your experience, what are the primary concerns that claimants are having at the moment, and how can the wider supply chain work together to alleviate this?
A. Claimants are concerned with the delays and lengthy lead times that have been caused by challenges facing parts and mobility supplies. Although some of these challenges are out of our hands, there are elements of the claims journey that we can support and continue to enhance.
Our solutions alleviate inefficiencies within the claims process, which enhances productivity and fundamentally provides a better and quicker service for claimants. Our connected solutions give repairers live access to part prices for a more efficient and accurate estimate.
The claims process is complex. Ultimately however, the more collaborative the industry becomes through the use of connected platforms such as our own, the more the claimant will benefit.
Q. What are your wider industry predictions for 2023?
A. Technology is being implemented into every industry; not only to benefit the customer, but to enhance day-to-day operations. I predict that just like other industries, the claims industry will come to accept cloud-based technology, and it will spark a greater use of it across the industry.
There’s also the matter of collaboration! It’s something we push a lot here at GT Motive, and I see the industry becoming more open to the benefits of collaborating with their supply chains and technological solutions in order to increase efficiencies within their operations.
We’re all facing challenges due to rising costs, so I would also predict many businesses will focus on controlling costs. That’s why we have promised to freeze our prices for the whole of 2023, in order to allow our customers to take control of their finances and support them through these difficult financial times.
Q. How is GT Motive working to fight against the current industry skills crisis?
A. We have seen the effects of the industry skills crisis first-hand, and we have been working hard to support our customers as they battle these challenges.
We believe a more efficient connected solution, such as GT Global, can provide repairers with the opportunity to reduce manual efforts, ultimately allowing them to do more with available resources.
We are also supporting the training of new talent by providing apprentices from Thatcham Research’s VDA Apprenticeship Programme with unrestricted access to our estimating platform. We have removed any cost burden for employers, allowing them to focus purely on the learner’s education. It’s really important to bring new talent into the repair industry and we are proud to do our little bit to support it.
Q. What aspect of the Awards night are you most looking forward to?
A. Myself and the UK team really enjoy getting out and socialising with other industry leaders, our customers and colleagues. I think events such as these really highlight our passion; we love to update the industry on our innovations, and we are always thrilled that people are so interested in chatting to us about our solutions.
We’re sponsoring two awards at this year’s event; The Best Repairer Award and Best Customer Service Award, so I am, of course, looking forward to presenting this to the winners.
Q. If you could offer one piece of advice to the award winners, what would that be and why?
A. My advice to the award winners would be, never stop evolving. Innovation is what drives us, not only as an industry but as professionals.
Do more of what got you shortlisted for your award in the first place, and use this as your drive to enhance your product or services for your customers.
My final bit of advice would be to invest in technology and use it to your advantage. Technology is the future, and sooner or later, it will be at the core of this industry to make claims more efficient and collaborative.
About GT Motive:
With an award-winning estimation platform, GT Motive is a company devoted to developing software solutions for the automotive industry. Offering a range of products including accurate estimating solutions and streamlined cloud-based workflow platforms, GT Motive helps insurers, repairers, engineers and fleet companies to achieve their goals and drive efficiencies in engineering and claims management.
GT Motive recently launched GT Global, a collaborative ecosystem that connects the latest workflow technology for engineering and claims management with GT Motive’s core capabilities around estimatics and data. GT Global is the communications layer around the core estimatics model and facilitates collaboration, the receipt of the instructions for the repairer or the engineer with different profiles, different audit rules, validation rules, etc and all of the processing around authorisation and total loss.
GT Global is a reliable and viable alternative to existing platforms, with state-of-the-art secure cloud technology, the estimating solution is based in OE data and updated in real time. Secure collaboration between engineers and repairers has never been easier and more secure with GT Estimate, the leading estimating solution.
