Driving change in Motor Insurance claims

 A major European Motor Insurer handles over 30,000 claims per year. At the point of claim, the insurer’s aim is for customers to use a partner garage for their repairs. Not only is this in the best interest of the insurer (as this means a lower claim cost on average due to pre-negotiated repair costs), it is also in the best interest of the customer: by using a partner garage, they get a financial benefit (a lower excess) and greater convenience (a pick up & return service as well as free car clearning). 

Despite this, there was a low proportion of customers choosing partner garages. The insurer brought us in to understand why this was happening and what they could do about it. 

By listening to claims calls and interviewing key stakeholders in the business, we diagnosed the underlying behavioural barriers to choosing a partner garage at claim stage. Here’s what we found:

Customers were reluctant to use the approved garages due to psychological “forces” at play when they were presented with the choice: 

• uncertainty: going to a different garage was unfamiliar which meant customers were in the dark about the process
• strong existing preferences: they had a clear intention to use a particular garage (due to existing relationships, trust and brand)
• suspicion: customers felt apprehensive that they were being ‘sold’ something or pushed to make a certain choice

What's more,  the way the choice was presented to customers reinforced these behavioural barriers, rather than addressing them: 

• Using approved garages was presented as optional: when no option was recommended or shown as favourable, customers defaulted to what is familiar
• The choice was not framed persuasively: too often, the financial benefit and extra convenience of using a partner garage was not highlighted to customers

 In order to address the barriers identified, and ensure ongoing impact, there were two things we had to achieve. First we had to motivate the team to see the "why" behind partner garages. Second, we needed to equip agents with the tools to persuade customers. To do this, we provided a toolkit of persuastechniques, grounded in behavioural science, for agents to use on the phones. We then ran ‘training that sticks’ with the call centre team, including role play and group call listening, to ensure they felt confident and motivated to apply the techniques going forward. 

 Overview of our persuasive toolkit: 

1. Utilise defaults: frame partner garages as the standard/normal choice
2. Harness consistency: highlight that they already selected to use a partner garage on their policy 
3. Harness loss aversion: highlight the financial loss if they do not choose a partner garage 
4. Make the benefits salient: clearly state the benefits of choosing partner garages
5. Show empathy: build rapport and have empathy-led conversations as this means the customer is more likely to heed our recommendation
6. Build trust and credibility: overcome suspicion through marks of credibility (e.g. showing how frequently they are being used by other customers like you)

 Our changes were implemented in April 2025 and results are so far showing a relative uplift of 31% in customer agreeing to use partner garages at the point of claim. 

With over 2000 more customers per year chosing approved garages through these techniques, our behavioural science intervention has saved an estimated £1.3 million.