CSAA claims executive stresses time management for technology

June 30, 2024 4:01 PM

CSAA headquarters building in Walnut Creek, Calif.

Zack Gordon, senior manager of homeowners claims at CSAA, has seen many changes in how property is insured and how property claims are handled over the course of his 18 years with the carrier. CSAA's territory stretches across the U.S. from Northern California to New England, including 23 states and Washington, D.C. Gordon leads a department of about 200 people who handle everything from simple theft and property claims all the way up to seven-figure total losses of homes. Digital Insurance spoke with Gordon about the impact of climate change on property insurance and the challenges of modeling data and changing risks.

The conversation has been edited for clarity.

What are the biggest challenges of your role at CSAA currently?

Zack Gordon of CSAA Insurance Group — Zack Gordon, senior manager of homeowners claims at CSAA.

Weather, catastrophe and the risk of this ever changing planet that we're living on. It's always been hard to predict a tornado or hurricane. But even so now it's really difficult. What we used to measure is less relevant now.

So the future has a lot of question marks. How we staff, how many claims we think we're going to get, what areas that are going to be impacted. That's probably the biggest operational risk that we have right now.

Hopefully we'll dive into some of the technology issues, but there's technology out there that's going to definitely make our lives a lot better, and we're already seeing some of the results of that.

What applications are changing risk? Is it modeling, climate data or something else?

The biggest thing, from a claim standpoint, is time. Time is one of the most important factors that we have. So it's using technology to manage time more efficiently. We have technology that allows us to interact with customers, using video, using photos, using applications and APIs that exchange information efficiently. So we can send something to them, they can send it back to us, almost in real time, if not actually in real time. And then we can start assessing damage. We can assess risk.

We can resolve coverage again, putting somebody at ease, or at least knowing our risk and being able to communicate that as fast as possible. It's a better service. It's actually a better risk mitigation factor for us. So really, it's time, for me, is big, because if we don't manage it efficiently, then we put the customer at risk, we put our company at risk, and it creates a lot of issues.

What are some examples of how CSAA has installed technology or used technology to save time?

Water is probably one of the most frequent types of losses in our industry. If there's a water loss, there's a very stringent dependency on time. If an insured has a loss, and they're willing to allow us to send them a link or to create an exchange of information, where they can take pictures and video, and sometimes even a FaceTime walk through their house with them, it allows us to look at the damage. We can assess based on just the visual evidence of the damage. We can say, this doesn't appear to be long term.

You have a pipe, there's a good chance that it's a wear and tear issue. I could have a coverage decision within minutes, versus in the past, sending somebody out there, it takes days. I can send somebody out to mitigate the damage, or for a more complex issue, I can send out an engineer or a contractor to evaluate. We don't have to go over 10 scenarios if we leverage technology more efficiently.

What can technology do for other types of property claims?

With hail claims or tornado losses, aerial imagery can assess and resolve claims more efficiently and more claims at a time. It's a lot easier to put a drone up in the sky than it is to send somebody on the roof. If a roof has been severely damaged, the drone will tell us right away. Then we can write an estimate using aerial pictometry or photography that lets us use spatial imagery.

We can write estimates by creating an entire frame of a house with all its measurements, then picking and choosing, depending on the loss, what type of repair functions are needed. Over time, we'll work with the insured's contractor on any supplements, but it allows us to do it so much faster, because the longer that an insured sits there and they don't know and they don't understand, the service isn't good. The more information they can get from their insurance company, the more efficiently they can get a contractor. If they're sitting there waiting and a contractor doesn't know whether insurance is paying for it or the insured is, that delays the repair.

What are the next steps? Is it improving on these efforts you have underway? Or other improvements to technology and operations?

We have to be mindful that technology could create more disputes in certain areas. If you use a camera or video to get information digitally, someone could say you missed something because you weren't there. Even though you could argue that the technology captures more data than the human eye can. Understanding how technology evolves the process and how to leverage technology can resolve disputes.

For example, if the insurance company writes an estimate, how can we work with contractors and the insureds to ensure that they're comfortable with the technology and that they're willing to leverage it with us so that we can resolve a claim for the member? We might write an estimate using technology and a contractor that historically has done things the same way might be skeptical. But they're the ones actually doing the work, so how do we partner with them? How do those that are building the technology educate the insureds?

How do we work with insureds' contractors and vendors to ensure that they can embrace technology, so that we can actually help people faster? I think technology can help resolve a lot of the disputes if it's more readily embraced.