Insurance companies have established task groups to assess the full extent of the damage caused by torrential rains in the Kyushu region. Nonlife insurers are dispatching the minimum number of employees to the affected areas due to the novel coronavirus epidemic, and are using IT to speed up the payment of insurance claims.
Sompo Japan Insurance Inc. has set up a disaster response office in Kumamoto Prefecture and appraisers began surveying the damage on Monday. Mitsui Sumitomo Insurance Co. has also set up a Kyushu disaster response office in Fukuoka Prefecture to handle customer inquiries. The company can accept about 55,000 calls a day, an about tenfold increase since it expanded its call center capacity in 2019.
The total insurance payments in the nonlife insurance industry exceeded 1 trillion yen for two consecutive years in fiscal 2018-19 due to the increase in the amount of damage caused by typhoons and heavy rains. Once again, large areas of Kyushu are expected to be affected. How quickly insurance payments can be made is key to helping the victims.
Sompo Japan Insurance Inc. plans to make it possible for fire insurance policyholders to report flooding damage via the Line messaging app by as early as this autumn. About 5,000 Sompo Japan policyholders who were affected by the recent rains have been given instructions on how to file a damage report via the app.
In the past, nonlife insurance companies often needed to send employees to inspect the damage and do onsite paperwork when policyholders filed claims. Between fiscal 2018 and 2019, the company sent about 6,300 employees to disaster-hit areas in Kyushu, Kansai and other regions as support staff.
This time, instead of dispatching employees to Kyushu, branches across Japan will share the burden of processing automobile insurance claims. The company hopes to shorten the time it takes to pay insurance benefits to policyholders by using the Line app.
Tokio Marine & Nichido Fire Insurance Co. is also accepting online claims. The company uses satellite images to determine the extent of damage and the height of flooding. Video calls are also being utilized to eliminate the need for onsite surveys.
The coronavirus epidemic has prompted insurance firms to expand the use of IT as the situation has made it difficult to appraise damage using conventional methods. Aioi Nissay Dowa Insurance Co. is not dispatching employees to support colleagues at its disaster-response headquarters in Tokyo and is having some employees work remotely to minimize the risk of infections spreading among staff.
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