In this episode we speak with Nik Carle, Litigation Partner at Browne Jacobson LLP, about everything claims in surveying.
Receiving a claim is a big worry and hot topic amongst surveyors.
- How does the claims process work
- Where do most claims come from
- What common reasons are there for making a claim
- How to reduce your chances of having a claim made against you
- How to prepare for a claim
- What to do when a complaint or claim is made
- The emotional impact of a claim
And much more. This is a big topic but we discuss how you can protect yourself and prepare yourself so you can sleep easy at night knowing you\’ve done your best to cover all basis to prevent a claim, help prevent escalation of a claim and deal with it professionally if it\’s taken further.
Preparation and process are key to every aspect of a business.
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Transcript
The following transcript is autogenerated.
Matt Nally 00:22
In this episode, we’re speaking to Nick Carr, who is a litigation partner at Brown Jacobson LLP. So thanks for coming on today, Nick,
Nik Carle 00:43
I’m very pleased to be here much thanks for asking me.
Matt Nally 00:46
I think today’s gonna be a very interesting or hot topic is obviously I’ve seen a lot going on in different survey groups, whether it’s LinkedIn, Facebook, around sort of fear of claims, and, and all that kind of stuff. So I thought, today might be a very interesting episode to look through the full process around claims, you know, how does the claims process work? What causes claims to come up? How do you prevent claims coming up in the first place? And potentially, also, from a student perspective, I see a lot of students worrying about joining the industry, because there’s so much talk about claims. So potentially just dispelling the myths around all the realities around around claims. I suppose just for context, before we get started, in terms of all the claims process, what are you commonly seeing at the moment? With claims? Is there an increasing trend or certain types?
Nik Carle 01:42
Well, Matt, it’s it’s probably a good time to be just to be exploring this, this whole topic of claims. I think, for context, we can, we can just look at the the economic backdrop, because that’s, that’s really significant. And if, if we look back over the last, say, 10 years or so, it’s actually been for severe, it’s a very, very benign time for for claims. The the last burst of of claims against severes, was really after the financial crisis in sort of 2008 to those 920 10. And then onwards from there, there’s always a, there’s always a bit of a lag after a financial crisis or a recession can be, you know, up to up to two or three years afterwards, and then you get, you tend to get a spike in claims coming through. But since we’ve got past that last financial crisis, as you know, it’s been a it’s been a very buoyant time for the, for the market. And there tends to be sort of an inverse relationship between what the economy is doing, and how confident and optimistic people are about their financial circumstances, and the sort of claims incidence. So, all through the last decade, it’s been it’s been, as I say, relatively relatively few claims. It tends to be that good old solicitors are top of the top of the hit list for for claims and severes. This mean, of course, there are always there’s always sort of base level of claims against severes, but no real. No real sort of trend or increase in claims coming through. So if we, if we fast forward to the sort of more recent times. Again, as you’ll appreciate, last, sort of two years, the markets just been absolutely frenzied and frenetic and lots and lots of activity, but with values going up and up. And again, that tends to it will be the case I suspect that that errors and mistakes are happening on the ground, but because the housing market is is has been soaring to the extent that it has that tends to sort of mask any any claims arising because typically people will be making have such a good return on their investment and their properties that there’s no, they’re not suffering any, any loss or any financial loss that they would seek to claim for. Now, as we’re, as things have taken a very sort of dark turn in the last few months since, since the mini budget and everything else. What what we could well see is this is the whole tired sort of drawing out again, and what we what we’ve seen after earlier recessions is that, that the claims and the problems that occurred during the rosier times are now are now exposed as the as the tide goes back. And that’s when we may well see really renewed increase in claims. I think that’s the general expectation as to what happens, again, going back to this idea of the inverse relationship between the fortunes of the economy and the tendency of people to, to bring claims. And so as I say, it’s an interesting, it’s an interesting moment, we’re kind of in the midst of it at the moment, and we probably need a good few months, at least six months of perspective to look back and, and realise whether in fact, there is going to be a new a new claims. Spike.
Matt Nally 06:33
Interesting, okay. And what causes the least momentum is sort of often a two to three year lag between the dip economically and the claims arising. Why is it not slightly more closely aligned? What what causes that lag?
Nik Carle 06:47
I think it’s just, it’s probably because making a claim as is, is not the first avenue that people tend to think about, because you take the kind of an extreme scenario where somebody may have overstretch themselves in taking on a mortgage, and, and they run into affordability difficulties. And their first point of, of focus, if you like, is to keep the lender off of their back. And equally lenders will be trying to ensure that the borrowers the applicants can can still maintain the mortgage for a period of time. Now, all that takes quite a few months to, to work itself through. And then when the lender typically is sort of mopping things up, and maybe has sustained a loss on their, their loan to the borrower, it’s at that point, they tend to look in different directions and see whether they can make a recovery from any professional who was involved in the, in the loan in the loan transaction. So that can typically be obviously be a valuer. Or, or a solicitor, and it tends to be a sort of scattergun approach as to whom, who might have some exposure there. And obviously, you know, professionals are insured, so there are good, they’re a good target for for people to be going after. But that’s why it tends to take a good few months to work itself to work yourself through.
Matt Nally 08:45
Interesting. Okay. One question I’ve got on that, just before we move on to the claims process is just out of interest. How does the volume of claims what percentage of claims split I suppose between lend devaluation type work? Where potentially there might be more? I don’t know, maybe they’re more interested in going after a claim because of their risk versus private clients? You know, where they find something themselves after they’ve moved into property? Is it? Is it fairly evenly split? Are you at much higher risk from a bank versus a private client?
Nik Carle 09:20
Well, there have hardly been any hardly been any lender claims or bank claims in the last 10 years. And those tend to be the question lenders tend to be valuation focused. And for the reasons we were discussing, with with the general market conditions, just soaring up and up. So there’s been very few valuation claims generally over the last over the last 10 years. So the claims we’ve seen have almost all All being from from homeowners and buyers who have purchased and in reliance on a survey, and the allegation has tended to be that a particular defect or problem has been missed during the course of the, during the course of the inspection, and Sophie in the report. So that’s the typical claim scenario, certainly in the last decade, and I don’t think how you’ve done any claims by lenders in the last in the last 10 years, but just started to see a few more come through recently, in the last six months.
Matt Nally 10:47
I suppose it’d be interesting to talk about the claims process. Now there were some people that have been know this very well, not because they’ve gone through it because they’ve done their preparation and so on. But for people that don’t know about the claims process as much, what’s the what’s the typical process, I suppose, initially, a claim or complaint already comes in, and then doesn’t get resolved at that point, and it escalates from there? How does it escalate? But B, what are the different routes, so whether you’ve got litigation or mediation, what tends to be the typical process around the claim?
Nik Carle 11:22
It does, it does rather depend on this on the scale of the claim or complaint, I think as it’s much more typical, if it’s a relatively low value problem, then that does tend to to be channelled down the complaint route. First of all, which means that you would expect to receive as, as a surveyor, you would expect to receive a letter or an email outlining what the grievance and what the problem is, and giving you an opportunity to respond to the to the allegations or the complaint that’s being made. And in fact, that’s the system for dealing with claims actually requires that, that the firm or the severe have an opportunity to respond. Informally, I guess the first level to the complaint that’s being that’s being made. And that simply means taking a taking a view the severe taking a view on whether the complaint is accepted or upheld or whether it’s contested, and if so, what are the what’s the basis on which it’s, it’s not being accepted as valid. So as I say, the at the very first level, there’s a lot of encouragement on complainants and firms to try to sort the complaint type between themselves before lawyers or or any adjudicators or any other third parties get get involved in the in the matter,
Matt Nally 13:21
pivot when it does escalate. I suppose it’s more typically a mediation route for a lower cost, claim or and then it’d be more likely to be litigation for the high higher cost.
Nik Carle 13:34
Again, again, the the sort of scale and the the amount of money involved in the dispute makes a big difference to how it’s how it’s escalated and process through but at the lower end, for most severes, certainly our ICS severes. The there is a dispute resolution service operated by by cedar, who are a private organisation, very experienced in dealing with with disputes. And the mechanism is is not mediation, but it’s actually an adjudication which simply means that the dispute is allocated to someone who is qualified as an adjudicator or often an arbitrator. Often there’ll be a lawyer but not always. And they will just as a as a private dispute manager if you like. They will take an informal look at both parties respective positions. You And then and then take a decision and put that decision back to the parties to see if it will be accepted. So that’s as I say, that’s an adjudication process. And that would only really arise if the professional the severe hadn’t managed to resolve the complaint with the client or the complainant at the outset. So. So that’s the gateway to getting into adjudication that the complainant needs to have gone through the the firm’s complaints handling process, first of all, before they can access adjudication, which is the next level up. And the idea with adjudication is that it’s quick, it’s inexpensive, no lawyers involved, you get a rough and ready decision. It’s not it’s not very focused on strict legal principles. It’s the objective is just to get a sounding really to try to, to try to stop this terrible symptom that you get in court proceedings of things dragging on and on a huge, huge expense. So so that’s that’s the sort of second level is is a dedication. adjudicator looks at it delivers a decision to the parties. Interestingly, the the complainant doesn’t have to accept the the adjudicators decision, so they can just, they can just reject it and see well, no, I don’t agree with that. I’m going off to I’m going off to court, which would be the next the next level up, I guess.
Matt Nally 17:01
Okay, fine. And that would be a bit of a longer process. Where, what point should you alert your insurance provider? I’m assuming not a complaint status, obviously, every company gets a complaint. But when you go to the to the dispute resolution process, which you need to tell your insurance provider or owner, you’ve got to sort of caught face?
Nik Carle 17:21
No, I think you think you need to be alive to to notifying your insurer at quite an early stage, if it’s just if it’s just a straight complaint, and there’s perhaps only a low level of compensation being mentioned. So I’m thinking typically like the if it’s something that can be resolved by refunding or partially refunding the severes fee, that probably doesn’t get on the radar for what needs to be notified to the insurer or to your broker. But if there’s any mention of negligence of making a making a mistake, and leading to some kind of financial loss, so that so that the complainant is saying that their financial position has actually been damaged as a result of the alleged error, or shortcoming in the in the report, then really, it’s better to, it’s better to to flag that to your insurer, I would say,
Matt Nally 18:42
I suppose then moving on. I’m interested in what the team’s journey might be the wrong word for this. But what are the typical scenarios that lead a complaint to escalate into a more of a claim processing of the dispute resolution process? Is it providing the wrong type of advice on what job to get? Is it having poorly set up terms that don’t sort of explain what’s going on in terms of what was expected well enough, or is it things like just missing something? I mean, sort of interested in what the typical cause could be, or what causes it’s
Nik Carle 19:20
very difficult to see, Matt, I think and you you alluded earlier to a lot of sentiment or concern that’s been expressed by in the severes community as to how claims are attending to attendee to arise. I think it’s definitely the case that we do in in this country have a growing sort of consumer compensation culture, and that is, in my experience at the root of a A lot of reasoning as to why claims as to why claims arise. So you could have the most robust and lawyer that procedures, your your terms and conditions would be first class, your methodology, when you go about the survey and inspection is really good. You’re You’re very adept at keeping good records of your inspection and you’re your site notes are, are in apple pie order, and are neatly all complete and recorded and available to be to be called on. And you femme, you’ve been very good about recording the rationale of your thought process as to why you’ve reached particular conclusions in your in your report, you can have all of that in place and still face. Still a claim could arise. Just that just means that you’re better able to respond to it and hopefully see it off. But as to the factors that cause claims to arise in the first place and cause people to complain or to make claims. It’s out of its it’s out there’s a percentage of that incidence that’s out of the severe is control, unfortunately.
Matt Nally 21:26
Yeah, so it just depends on the incentive of a particular customer.
Nik Carle 21:33
It does, really, which is, which is unfortunate. Because there’s a perception. I mean, this is this isn’t the general picture by any means. But there’s some there’s a small amount of of claimants who are always going to make claims come Come What May because they perceive and the system is kind of set up this way, they perceive that they don’t really have anything to lose in least trying a claim. It doesn’t often doesn’t cost them anything to bring a claim or two certainly doesn’t cost them to take a complaint to the adjudication service at Cedar. You know, even if that’s not upheld, there’s no there’s no fee to pay for that no lawyers fees to pay for that. Whilst the the severe on their side does have to pay for every complaint that’s dealt with by the service. So that kind of environment does allow this sense to develop that. Well, what have you got to lose and just having a having a pop and seeing shake the tree and see what comes out? So, which is very frustrating, I know, for a lot of professionals, but that that is the system.
Matt Nally 23:00
On that note, then do you see that that tends to happen that the opportunistic side perhaps tends to happen at a certain point in the market is that the customers that are tend to be focused on price and this negotiating for the lower price? Because perhaps it is just an insurance policy, versus those that are willing to pay a higher end price? Or is it just across the borders?
Nik Carle 23:20
It does tend to be I think there’s there’s not much reliable data on this, and it’s quite mixed. But I I think the probably is a correlation between clients or applicants, or customers who have been very focused on price when they’ve been when they’ve been purchasing the survey. They, I expect we’d be more likely to be the ones that would would make would make it would make a claim in that kind of opportunistic sense. I mean, that’s just an instinct, that’s just an instinct I have. Because it’s the whole the whole setup is very weighted in favour of consumers, consumer customers like that. Which is very favourable for them, you know, they can they can get a salary product, piece of advice at very, very low cost. And then if something does go wrong, or they proceed, something gets wrong goes wrong, they have the chance to seek redress at again, no cost, no cost to them. So it’s not intended that it should work that way. But that’s this is a byproduct of having that very customer focused set up for for savvy advice.
Matt Nally 24:53
I think well that knows it. I’ve heard that frustration around the fact that customers can just put in a claim and or a complaint Since then it doesn’t cost them anything, and therefore they can’t drive on. I think on the flip side, you have to be careful about making it too difficult for someone to complain. And then you’ve on the flip side, you end up with a lot of people that could do a cowboy builder job. And they get away with not doing a proper job because people can’t afford to make that complaint. So it’s, it’s a double edged sword, I think it’s difficult to come up with the the perfect silver bullet,
Nik Carle 25:26
I see a lot of talk about how professionals should, should angle themselves to try to try to deal with this, with this opportunities and more perceived opportunism on the client side. And you get into a question of whether it’s appropriate to adopt this defensive reporting style or defensive inspection style, to try to protect yourself against a claim being made. And I think when the ICS introduced their home service standard recently, that was one of the aspects that it really tried to squash this idea of defensive reporting. I think defensive reporting is generally bad, a bad scene. Because if you’re a professional, you do not want to have in your mind the possibility of a of a claim, when you’re doing your job, and you’re making these inspections and you’re applying your professional judgement, you don’t want to be influenced by the risk of a of a claim, you just want to make sure that you do as good a job as you can. So I I actually think the healthiest way is to is to see that the process of surveying and valuing as, as all of the claims arising out of that activity is just being, unfortunately an occupational hazard. But you shouldn’t you shouldn’t tailor your report or try and contain your advice in order to avoid a claim being made or to minimise the risk of a claim being made. I think. I think that’s, that’s, that’s what I would say about defensive reporting.
Matt Nally 27:29
Yeah, that’s a good point, I did see this come up somewhere on on a social media post, I can’t remember exactly where one of the points made was. Yes. If you go down a defensive defensive route, are you giving it a higher rating, worse condition rating, then than it might Yes, then it covers you. But on the flip side, as a consumer, the report becomes less useful, and you’re more likely to be frustrated with it and end up wanting to complain, I suppose on the flip side, you’re right,
Nik Carle 27:55
you’re right. And then what typically, we used to see a lot of was that severes would make recommendations for, for specialist surveys and things things like that to be to be undertaken. And the way that the home service standards counters that is to say, well, Luke, you should really only make recommendations for further investigations. If that investigation is genuinely justified, so you shouldn’t have sort of menu clauses that you can that you can just drop into your report, which say, you know, you should really get a structural engineers inspection on on this matter or that matter. So, it’s because that is you see, Matt, that is not a product or a piece of advice. It’s very useful for for the consumers from the consumers perspective. And, you know, it’s not what they were hoping to, to get they’re paying for. Fundamentally, they are paying for the professional to put their neck on the line with the with the, with the advice that they’re giving,
Matt Nally 29:15
I think that moves us nicely into I suppose potentially aspects that help mitigate the chances of getting a complaint in the first place but be be escalating. What are the when you speak spoken to firms that have very very good processing that you mentioned earlier? They’ve got perfect terms the everything logged nicely. What what does the I suppose a an ideal process look like in terms of how advice is given and logged somewhere and you know, how terms are produced or the customer experience process? Have you seen a particular name any fancy we’ve seen a particular firm that gives a very good process that helps to mitigate those risks and defend themselves most effectively.
Nik Carle 30:07
I think, again, generally speaking, the the firms who are best protected, before they before they go out in a job are those who have have a good set of a good robust set of terms and conditions in place. And, and this is a big, this is a big an important point. And they have correctly managed to, to incorporate those terms in, in the contract which they have with the, with the client. So, that means, have the terms actually been sent out to the, to the customer, at the right at the right point in the sequence, before the job, before the severe actually goes out on the job, it’s actually very easy to, to get everything else right, and then realise you’ve you’ve not managed to apply your terms and conditions, your your superduper terms and conditions that say you paid you paid your lawyer to draft up for you. But if you don’t get them actually incorporated into the, into the agreement that you’re about to perform, then they won’t count, they won’t count for anything. So that’s, that’s really the point about process and about workflows, and making sure that your systems are all very slick and effective in setting up the engagement before it actually is carried out. So that’s getting that sort of stuff, right? That process stuff, right is is hugely important to, to resisting claims effectively. And if you do get it right, often, you can just you can just short circuit a complaint straight away on the basis of relying on what’s in your terms and conditions. Going a little bit further along the process, when you’re actually carrying out your inspection. If things if things do go wrong later on, what your lawyer will want to have is really good quality evidence of, of what what you saw during the course of the inspection, and most of what your what your thought process was, as you were going around the property and and deciding about particular features and what you were going to see if anything about about the the property defects. If there are any, again, many many claims, get get legs, because there are gaps in the sort of evidential foundation on the severe side. So it might be that the, the inspection notes, the site notes are incomplete or not really there. Or it’s not possible for someone to come in from the from the outside, like a like a an insurer or a lawyer and understand exactly what was going on during the course of the of the day. So I mean, you’ve got to keep this in, in some sort of balance and perspective, Matt, given the fee that severes are being paid, which is often often quite modest, and margins are very tight. But in an ideal world lawyers would love severes to, you know, have video evidence and have really comprehensive notes. Because if you’re if you’re very busy, severe and you’re doing, I don’t know, several inspections during the course of a day or even more during the course of a week. It’s very difficult then to recall them sort of two years down the line when a claim might surface as to what what stood out particularly about this particular property or if it’s not there in your notes in some kind of form. Then that even though Even though it may well be defensible, but if you can evidence what your thought process was at the time, then the claim the claim may have to be settled on on that basis alone. And we see that we see that reality and that type of scenario very often in trying to deal with claims.
Matt Nally 35:23
Yeah, I think it comes to exactly as you said, it comes down to workflow process routine, when with anything, whether that’s pre survey and having the right systems in place, whether that survey Booker or something, but except for a spreadsheet, but that takes you through a process of making sure that and this is what I buy advise myself is that the terms are signed before you book the job in two reasons. One, you can’t forget to do them, and get them in place before the fall, you actually end up on site. But But Well, that’s the main one. But But But two things you’ve got the customer in earlier on, if you get the terms and the payment upfront, you definitely definitely know what they’re signing up for, then you’ve got a more committed, serious buyer, or customer. But then again, on site, it’s the same thing, having those same workflows in place, you know, you follow a methodical routine, rather than being stressed and darting about between rooms and different locations. I suppose one, one thing that perhaps would help is just taking a quick video of each room you go in, because if you’ve taken photos, it’s very easy just to not realise you’ve missed a particular angle, and you’ve lost the evidence that No, there wasn’t a massive crack down that wall at that point. Because you’ve just you’ve just missed it particular view. And it’s so easy now to everyone’s got a phone and iPad, just to wander around and and take a quick, quick video and upload it to Dropbox or wherever. And then there’s been there what you saw,
Nik Carle 36:51
yes, I mean, that, again, is would be would be perfect from an evidential point of view later on. There is a, there’s a kind of issue, you know, you get a lot of, you’re going to have a lot of video data stored for all for all your jobs. But it’s very powerful. You know, that’s top notch evidence when it comes to the process and you know, the severe can be really good severes I think I can be doing a running commentary on the video as they’re going along. Again, not not specifically to, to head off any claims in the in the future. That’s that’s not what should be in their mind. But it’s just good. It’s just good professional practice, I think to be actually recording what you’re doing your professional process in the moment in real time. Which I think just helps to consolidate the activity you’re doing. And you mentioned the point about consistency. That’s, that’s really important as well, if you have the same methodology, each time that you go round, a new property, your methodology is the same. Again, that’s helpful because there’s there’s a lot to be said for consistency in in process, I think in terms of provided the lessor good, solid, consistent methodology that you’re that you’re applying each time. But once you get it locked in, you don’t want to alter that from property to property, you wanted to be consistent. I think that that really helps to, to cement in your, your defence to any any complaint.
Matt Nally 38:40
Definitely not many years ago, I saw this when I worked in the area manager for a supermarket chain. The stores that had the managers in the stores that had the right routines, had a much more effective outcome every single day because it was just possible. Whereas those that were darting around and getting dragged off by different things, it was a disaster is the wrong word. But it was never never consistent.
Nik Carle 39:04
You get drawn into chaos that way. So yes, if you can, I think what you do, Matt, I guess really assists with this is just nailing down those those workflows and making them as as streamlined and effective and consistent as possible. And that just reduces the chances of any chaos factors. So get getting in the way, I think, definitely.
Matt Nally 39:34
One of the angle that I was interested in looking at and I know we discussed this off the call beforehand, but the emotional aspect around claims because I know that there’s from chatting to people an element of shame if you know claim comes forward because people feel uneasy mentioning the fact it’s come up because it doesn’t suggest that they’re about severe and they didn’t do a good job. And actually, we think we’ve already alluded to the fact that often it can just be you’ve done a great job, but there’s someone opportunistic. But what do you often see? Is the, the emotional side or the stress side around clients? And how can that be dealt with better? Or what process can you put in place to sort of reduce that impact?
Nik Carle 40:18
Yeah, I mean, I really have. So it’s, it’s unfortunate to say, but I’ve, I’ve really noticed, in the, in the last two or three years, and certainly, during the pandemic, and you’ll be aware that, you know, over this period, there’s this there’s been much more attention to well being and to mental health, and to stresses and anxieties, and burnout, and all of these things. It’s getting the spotlight is on that much, much more than it ever was in the past. And, and I think, a clear element of what is damaging to well being and confidence, professional well being is, is a claim is a claim being made. And, you know, how do you, if you, as most of us, in professional practice, do take great pride in trying to do the best job you possibly can for a client. And then you turn around, they turn around and try to make a complaint or claim against you, it’s very difficult not to take that personally, I guess, I guess there’s a few things that that severes can can do. It’s a lot about sort of depersonalising the fact that the claims were made, and it’s also about resilience, I think, which is which is really important. But I You know, I’ve I’ve had a few clients, in the last couple of years, who I think almost every client, regrettably has said this, that they’re having sleepless nights about about the claim that, you know, it’s just constantly on their mind, that they can’t focus on anything else in the in, in the job until it’s until it’s resolved. And this is often with being a part of the part of the role that that we see as lawyers on the defence side, is to be a kind of a counsellor, and a coach and an assuring voice and also to take to act as a kind of a buffer and just to take a lot of the strain. For the, for the severe and to, you know, take up the take up the communication with the, with the complainant. But even the wiring for that is still a huge source of stress. In terms of what can be done, I think one good thing is in again, in your processes is just to have somebody if it’s possible, have somebody who’s in role it is within the business to, to deal with all claims and all complaints. And to get that separation, because introducing somebody who is who doesn’t have that sort of personal investment in the, in the particular case or complaint is really valuable. And that just enables the, the severe who’s been complained about to try to just forget about it and get on with their with their day to day and maybe you can act as that other person’s reviewer or complaints manager when they get complaints or claims. So trying to try and think about how your processes can be set up to to de personalise the, the allegations that have been made and to try to just look at it in a in a kind of functional sense. Other Other things to think about with this as to how to deal with it. Do this is more controversial, but the situation with the well being is so serious that you know I think it’s worth at least considering is whether whether you just want to you know underneath a certain level, a certain floor for these For these claims or complaints, whether you just want to get rid of them nice and early on, deal with it in a very pragmatic way, and just pay some kind of goodwill, goodwill gesture, so that so that it doesn’t escalate. Now that’s not seeing or not accepting that you did anything wrong, or that you’re liable, or that you accept the allegations being made, it’s pragmatic, and it just stops these claims and complaints being a drag on your business activity.
Matt Nally 45:38
Yanis is gonna go on that point. So that’s a good point. Because if you’re allowing it to drag out, in terms of rather than nipping it in the bud, it goes back to the point you made earlier, which is when you’re out on site, you’re still thinking about that claims process, rather than being relaxed in what you’re doing. And as soon as there’s any job security aspects, when you’re working, it’s very hard to do a good proper job, because you’re not thinking with a clear mind and just relaxed with it being relaxed, makes a huge difference. Anything you do, it doesn’t how well you perform it.
Nik Carle 46:07
I think that’s really important, you know, if you’re, if, if you’re jaded by the fact that a claim is being made, and then you’re going out on the next job, it’s going to, it’s going to definitely affect how confident or otherwise you are with your, with your advice and your judgement. It’s, it might, it might well make you overreact. And it could lead to the defensive reporting that we were talking about earlier. Or it could lead to, you know, sort of over analysing, so you’re sort of worrying that you’re, you’re going to miss something this time around as well. Which again, it starts to eat into your, into your margin and your fee. But also is probably not what the customer or clients wants or needs, either the next customer or client needs. So you’re trying to find a way to divorce this whole sorry, business of claims or complaints from your day to day professional activity is is a really good I really good idea and think about the practical measures that you might be able to put into place to achieve to achieve that.
Matt Nally 47:27
Yes, I think, I suppose something like a buddy or a mentor, if particularly if you’re a smaller firm, you can have a firm that that’d be local, they could be living in the country, but you can work together to bounce ideas or to sort of Yeah, depersonalised that process. I think
Nik Carle 47:41
so. And you can also use that process to, to learn to learn lessons when when claims do arise, and what to debrief with somebody else, and sort of peer reviewing. And then, if you can sort of plug any gaps that would avoid the same sort of complaints scenario, arising in future,
Matt Nally 48:03
just getting back onto one point you made around potentially making a goodwill gesture. And that not being an acceptance of some form of liability in terms of having made a mistake. Other things that you need to be careful about when you first respond to a complaint, to a not escalated or be to teams and not necessarily be seen as accepting liability in some way that could affect you later on down the line? Or is that less of a problem? And I suppose if you prepare something like that, does it make you more relaxed when a complaint comes in? Because you’ve got a process to further?
Nik Carle 48:39
Yeah, I think I think it’s a good idea to have, even before any claims or complaints arise, just to have a kind of a standardised response letter ready, that you would that, you know, you’re going to send to any any complaint that comes that comes through, irrespective of whether you think it’s going to have any merits at all. And that will typically say, you know, something like, I’m, we’re really sorry that you’ve that you’ve had had cause to bring this to our attention. He, we take all we take all all complaints and problems seriously. You will, please understand if we take some time to look into the matters that you’ve raised. And here’s going to be the process and the timeline. If you’re not saying anything there about the substance of the claim. You’re simply giving information about how it’s going to be dealt with. And if you get that right, it can kind of take some heat out of the immediate situation and give you You give both sides time to look at it in a, in a more measured way. So having something having something designed and and in the in the tank ready to ready to send out before the problem actually arises as a good idea rather than doing it only when you get the claimant complaint and at that stage, you’re you know, you’re already incensed about the fact that it’s been made. And you’re already be taking issues with what’s with what said, much better to do these things in, in a sort of cold or clinical way if you can.
Matt Nally 50:43
Yeah, it’s very, it’s very easy to set up a template on your emails like Gmail, for example, you go into the template section is sat there, and if you need it, it’s ready. And hopefully you never do over it’s a waste of time producing it. But you’re right, when it first comes in the adrenaline’s going you’re you’re really frustrated on edge, and you don’t want to be trying to either Russia response out or trying to draft something. And it just buys you that time just to breathe and relax, speak to someone else and not feel like you’re still under pressure to respond whilst you’re trying to review it.
Nik Carle 51:17
Yes, I mean, you don’t I mean, I think you, you were you were driving at this earlier, Matt. I mean, you don’t you don’t want to see, you don’t want to make any concessions or certainly don’t want to make any admissions. So whilst you want to come across, good, good complaints responses will be will be kind of professional. And we’ll be clear that that, you know, we’re going to we’re going to look into this properly. But that doesn’t mean certainly doesn’t mean you want to see anything at this early stage about whether you agree with the claim or even that sometimes that might be tempting in order to sort of try and peel the claimant off the off the ceiling a bit. But really, if you do see something that could be construed as an admission, then that can create real problems with your with your insurer down the line. So if you are getting into goodwill gestures and things like that, you you want to do it in a way that that makes clear that you you’re not making any admission. So this is without prejudice to, to the to the claim. It’s purely for commercial reasons, or for economic reasons, or for reasons of time saving and cost saving. As a gesture of goodwill. You know, here’s a couple 100 Quit, never darken our door again.
Matt Nally 53:05
And hopefully cut it cut it in the bud on it in the bud. Yeah, before we finish up and sort of summarise, are there things that surveys can do as well, just to get familiar with responding, responding to things, both from a client’s perspective or just even internal disputes, like in mediation courses that are sort of easy to go on and inexpensive? Or is that something that’s not necessarily needed?
Nik Carle 53:33
I think it’s I think it always helps to just do keep up an awareness of, of what some of what’s going on with with claims, and new trends that are emerging. And there’s, there’s a lot of content, a lot of free content out there on LinkedIn, for instance, and in other sort of professional community groups, which, which, if you absorb yourself too much in that it’s can be very depressing. And so the idea is not to get panicky about these, these trends or these changes in claims that that are coming coming along. But just to just to have a healthy awareness of how things are generally turning, you know, in the last, just to give you an example, in the last couple of weeks, you may have seen yourself know a lot of stuff in the press about about Japanese knotweed a couple of high profile claims and then that can really spiral into a whole lot of hype and panic about you know, 1000 claims dropping on your door then in the next week. Really, it’s not like that at all. So you should take all these things with a with a pinch of salt but that’s the That’s the best thing I would I would recommend is just keeping keeping your awareness levels up. Known again. And clean should be only a tiny slice of this sort of the world of your professional activity. But it’s unfortunately, an important part just to be just be conscious of I would say.
Matt Nally 55:27
And I think that’s a nice way to sort of round off as we can sort of maybe summarise things at the moment. But I think it all comes down to, as we, as we said earlier workflows, and process and consistency. And where you’re looking at the customer experience, in detail, making sure you’re providing a very good process throughout, that helps to reduce the frustration that might lead someone wanted to even complain in the first place, or at least complained and not be willing to negotiate. Yes. And it sounds like if you’re doing that, then it’s not you shouldn’t have to worry too much about claims be be aware of them. But but not not be something that you’re stressing about day to day, just know that if you’re doing a CPD and training and you’re doing carrying out your processes effectively, then actually, you should be okay. Yes, I
Nik Carle 56:15
think so he if you can just be the best and most accomplished professional that you can, and be caught, you know, trying continuously to improve your practices and your judgments. And your processes, which we’ve talked a lot about, if you can get those nailed down and get them as slick and effective, as consistent as possible, then that will do a lot to to greatly reduce the chance of any claims being made. And then when they are made of, of escalating. So that’s, that’s good, good advice, if you could manage to do all the do all the sort of function on process stuff, right at the beginning, get it out of the way, get it locked down. And then you can concentrate on, on what you trained and what you want to be doing with your with your professional activity.
Matt Nally 57:21
I think that’s a very nice point around continual improvement. It just reminded me one of the things that were certified owners of businesses, ISO 27,001. So Information Security Management, and the whole principle around that is continual improvement. Yes, of course, different things come out that are more effective in the future. And so you can start to implement that or, as the business grows, or changes, the processes that you have in place just aren’t quite as relevant as they were before. And so just keeping a continual review of every customer touch point and how you can improve it and every process on site to see where you might be able to do something more effectively. Yeah,
Nik Carle 58:01
you’re right. And it’s about adapting, as well, as you know, constantly adapting as well as constantly improving. And I think, you know, when we’ve seen this last 18 months, two years, in particular, it’s all very easy for me to say, well just get make sure your processes are all slick. But, you know, people were so so busy in that period, that that’s the time when it’s a real challenge to maintain your, the consistency of your processes. And that’s natural, you know, life’s life doesn’t make it easy for you. So when when it’s really really busy like that, that’s when the tend to be slipped, unfortunately. So it’ll be interesting in this next phase, when the activity levels might be somewhat lower. Now’s the time to sort of get the attention back on those, those terms and conditions and your methodologies. And you’re the process by which you keep records of of your, of your activity and your your inspections and everything like that.
Matt Nally 59:14
Yeah, and the point we discuss quite a bit on other podcasts is how you can use tech to automate what you know whether it’s so before other, but how to automate processes. So if you’re not spending time pre filming terms, or sending an invoice or logging emails, then you’ve got more time to actually do all the other parts of your routine and have a clearer head.
Nik Carle 59:33
Exactly. Yeah. So that’s, that’s definitely true.
Matt Nally 59:36
Thanks very much for coming on today, Nick. It was really, really insightful topic today.
Nik Carle 59:40
Pleasure. I’ve really enjoyed it. Matt, thanks very much.
Matt Nally 59:44
If anyone wants to get in touch with you, because they’ve got a question or they might want to use your services to get your advice. What’s the best way to get in touch?
Nik Carle 59:53
You can always follow me or connect with me on LinkedIn on LinkedIn. I’m fairly active on LinkedIn on all these issues we’ve been discussing today. Or you can email me at Brian Jacobson.
Matt Nally 1:00:08
Hopefully we’ll have another episode in the future and see how things have moved off.
Nik Carle 1:00:12
Yes, I’d be interesting to do that.