Claims advocacy for commercial clients: keeping the insured informed while the claim runs

Contents

1. Who is who once the claim starts
2. Interim payments and BI claims: where advocacy is worth money
3. A message cadence that survives a six-month claim
4. Managing expectations without becoming the insurer's messenger
5. Where ORIS fits
6. Frequently asked questions

A commercial claim is where a brokerage earns the next five renewals — or loses them. The client whose warehouse flooded does not judge you on the wording you placed; they judge you on whether they understood, week by week, what was happening to their money. Insurers are required to handle claims promptly and fairly — that is the standard set by ICOBS 8.1 — but “promptly” on a complex commercial loss still means months, and in that gap the broker is the client's advocate, translator and pace-setter. This article is about running that gap deliberately, with WhatsApp as the update channel.

Who is who once the claim starts

Commercial clients routinely misread the cast of characters, and the misreading breeds mistrust. Set it out plainly in the first days:

• The loss adjuster is appointed and paid by the insurer to investigate and quantify the loss. Adjusters are professionals with their own institute — the Chartered Institute of Loss Adjusters — and most are scrupulously fair, but they are not the client's representative and the client should never assume otherwise.
• A loss assessor, if the client appoints one, works for the insured — at the insured's cost. On large or contested losses it can be money well spent; the broker should say so honestly.
• The broker represents the client's interest inside the process: chasing the insurer, challenging reserves, pushing for interim payments, and keeping the client's expectations connected to reality.

One short WhatsApp message in week one — “The adjuster works for the insurer; I work for you; here's what happens next” — prevents the single most common commercial-claims complaint: the client discovering the adjuster's role halfway through and concluding everyone was against them.

Interim payments and BI claims: where advocacy is worth money

On property damage with business interruption, the timeline is the enemy. A BI claim cannot be finally settled until the indemnity period has run and turnover figures exist — which can be a year or more after the event. Waiting for a single final cheque is how insured businesses fail while insured. The broker's job is to make the claim breathe:

• Ask for interim payments early and specifically. Not “can we have something on account” but a figure tied to evidenced costs: the demolition invoice, the first quarter's lost gross profit calculated with the accountant. Repeat at each milestone.
• Get the measurement method agreed early. On BI, agree with the adjuster how gross profit and trends will be calculated before positions harden. Disputes about method discovered at month nine are the expensive kind — the wider lessons of the FCA's business interruption test case litigation apply here: ambiguity resolves slowly and painfully.
• Keep a running claim account. Amounts claimed, agreed, paid, outstanding — updated and shared with the client so the state of the claim is never a matter of feeling.

A message cadence that survives a six-month claim

The failure mode of claims communication is not bad news — commercial clients can absorb bad news. It is silence. Silence forces the client to chase, and a client who chases has already downgraded you. The fix is a promised cadence, kept even when there is nothing to report:

Phase	Cadence	What the message contains
Days 1–7 (notification, adjuster appointed)	Every 1–2 days	Acknowledgement, who is who, immediate actions, document list
Investigation and quantification	Weekly, fixed day	What moved, what we are waiting for and from whom, next milestone
Negotiation and interim payments	At each event + weekly heartbeat	Offers, our position, updated claim account
Quiet stretches (nothing moving)	Weekly, honestly	“No movement; the adjuster owes us the report by the 14th; I chase Thursday”
Settlement	Immediately, then wrap-up	Final figures, payment date, lessons for the renewal

The “weekly, honestly” line is the one that builds loyalty. A message that says “Nothing new this week — the adjuster's report is due Friday and I will chase it Monday if it slips” costs thirty seconds and buys a client who never wonders whether they have been forgotten. Templates make the cadence sustainable across a book: see the claim status update model, and the step-by-step claim follow-up use case for the full journey.

Managing expectations without becoming the insurer's messenger

Advocacy does not mean promising outcomes. The broker who says “this will be paid in full, don't worry” has created an E&O exposure and set the client up for anger; the broker who only ever relays the insurer's position has stopped adding value. The honest middle: state what the policy says, what has been agreed, what is still contested and what you are doing about the contested part. Put ranges and caveats in writing — “the adjuster's current view is X; we are challenging the trend calculation and I expect movement, but plan cashflow on X until I confirm better” — and the written trail on a firm-controlled channel protects everyone, including you.

Where ORIS fits

ORIS keeps every claims conversation in a shared inbox against the client record, so the account executive, the claims handler and the director who takes the Saturday call all see the same thread — no “can you forward me the chat” at week eleven. Claims follow-up campaigns can run from Meta-approved templates for the weekly heartbeat, incoming replies are analysed so a frustrated message raises the client's risk score and flags a human straight away, and the whole thread exports to CSV when the file needs to go to the insurer or to a solicitor.

Frequently asked questions

Should the broker or the insurer send claim updates to the client?

Both will, but the broker should own the rhythm. Insurer communications are event-driven and impersonal; the broker's cadence message interprets events in the client's terms and covers the silent stretches insurers leave.

When should a commercial client consider a loss assessor?

On large, complex or contested losses — typically where quantification is genuinely arguable or the relationship with the adjuster has broken down. The assessor's fee comes from the insured, so the broker should give a straight view on whether the loss justifies it.

How early can an interim payment be requested?

As soon as any element of the loss is evidenced and uncontested — often within the first weeks for emergency works or undisputed property damage. There is no need to wait for full quantification, and on BI losses interim payments are frequently what keeps the business trading.

Is WhatsApp appropriate for claims correspondence?

For updates, chasers, photos of damage and quick questions, yes — provided the number is firm-controlled and conversations are archived, since claims threads are exactly the ones that end up in disputes. Formal reservations of rights, settlement offers and legal correspondence still belong in formal documents, referenced in the chat.

What should a broker never say in a claims update?

Anything that guarantees an outcome the insurer has not agreed: “this is definitely covered”, a settlement figure not yet in writing, or a payment date the insurer has not committed to. State positions, attribute them, and keep your own advocacy distinct from the insurer's decisions.