Presenting The Swedish Club’s Specialist Claims Teams – Part 3
Marine Team – Sharing knowledge and ideas
At The Swedish Club, we have formed five teams to pinpoint the specialist knowledge and experience of claims handlers across our offices. The Specialist Claims Teams have leading roles on competence development, enhancing decision-making, and pooling knowledge and expertise to improve services for our members.
Ioanna Kafka works at The Swedish Club’s office in Greece as a Senior Claims Manager and is also chairing the Marine Specialist Team. As a Naval Architect and Marine Engineer and qualified Senior Associate Adjuster with the Association of Average Adjusters (AAA), Ioanna has all the expertise needed to handle all kinds of casualties and H&M claims, adjusting under English, Nordic and American Conditions.
At The Swedish Club there is an emphasis on quality, so it is a priority for the Marine Team to be sufficiently well equipped with all the necessary cognitive tools to perform their role.
“We also place emphasis on receiving continuous support, guidance and mentoring from colleagues with greater exposure and experience in adjusting. This allows us to maintain a high quality of service to our Members and Follow Insurers. In this specialist team, we share knowledge and ideas for the greater good of the organisation and enhancement of our services when it comes to Marine claims handling and adjusting,” Ioanna explains.
The group works continuously on harmonising its adjusting practices and ensures colleagues receive all the training they need to be able to manage marine claims handling and adjusting. Furthermore, everyone benefits from having an expert team dedicated to providing support and sharing their knowledge. Ioanna continues, “As the team works out of the various Swedish Club offices, we can collaborate and exchange ideas based on the practises and standards that each individual market brings.
“In order to ensure that there are no discrepancies and deviations in the way marine claims are handled and adjusted among the different offices, we have introduced internal guidance tools which serve as a manual when handling and adjusting marine claims to ensure uniformity and alignment. In this way, we ensure equivalence of our services, regardless of the geographical area of our members. These tools are live documents which we review and update frequently in order to reflect any developments or changes in the market trends.”
Currently the different members of the team are each working on allocated internal documents which will summarize and address the main adjusting practices under each different set of conditions. This not only allows the responsible individuals to enhance their own expertise and knowledge but also to be able to convey this knowledge in a coherent and structured way to their fellow marine claim handlers and so increasing the depth of knowledge in the team.
Ioanna’s time at The Swedish Club has allowed her to gain her qualification as Senior Associate Adjuster with the Association of Average Adjusters which allows her to be in a position to mentor and guide fellow colleagues. She also adds, “Another highlight for me was the fact that The Club trusted me with leading the Marine Team Greece, which is a very dynamic and fast-moving market, giving me the opportunity to cooperate even more closely with my colleagues in the Marine Team.”