How Aviva is tackling supply chain disruption for its customers?

Authored by Aviva

Getting our customers back to normal following a loss and doing this as quickly and efficiently as possible is at the heart of what we do.

Unfortunately, world-wide supply chain disruption due to issues such as Brexit, Covid-19 and the conflict in Ukraine is impacting our ability to do this as effectively as we’d like.

Whilst this is an industry-wide issue, we wanted to let you know about some of the proactive steps we’re taking to try to minimise the impacts to our customers.

What are the impacts across the industry?

A shortage of skilled labour post-Brexit and workforce absences due to Covid-19 have put a material strain on the availability of trades and skilled workers who are able to repair damaged properties and vehicles after an incident. Also, with more technologically advanced vehicles on the road and more sophisticated parts, appointing specialist repairers is often required.

A lack of availability and delays in being able to source materials and parts means customers are waiting longer for their damaged items to be replaced or repaired. In motor, this has impacted the availability and duration of hire / courtesy cars whilst vehicles are being repaired.

What are we doing to mitigate the impact and create capacity?

Whilst the motor sector has been most impacted, we’ve been working closely with all our suppliers and making changes where we can. This includes:

Increasing capacity

• We have a strong advantage as we own Solus, who are a group of over 20 body shops across the UK. They have a team of highly skilled technicians who have updated their working patterns, operating around the clock to increase capacity and make sure repair times are kept to a minimum for our customers.
• Across our motor approved network, we're routing work to those repairers who have the greatest capacity.
• In property, we’re working with more suppliers than ever before which means we have a wider network to call upon. We’ve also invested in more in-house desk surveyors who use virtual assessments to manage claims quicker.

Repair over replace

• Where possible and where our customer is happy to do so, we can repair rather than replace damaged items, especially when new ones are difficult to source. Not only can this be less disruptive to our customer, but it’s also more in line with our sustainability ambitions.

Keeping customers mobile

• We've tested other ways to keep customers on the go whilst their vehicle is in for repair. This includes funding train tickets, taxi use, cycle hire and opt-out options in exchange for greener alternatives such as planting trees.

Internal experts

• We’re very proud of our internal capability when it comes to managing property claims. We have a team of major and complex loss adjusters who are employed by Aviva to respond following a large loss, to make sure we get customers back up and running as soon as possible.

How can you help and support us?

Please continue to report all incidents to us at the earliest opportunity and provide us with all the information we need in the first notification of loss submission. By doing this, we’re able to get things moving for our customers as quickly as possible.

We also ask you to manage customers’ expectations during this time. The supply chain issues are being felt right across the market, and indeed globally, but please be assured we’re doing all we can to minimise any further disruption for them.