The Importance of Empathy: Making the Policy Holder Feel Heard

When it comes to communicating with a policy holder, listening is very important. By listening, you can proactively diffuse a stressful situation, make the policy holder feel more comfortable, and facilitate the claims process for everyone involved.

However, in order to make policy holders feel like they have truly been “heard,” you must do so from a place of authenticity – and in order to be genuine, you must be empathetic.

When a person makes a claim, it’s important to remember that you don’t know what is happening in their personal life – how much stress the claim is causing them – or how much it will impact their family + their day-to-day quality of living.

Different claims have different impacts – so in order to connect with the policy holder, it’s important to listen carefully to his/her story as an individual.

When you hear their story with an empathetic ear, it becomes possible to discover what is important to them – and when you can acknowledge what is important to them, you can give them the reassurance they need: “I will help you with the issues surrounding this claim that are most significant to you, and your situation.”

A good example of this is when we responded to a claim made by a policy holder who reported a flooded basement. When we arrived, the policy holder was mostly upset about a wedding dress that had been ruined. Because we were truly empathetic to her concerns, we were able to acknowledge the dress above all else, come up with a plan, assess the damage to the dress – and get it cleaned + returned before her wedding day.

A wedding dress may not be top priority for other policy holders – and so its importance may have been overlooked by a claims administrator who was not truly listening. However, by understanding and acknowledging what was important to this particular policy holder, we were able to give her the empathy, comfort, and solutions she needed… which made her feel heard.

Another example of the importance of listening with an empathetic ear occurred in 2005, when there was significant flooding throughout Toronto. At the time, we received a call from a broker partner who let us know that his clients had a flooded basement. These clients were an elderly couple, who were terrified. They didn’t know if they were covered for the flooding, and they thought they would have to mortgage their house to get repairs. They were usure of what to do, unsure of the next steps, and unsure what to expect.

Because we were able to listen to them with an acute sense of empathy, we were able to hear their concerns and assure them that they had been paying their premiums, that they would be covered, and that we would help them every step of the way. In this case, step one was giving them the comfort they desperately needed – and then we went on to manage the claim for them + bring a contractor in to make repairs.

For us, the end of a claim is bittersweet. Whether we have relationships with policy holders for months, or hours, we get to know them. We meet their families, and we get involved. We truly care about them, and the impact that we will make on their lives.

Over the years, people have come to expect this level of service from DSB Claims; and the depth of this service is made possible by the fact that to us, this is much more than a “job.” Each individual person truly matters – and we feel that we are only as good as the last empathetic claim experience we delivered, by making the policy holder feel heard.

Article by
Dara Banga
President of DSB Claims