Interview with Ruth Reaney, Head of Health & Care at Travelers

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Text: Travelers.

A man sits in a chair in front of a window, holding a clipboard and a pen.

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INTERVIEWER: Ruth Reaney is Head of Health and Care at Travelers. She joins me now.

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We pull back to see Ruth sitting in a chair on the other side of a small table. A sign on a display behind them reads, Travelers.

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Ruth, what's new with the health and care practise at Travelers?

RUTH REANEY: Well, Travelers have been writing health and care business for many, many years.

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Text: Ruth Reaney, Head of Health & Care, Travelers.

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But what we've realised is that we had people all across the business with pockets of experience, many of them with lots of knowledge about health and care.

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Text: Visit Travelers.co.uk/healthandcare or email r-r-e-a-n-e-y@Travelers.com.

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And we wanted a way to bring that knowledge together so that we can deploy that expertise for our brokers and for our clients. And so we set up the practise to give us a way to do that.

INTERVIEWER: Can you tell us a little bit more about the team? Who have you got? What sort of resources are there?

RUTH REANEY: Absolutely. So we have a centre of excellence in the North, which is led by Alexa Johnson. And we have a centre of excellence in the South, and that's led by Dave Miller. And they work with our underwriting teams and our brokers to help grow the specialism. So as an example, Alexa has worked really well with some of our corporate sized clients, going out to visit them, and talk about what their needs are in the sector, and then bringing that back to us. Dave's worked at Travelers for over 25 years and has specialised in health and care for a lot of that time and has got a real deep understanding of the sector.

INTERVIEWER: How do you go about partnering with brokers in this space?

RUTH REANEY: We partner with brokers of all different sizes with our health and care proposition. So some of our brokers are specialists in the health and care sector themselves, and we enjoy working with them. And we can often learn from each other and use that expertise with our clients. But we're equally happy to work with brokers who don't have an expertise in the sector. And then they can lean on us and we can support them to support their clients.

INTERVIEWER: Can you dig in a bit more detail into what's on offer in the proposition?

RUTH REANEY: Yeah, certainly. So we actually have a really strong proposition for our health and care clients. There's lots of different things that we can deploy to support them. Obviously, they won't necessarily want all of our proposition. But some things to highlight to you will be around the fact that we've improved our risk control service.

We've already got people with a great amount of expertise, and we're investing further in that next year to bring people into the business. We've partnered with a risk control consultancy firm who can support with things like regulatory matters, they can offer mock CQCs at a discounted rate to our clients, and we're working with them to strengthen our proposition.

We've looked at our wording. We've added in legal expenses cover as standard for the vast majority of our clients this year. And we've reviewed our health care procedures extension, which was a wording that some of our clients and brokers found confusing. So we've improved that and responded so that it's really clear and also ties in with the delegated activities guidelines, which the department of health and social care brought out recently as well. So it ties in with the way that our clients are working.

INTERVIEWER: And what are some things you've been doing on the claims side of the business? Because that's absolutely crucial to brokers.

RUTH REANEY: It really is. So one of the key things in our proposition is our proactive rehabilitation service, which is a real differentiator.

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Text: Visit Travelers.co.uk/healthandcare or email r-r-e-a-n-e-y@Travelers.com.

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So how that works is if one of our clients has an employee who's injured at work, they can access that service straight away to help them receive rehabilitation to get them back working in the business as soon as possible.

We don't have to wait for a claim to come in, and all the costs associated with that never hit the client's claims experience. We as Travelers pay for that, which really helps them get back to work, makes the employee feel supported, and obviously, is a benefit for everybody. So that's one of the things that we're doing on the claims side.

We've also got an active claims management proposition where we work with our clients. We have specialist claim risk managers who can speak with our clients directly, look at the incidents that they're having, and help them decide whether they need to report them to us or whether they don't. And obviously, if they over-report incidents, this can lead to their claims experience looking really bad and potentially impact their premium.

But obviously, if they under-report those and don't tell us about incidents that could lead to a claim, then it makes it more difficult to investigate and again, can lead to adverse outcomes. So we'll really help them manage that actively alongside their brokers as well, which are obviously a key part of the process, too.

And the third thing is that many of our claims handlers have themselves undergone team teach training, which is about managing difficult behaviours and helping them to understand when claims come in for service users with challenging behaviours and incidents around that. That they really understand the process and that helps them handle that claim to the best of their ability and support our clients.

INTERVIEWER: You mentioned proactive rehabilitation support. How does that differ from the usual rehab services that are on offer?

RUTH REANEY: So it's a really key benefit to our care clients. It's actually available to any Travelers client who buys employers liability cover for us. But it's really important for our care sector clients because they are often seeing employers liability claims. Typically, we often see things like patient assault where employees get injured because obviously, they can be dealing with some quite challenging people.

The reason it works really well for our care sector clients is partly because of the timing because we don't need to wait for a claim to come in. The costs of the rehabilitation are met by Travelers from day one. Whether or not there's a claim or not, it never appears on the client's claims experience.

So it works better for the injured person, they feel supported, they recover from their injuries quicker, hopefully, and they're back at work doing the job that they love supporting the people that they care about. So it's better for them because they have that continuity of care. And of course, it's better for the employer as well. They have less need to hire in temporary staff or cover that employment gap. And so everybody wins.

INTERVIEWER: If you had to distill everything about the health and care practise down into three key points, what would they be?

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Text: Ruth Reaney, Head of Health & Care, Travelers.

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RUTH REANEY: I think I'd point to our proactive rehabilitation service. It's a real key offering for our care clients, in particular. I'd really like to highlight how passionate we are in the practise about the sector as well. Social care is so important for society. They're doing great work with vulnerable people, and we really passionate about supporting them.

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Text: Visit Travelers.co.uk/healthandcare or email r-r-e-a-n-e-y@Travelers.com.

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And lastly, I'd probably emphasise our expertise. We have experts in claim, in underwriting, in client services, and in risk.

INTERVIEWER: We have to leave it there. Ruth Reaney, thank you.

RUTH REANEY: Thank you.

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Text: Travelers.

Information and opinions contained in this interview have been arrived at by Travelers, and any underlying research or analysis has been procured by Travelers for its own purposes. It does not, and it is not intended to. provide légal, technical, or other professional advice, nor does it amend, or otherwise affect, the provisions or coverages of any insurance policy issued by Travelers. Travelers does not warrant that adherence to, or compliance with, any recommendations, best practises, checklists, or guidelines will result in a particular outcome. Furthermore, laws, regulations, standards, guidance and codes may change from time to time, and you should always refer to the most current requirements and take specific advice when dealing with specific situations. In no event will Travelers be liable in tort, contract or otherwise to anyone who has access to or uses this information. Travelers and the Travelers Umbrella logo are registered trademarks of The Travelers Indemnity Company in the U.S. and other countries. All other registered trademarks are the property of their respective owners. Travelers and InsureTV accept no liability for any loss arising from the use hereof nor make any representation as to their accuracy or completeness. Travelers operates through several underwriting entities in the UK and Europe. Please consult your policy documentation or visit the websites below for full information. Travelers.co.uk. Travelers.ie.