Principal Insurance Officer
- Recruiter
- Change Exchange
- Location
- Wembley
- Posted
- 20 Jun 2018
- Closes
- 28 Jul 2018
- Job role
- Accountant
- Sector
- Accounting - Public practice
Job Purpose:
The provision of effective insurance solutions, claims management, and professional support through the co-ordination and management of Brent Council’s insurance programmes. This will include:
- Management of external service providers i.e. brokers, insurers and claims support
- Management of claims made against the council,
- Maintenance and upgrade the Local Authority Claims Handling System (LACHS)
- Analysis of claims tends and changes in legislation to identify wider impacts.
Principal Accountabilities and Responsibilities:
- Advise Senior Management regarding negotiated settlement or court action of complex and/or high value claims. Authorise payment of more complex claims in accordance with scheme of delegation
- Actively support the process of tenders for external service providers and negotiation with insurers on purchased insurance and claims issues. Including all areas of performance management for such contracts.
- Provide professional advice and guidance on more complex insurance issues i.e. contractual risk allocation, risk management, claim trends, risk mitigation and legislative and policy developments. Identifying and implementing continuous improvement opportunities to the benefit of the wider organisation.
- Manage all aspects and maintenance of the LACHS system. Maintaining documentation of change control, access requests, user permissions, etc.
- Provide training and presentations to schools and units on contents insurance cover requirements, recharging and claims processes and loss prevention.
- Set up and maintain reports in LACHS to enable extract of data in the required format.
- Respond to Freedom of Information act and any other valid requests for information.
- Report and assist (if requested) in the investigation of any potential fraud and provide advice on minimising risk of fraud.
- Encourage and contribute to continuous improvement of the team and design and implement new processes and procedures.
- Identify impact of all legislative and professional developments related to the work area and suggest strategies to implement or amend council requirements.
- Monitor benchmarking position of Brent Council against other councils with a view to implementing best practice, current case law and new products available.
- Ensure data is up to date to support the tender process for the external insurance cover and broker’s contracts and assist with the performance monitoring of service providers.
- Regularly obtain feedback from users about quality of the service provided and to respond appropriately
- Assess and adjust uplift of Premia for internal and school recharges providing payers with evidence to support reason for increase.
- Produce and keep up to date Internet, intranet and extranet pages to providing relevant guidance on insurance issues and policy to units and schools and the public.
- Select and supervise a panel of solicitors and other claims professionals instructed to handle the Council’s third party legal liabilities.
- Identify internal claims trends for all claim types and to advise senior management and departments of performance, including proposals/recommendations for improvement.
- Regularly review the effectiveness and efficiency of procedures to ensure compliance with statutory and audit requirements.
- Provide professional advice and guidance on more complex insurance issues i.e. insurance liabilities with regard to contracts, tenders, and on legislative and policy developments.
- Ensure all fields used within LACHS are completed in a consistent manner so that reports and statistics and other management information extracted from the system is complete and that the Insurance Fund position is available at any given time.
- Monitor the performance of the Council’s insurers, actively support the tendering process and negotiate and manage the policies, taking appropriate action to ensure that the Council receives value for money.
Knowledge and Qualifications:
- Possessarecognisedinsurance andriskmanagementqualification orhave substantial relevantinsurance experience
- Evidence of continuing professional development.
- Excellent knowledge of Insurance principles, policies and practice of insurance cover as they apply to Local Authorities.
- Knowledge and experience of costing and recharging insurance premiums.
Experience:
- Experience of working effectively in an Insurance environment successfully dealing with claimants, loss adjusters, legal professional, auditors and departmental staff where claims relate.
- Providing professional advice and answering queries on Insurance matters to senior managers, directors, head teachers, auditors and legal professionals.
- Knowledge and experience of payment of claims and invoices in accordance with financial regulations.
- Extensive experience ofusingandimprovingaClaimsHandling system (preferablyLACHS) forclaims, reportsandanalysis.
- Extensive experience of system administration of a database system
- Extensive knowledge and experience of improving claims management procedures and systems resulting in the reduction of costs
- Interpreting analyses information to identify trends and sound inferences from the information. Investigates issues that arise.
- Understand the Insurance requirement of the Council’s departments. Has championed Insurance matters internally and externally
- Can identify potential Insurance problems or issues and bring them to the attention of the relevant manager or Director, propose solutions and take action to limit any impact on the Insurance policy concerned.
- Appointing and monitoring performance of contractors (Insurers, claim handlers) and addressing under-performance.
- Knowledge of tendering process of Insurance policies, renewals and impact of inaccurate or incomplete insurance claims history.
- Sound experience of Renewal and amendment of policies administration
- Understanding of political, social and legal issues relating to Insurance Management. Can plan and implement strategies that will address these and protect the council.