OSTI overturn rate, a key service indicator for Mutual & Federal

The office of the Ombudsman for Short-term Insurance (OSTI) released its annual report yesterday. According to the report, Mutual & Federal’s overturn rate was 24.97% in 2016, lower than the industry average of 27.274%. This means that a lower percentage of Mutual & Federal cases referred to the OSTI were ruled in favour of customers, placing Mutual & Federal among the industry leaders in complaints management. In fact compared to the other intermediated insurers, Mutual & Federal’s overturn rate is the best.

The Ombudsman for short-term Insurance has put in place more rigorous processes to drive the behaviour of treating customers fairly. This is evident in more rulings going in favour of the customer resulting in an industry increase in the overturn rate from 26,73% to the current 27.27%.

According to Mutual & Federal’s Head of Customer Experience, Antonia Oakes, there is still room for improvement, despite the fact that we remain ahead of our key competitors. “We understand that service is one of the most important contributors to great customer experience. Therefore, we’re working on a service charter to drive behaviours to improve our overall results and ensure that legitimate claims are paid out promptly and do not end up as OSTI complaints. Our vision is to reduce service complaints to zero, by driving a high performance service culture,” Oakes said.

Oakes concluded, “We note that the OSTI overturn rate is becoming one of the key indicators of ethical claims practices. This is why we are taking our customers’ and brokers’ complaints seriously. The fact that we remain an industry leader as shown in the 2016 OSTI results is clear evidence that we take customer service seriously.”