Horwich Farrelly’s ‘HOLLY’ saves insurers £1m in 12 months

Since the launch of the Online Injuries Claims ‘OIC’ portal in May 2021, a number of advances in technology have helped insurers by transforming how claims are dealt with – speeding up the process and slashing the cost of obtaining vital evidence.

When a claim is submitted through the OIC portal, there are certain situations when insurers must obtain a signed statement from their insured driver, which can cost anywhere from £150 – £250 per statement through an enquiry agent. In most cases, this document is an integral piece of evidence, which can determine whether the claim should be challenged or paid.

HOLLY was introduced by Horwich Farrelly, the specialist insurance industry legal services firm, to enable witnesses to provide their own statement electronically whilst meeting all legal requirements for the statement to be used in the OIC process. Using SMS, email and chatbot technology this online process allows for the statements to be completed at a time that suits them for a fraction of the cost – typically just £20.

In its first twelve months, HOLLY has saved insurers close to £1m[i] in enquiry agent costs. It has also reduced the average time taken to obtain this statement by around 92%, whilst also improving the customer journey, with 87% of people reporting a positive experience.

Ronan McCann, Chief Executive Officer and Managing Partner at Horwich Farrelly, said: “We are committed to investing in innovation that serves our insurer clients. The market is working through a backlog of personal injury claims since the OIC portal was introduced last year and we developed HOLLY to speed the process up.

“Personal injury claims can turn on a witness statement and they are absolutely vital to the claims process. By enabling witnesses to effectively self-serve in a secure and compliant manner, we have taken a whole lot of friction out of the process. This has inevitably made the process far more efficient and has cut costs for our clients.

“We are incredibly proud of our development team for delivering this. They have combined our experience of claims handling, defending claims for insurers and the best brains in tech to come up with a simple solution that works. It is this kind of innovative and client-focused thinking that differentiates our team from the rest. This is a game-changer for the industry and could revolutionise the way these claims are handled.”