Following on from our article in the July issue of Motor Equipment News we had a chat with Steve Wilson, Towers Chief Claims Officer, as we were interested in some background to their different approach to the market.

Steve comes from a trade background and has been involved in insurance for 24 years across the Asia/Pacific area. Tower is a proudly Kiwi brand (growing out of the old Government Life organisation). They have a strategy to partner with suppliers where possible with the overall aim of getting the customer back on the road sooner.

They hope that by providing a long-term partnership with selected repairers that the repairer will have the stability and incentive to invest in their business to help achieve this, whether that be in terms of equipment and workshop layout or even starting new outlets to service additional areas.

Part of the aim is for their contracted repairer partners to be able achieve a similar throughput and turnaround time for minor repairs that the dedicated insurer owned shops can achieve. This means customers should not need to book weeks ahead, parts can be pre-ordered to reduce delays, so cars are back on the road in days (or even the same day) not weeks – Steve used the expression “work in real-time”!

This is helped by the ability to do remote assessing that is now common since the Covid lockdown.

At the time of the discussion the initial online and in-person meetings with potential participants had happened with generally good response, particularly to the news that Tower does not plan to vertically integrate and that the new partnerships would be transferrable, plus a bit of natural suspicion from repairers based on past experience with some insurers. The RFP closed July 18 so they are now working through formal responses which will then be followed up with those both unsuccessful and successful, including ongoing discussions to get repairers on board. We will follow the process with interest.