Stuart Smerdon

• I joined Crisis24 in November 2022 following an acquisition from the Collinson Group. My role of Finance Operations Manager was carried over, but was given the opportunity my finance knowledge and problem solving, by being part of a central finance team. My additional responsibilities included client bordereaux production, invoicing and issuing of case fees, bank account and provider account reconciliation. I was also SME on the integration of new case management platform representing the finance team.
• I still continued with the assistance provider management by ensuring all invoices and queries were met with the agreed payment terms, as well as identifying areas for improvement in negotiating vendor contracts and minimising case spend.

I was asked to join Collinson in 2010 after a recomendation from the TICC where I was on the committee, to assist with modernising and streamlining one of their offices in Southend, as well as managing the claims operations in Croydon, Cape Town, and homeworkers. A total of 50 employees.

In 2012, I was invited to take part in a work secondment in the Cape Town office upskilling and growing the Cape Town claims team. This lead to further roles such as Global Workflow Manager, Provide Support Manager, and then in 2016 I returned to Claims and Assistance full time with a team of 25 handling claims in five languages.

2020 Covid changed the face of the claims structure so was seconded into the finance team as Finance Operations Manager to work on the Covid Testing at airports and private businesses such as Disney and SAGA.

My time at Collinson provided valuable experience for my management knowledge, as I got to work with many diverse groups of people in several countries and learnt how to adapt my management style to each.

• My starting role was as a Claims Handler working with the assistance team as providing claims support and aftercare for assistance cases. After two years I was promoted to Team Leader. In 2004 I started to undertake separate projects for the department, initially introducing recoveries as part of the claims process, and then later the introduction of fraud mitigation and claims fraud analysis. Both these projects were successfully implemented and exceeded all targets given.
• The claims handling and claims adjustment meant I had to collaborate with the teams, the underwriters, and business stakeholders to ensure a high level of accuracy for our clients.
• Due to my claims, fraud, and recoveries knowledge I was invited to join the TLAC and TICC committees in London, whereupon regularly meeting with peers and directors across the travel industry meant I could grow my network of insurance contacts.

• Starting in customer services, I moved onto account troubleshooting where upon my role would be to focus on problem accounts with delivery and quality issues, and to resolve via communication with the client and the factories. My personal client base was 30 different companies varying from the motor (Ford) to the electronics industries (Xerox, Ericsson etc)
• This initial role taught me great customer service experience through constant communication, and focusing on addressing complaints and to achieve as high as customer satisfaction possible.