SGIO is beefing up its staff numbers ahead of plans to have its motor vehicle claims management run from Western Australia.
While SGIO has retained the assessing function in WA, the claims process is triggered by a call to the Sydney call centre of the insurer’s owner, Insurance Australia Group, before being transferred to a claims management facility in Queensland.
That Queensland operation is being dismantled and WA motor vehicle claims will soon be handled from facilities set up in Perth.
SGIO has two assessing facilities in Myaree and Balcatta and is building a third in Morley.
If a vehicle is drivable it will be taken to one of those centres to be photographed and assessed.
Those photographs and other information from the assessors will be put on an Internet site that can be accessed by a panel of between 30 and 40 repairers.
The repairers bid on the job, with the lowest bidder winning the work and contacting the vehicle’s owner.
Vehicles that cannot be driven will be towed to an SGIO warehouse in Welshpool.
Those repair jobs will be shared among the repairer panel on a rotating basis.
Insurance Australia Group State manager WA Garry Moore said SGIO had been refining its assessing functions.
“When NRMA bought us a lot of the operations such as management were taken to Sydney,” he said. “It was felt some areas could be done better from there.
“The personal claims area is now being built up over here again.”
Besides restocking its claims management staff, SGIO is also in the throes of restructuring after IAG’s acquisition of CGU.
That acquisition means SGIO will have about 600 staff in WA.
It plans to increase its overall staff numbers, including those added as part of the claims management operation and other additions to its call centre facilities, to around 750.