SUMMARY MINUTES OF THE CONSUMER SERVICES COMMITTEE MEETING Wednesday, May 28, 2014

Transcription

1 CITIZENS PROPERTY INSURANCE CORPORATION SUMMARY MINUTES OF THE CONSUMER SERVICES COMMITTEE MEETING Wednesday, The Consumer Services Committee (Committee) of Citizens Property Insurance Corporation (Citizens) convened telephonically on Wednesday, at 3:30 p.m. (EDT). The following members of the Committee were present telephonically: Freddie Schinz, Chairman James Holton Tom Lynch Steve Burgess Greg Rokeh Phil Zelman The following Citizens staff members were present telephonically: Barry Gilway Christine Ashburn Steve Bitar Kelly Booten The following people were present telephonically: Dave Newell FAIA Mike Fasano Tax Collector, Pasco County Call Meeting to Order Roll was called. 1. Approval of Prior Meetings Minutes A motion was made and seconded to approve the June 25, 2013 Consumer Services Committee minutes. All were in favor. Motion carried. 2. Discuss and Review Committee Charter

2 Chairman Schinz stated, I d like to update everyone on the services of the Committee. I ve been working with Steve and Christine on various issues we ll be going over today. This committee was established in 2006 to support the organization to ensure it is communicating and educating its consumer. Citizens possesses a high-skilled staff and we are fortunate to have them on board. This committee is essential to Citizens success. We must ensure we are consumer focused. I encourage each member to make any comments they d like to at any time. In the upcoming meetings, staff will provide historical backgrounds and accomplishments on customer levels and initiatives. I look forward to serving as chairman of the Committee and am available for whoever needs me. Steve Bitar stated, it is my pleasure to review with you today the Charter of the Committee. The various committees of the Board do have charters they use for guiding principles to remind everyone why we assemble. We drafted a Committee Charter for your review and approval to bring it before the Board for its ultimate approval. The statement of purpose reads as follows: The Consumer Services Committee of Citizens Property Insurance Corporation assists the Board of Governors (Board) in fulfilling its oversight responsibilities in assuring the organization remains steadfast while serving the people of Florida with a consumer centric focus. The Committee assures the Board is appropriately informed on consumer focused initiatives which include corporate social responsibility and public issues of significance, education and community outreach, as well as enhancements to operational service channels through various consumer touch points. Steve Bitar continued, the Charter goes on to talk about its authority, committee composition, meetings, and communication. It wraps up with the primary responsibilities: a) Provide guidance and recommendations with Citizens consumer governance practices. b) Review and assess consumer focused strategic plans and ensure their alignment with business plans. c) Provide advisory support with public relations, community outreach and consumer focused initiatives. d) Annually evaluate the Committee s discharge of all responsibilities outlined in this Charter. e) Other responsibilities as delegated by the Board Chair. This is a clear and concise one-page document that cites the guiding principles for your mission on the committee. Steve Burgess inquired; I have a question about the process. As we move forward and issues come up, it strikes me that what we see may need some refinement. What is the process for that? Steve Bitar responded, it is always in your right to revisit the Charter. If there are any edits needed, we can edit the document if necessary. Steve Burgess stated, there is nothing I see now. It struck me as I participate in each meeting, it seems likely that we may need to tweak the Charter. Steve Bitar responded, absolutely. Citizens Property Insurance Corporation Consumer Services Committee 2

3 Tom Lynch commented, taking care of the consumer is the goal of this committee. When Citizens started, though, its role was to fill the holes where the windstorm coverages were being dropped. As time evolved, we got away from windstorm and got into multi-peril. Part of our statement might be about how we will best protect the consumers of Florida. We should re-visit the discussion of being the windstorm company only. Chairman Schinz asked, wouldn t that go under one of our goals in the next section? We can put that comment in there? Tom Lynch continued, the reason I brought it up is due to the statement its oversight responsibilities in assuring the organization remains steadfast while serving the people of Florida with a consumer centric focus. In order to do that, there needs to be a discussion about Citizens purpose. The next section would be fine. Chairman Schinz stated, I agree. We can also make any changes as needed. 3. Goals of the Committee Christine Ashburn stated, you have a list of goals that come from the goals of the organization that are focused on the consumers. We thought it would be good to start with the goals that are already underway. One of our main goals has been to focus on assessment education. In a survey provided a few years ago, there really was no understanding that Citizens has the ability to assess. We moved that needle a little but I don t think we ve gone far enough. We will work on a continuation of the education campaign on how we assess and that we can assess. As part of our education efforts, we will implement phase two of our social media initiative, creating and increasing Citizens presence on social media to become a go-to source for agents, policyholders and external stakeholders. Last year, we jumped into social media with catastrophe (CAT) planning. Christine Ashburn continued, we are also continuing the implementation of the Communications Roadmap on major projects and initiatives to ensure all external parties are educated on critical projects and issues impacting Citizens. For example, the Clearinghouse was a serious communications initiative that touched all sorts of folks agents, customers, companies, media, legislature, etc. We also want to work toward increasing outreach and education efforts to agency associations, legislative offices and other external stakeholders. Our best means of communication are boots on the ground, newspapers, writing guest slots in agency newsletters, etc. We are also implementing Customer Satisfaction Surveys and using that data to drive process improvement to better understand what the customers need. Christine Ashburn continued, we are going to research Live Chat for customer support. You can actually chat with a customer service representative through a portal like instant messaging. We will look at effective Customer Care Center outsourcing. We have a balance here at Citizens which is to be able to grow or shrink as needed. I ll work on adding a bullet to look at, from the consumer s point of view, Citizens mission to return as the insurer as last resort. Citizens Property Insurance Corporation Consumer Services Committee 3

4 Tom Lynch added, my logic is that when you look at what sinkhole costs us in the billions, if we did not have those other perils, we would be able to keep the rates at a more constant rate. There would be less likely of an assessment. Christine Ashburn responded, okay. Those are the goals and I m happy to entertain any discussion, comments, and thoughts. I can encompass Mr. Lynch s thoughts and your support of those to have this committee look at the mission of the organization with respect to protecting the consumer. Chairman Schinz stated, I would also like to echo Mr. Lynch s focus on the sinkholes and other perils we are covering right now. It seems to be a bottomless pit in costing using money. I want to thank Mr. Lynch for his comments. Steve Burgess stated, I have a question going back to the Charter. Do you need a vote on that to recommend it to the Board? Do we need to do the same with the goals? Steve Bitar responded, with regard to the Charter, it is within your purview to approve it today. Or, we can bring it back to give you time to review this and bring it to the next meeting. Steve Burgess responded, I did not know if there was a timing issue. Maybe it would be better to give it more time for deliberation if there is more time. Chairman Schinz stated, we are supposed to have another committee meeting on June 24 th. That may give us enough time to review it and then give it a recommendation to the Board the following day. Jim Holton stated, I would echo that to give us more time to review it. Christine Ashburn stated, if the committee spends time reviewing and because of the Sunshine Laws, Steve and I are happy to collect the edits and provide those as recommendations. We ll send this out electronically and ask that you send us your edits. Steve Bitar stated, Mr. Burgess, you had a question about the goal review. These are the recommended goals by staff that are currently underway. We welcome any other goals you want to add here. No action is needed. 4. Items of Interest Chairman Schinz stated, there has been a newspaper article published in South Florida that doesn t tell the entire picture. Christine Ashburn stated there was an article that ran through a paper in the Palm Beach area, regarding the complaint statistics. It shows that we are ranked second behind another carrier in the complaint category. We don t dispute the data received by the Department of Financial Services (DFS), but in many cases, service requests are included in that data. For example, these are more of the request variety rather than just your standard Citizens Property Insurance Corporation Consumer Services Committee 4

5 complaints. It does not surprise me that we have a higher complaint volume with sinkhole, especially since we are one of the few carriers who insure it. We will need to dig into the data used by the report to parcel out what is a complaint and what is a service request. While we have lots to improve upon, we do believe we ve made a lot of strides over the years. Steve Burgess stated, I agree with what Christine just said. Those are contact points that were made with the DFS that could be about questions, confusion, or any number of things rather than a complaint. Christine Ashburn stated, we will provide an update in the June meeting. We will look at this with respect to the data from the DFS. This is not a DFS issue. Barry Gilway commented, the other suggestion is that we provide this committee with a comprehensive overview of the quality assurance (QA) processes we have in place, including complaint handling. We can provide the committee with how we operate compared to the targets that we are setting ourselves. Steve Burgess requested, going back to the article, can you send me and the committee members the publication? Christine Ashburn responded, yes. Chairman Schinz stated, we need to look at a ratio with the complaints to give us an overall picture. Greg Rokeh suggested, perhaps staff can do an industry benchmark to see how we are relative to other carriers in the state and nation. Chairman Schinz stated, I think we need to see where the complaints are coming from homeowners, sinkholes, wind driven, condos, etc. That would be a wonderful for the committee to look at and then we can do the improvements where necessary. Steve Bitar responded, we do have a correspondence handling and tracking system to track the trends. The easiest data to grab will be from the NAIC. The 2013 numbers are available. We can bring back the benchmarks for the other insurers in Florida. Christine Ashburn stated, I think it will also be useful to give the committee to give perspective of where we ve been historically. New Business Chairman Schinz stated, I would like to welcome Bette Brown to the Board. She will be serving as the Consumer member of the Board. Instead of having annual meetings for the Committee, I d like to propose that we meet quarterly when the Board meets. I d like to thank everyone for participating in today s meeting. Citizens Property Insurance Corporation Consumer Services Committee 5

6 [meeting adjourned] Citizens Property Insurance Corporation Consumer Services Committee 6