'Am I covered if...' on a Monday morning
A landlord client rings: a tenant has damaged a kitchen, is that covered? A shop owner asks whether stock stored in their garage at home is included. A contractor wants to know if a job abroad is within their liability cover. The handler opens the client's schedule, finds the wording reference, opens a sixty-page PDF, and starts searching for 'tenant', 'malicious', 'territorial limits'. Then they check the endorsements, which may change the answer.
Experienced handlers know where to look in the wordings they use most. Newer handlers do not, and for less common insurers nobody does. Some questions end up with the insurer anyway, but even then the handler needs to know which clause to ask about.
Why the answer is hard to find
Wordings are long, structured differently by each insurer and updated over time. The client's cover is the combination of the wording version, the schedule and the endorsements, so the answer is spread over several documents. Keyword search in a PDF finds words, not meaning: a question about 'water from the flat upstairs' needs the escape of water section, which may not use those words.
- Wordings differ by insurer, product and version.
- Endorsements change the cover but sit in a separate document.
- The right version for a given client is not always obvious.
- Keyword search misses clauses that use different words.
What the hunting costs
Client calls take longer or turn into callbacks. Handlers with less experience escalate simple questions to senior colleagues. And there is a real risk of reading the wrong version, or missing the endorsement that changes the picture. None of this is about giving the client a quick answer at any cost, since cover questions often need the insurer. It is about getting to the right clauses reliably.
A search over each client's own documents
- Wordings from the insurers you use are collected and stored by version, and each client's policy is linked to the correct version, schedule and endorsements from your broking system.
- The documents are split into clauses and indexed so they can be searched by meaning, not just by keyword.
- The handler types the client's question in plain English, and the search looks only in that client's documents.
- The results show the relevant clauses, definitions, exclusions and any endorsements that modify them, each with the document, page and section.
- A model can give a short summary of what the retrieved clauses say, clearly labelled as a reading aid with the source text alongside, never as an answer to give the client.
- The handler reads the clauses, forms their view and, where needed, refers the question to the insurer with the clause references.
- The question and the clauses consulted are logged to the client file.
This is an internal tool for your handlers. It does not give clients cover answers, and whether something is covered is always determined by the policy, the insurer and, if there is a claim, the insurer's claims process.
From question to clause
| Client question | Where the answer might sit | What the search returns |
|---|---|---|
| Tenant damaged the kitchen | Malicious damage, exclusions, endorsements | The relevant clauses with page references |
| Stock stored at home | Premises definition, stock section | Definitions and any endorsement |
| Job abroad | Territorial limits, liability section | Territorial clause and schedule entry |
The table illustrates the kind of lookup, not what any policy says.
Is this how cover questions are handled today?
- Handlers search PDFs for keywords when a client asks about cover.
- Newer handlers pass simple wording questions to senior colleagues.
- It is not always clear which wording version applies.
- Endorsements are easy to miss when reading a wording.