- In January 2004, VCS (Virtual Claims Services) was able to establish a business relationship with a major insurance carrier. After a month of reviewing most of its pending files and providing top sheet analysis on each claim utilizing VCS electronic face sheet, VCS was able to provide the client with its Trend Analysis Report. The results are a higher closing ratio and reduction of its client's claims inventory, both in pending count and outstanding reserves. VCS continues to assist its client in many different capacities based on its clients' needs in the handling of marine insurance claims.
- Also in January 2004, Jose Guerrero passed the State of New York Independent General Adjuster license exam. He previously obtained the State of Florida Adjuster Type 06 Class 20 license. New York License Number: IA-521462 (Independent General Adjuster).
==================== - In March 2004, Jose Guerrero taught a seminar to Fireman's Fund McGee Marine Underwriters staff consisting of six sessions in the handling of marine insurance cargo claims.
==================== - In its 9th year of providing marine insurance seminars, Maloof Browne & Eagan gave Jose Guerrero its 2004 Lifetime Achievement Award in the Marine Insurance Industry. The inscription reads: "As an executive, author, colleague, and friend, you have achieved greatness." The seminar and the award ceremony were held on June 23, 2004 at India House, New York City.
====================== - VCS hosted a 2-day seminar in July 2004 at Marriott Renaissance Hotel in Manila. The seminar's purpose was to fine tune the expertise on cargo claims adjustment of the attendees in meeting the needs of the American market, as well as to learn from them ways to improve claims handling. The 16 seminar attendees were invited by Atty. Beda Fajardo. It was a very enthusiastic forum. This seminar is part of the development of VCS infrastructure, which includes offshore outsourcing to the Philippines, as well as onshore outsourcing in the United States - providing its clients with services based on "follow the sun principle" (live 24-hour services and 7/365-day web services).
- In July 2004, VCS met with senior officers of large marine insurance facilities in Beijing and Shanghai in order to foster business relationships.
======================== - VCS completed its first successful year in January 2005. Its first client gained hard benefits by reducing cost by more than 50 percent and still maintaining or exceeding their expected quality of claims handling. Other soft benefits are higher closing ratio; innovative resolutions of claims, such as commutation of all claims against expired insurance policies; account approach in claims handling for clear accountability, etc. These innovations were achieved by the combined efforts of its client and VCS. VCS also has been able adapt to the client's claims technology and its paper driven processes.
VCS maintains an up-to-date inventory of claims to understand the current load and their complexities, which is critical to VCS's day operations.
VCS core competencies go beyond cargo. Types of claims currently being handled have expanded to hull, marine liabilities, and inland marine claims. Most recently a slew of BMC 32 endorsement claims from a large motor carrier account that shut its doors creates a new challenge to VCS. VCS looks forward to the continued challenge of providing alternative claims handling.
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In July 2005, the VCS team reached its first year in their location at 241 Water Street, New York City. VCS office is housed within the historic Seamen's Church Institute, which is appropriate with the business being handled by VCS.
It is an exciting experience to be trusted by one of the oldest and respected marine insurers in the world to handle their claims from discontinued operations. In spite of the reduced arising, our client experienced high closing ratio and claims handling quality from VCS.
Our client has expanded the project with VCS beyond cargo, hull, protection & indemnity, and marine liability to inland marine claims, such as contractor's equipment, builder's risk, and motor truck cargo and warehousemen's legal liability claims. On motor truck cargo, VCS has a unique experience handling the BMC 32 endorsement claims from G.O.D., a well-known motor carrier in the United States, as well as claims from a motor truck cargo/warehouse coverage program from the West Coast. To date VCS has touched more than one thousand claims from RSA issued policies.
VCS is supported by a seasoned, experienced, and highly technical marine staff, such as Haig Dick, Cliff Walts and James Falstrault. VCS also has additional multi-line adjusting staff in the United States, Philippines, and China. Additionally, VCS has created its own worldwide correspondents in the handling of ocean marine cargo claims. VCS has the capability of providing web-enabled claims system in the claims handling so that the processes and data are transparent to the clients.
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2006 was great for VCS, starting with the impressive results from a claim review by independent auditors hired by its client. The trust increases and the client granted settlement authorities to VCS plus additional claim inventory from one their programs.
The closing ratio is also high during the first part of the year.
Don Roberts, former marine claims manager of Security Insurance Company of Hartford, joined VCS early this year. Don brings to VCS another dimension, a multiline experience, and delivery of claims service on a virtual level. Don's skills include inland marine, hull, cargo, yacht, marine liability, and marine program.
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Last month (Dec. 2006) our client, after performing a file review of VCS claim inventory, gave VCS a resounding vote of confidence with their overall score of 94.06%.
A similar conclusion was reached in 2005 by a separate company.
Files reviewed were marine cargo, hull, marine liability (P&I, Tower, etc.), yacht, and inland marine (mostly motor truck cargo).
VCS is partnered with a reputable technology service provider, worldwide marine surveying firms, SIU, salvage firms, maritime attorneys, and an offshore center in the Philippines to meet clients' needs for marine insurance claims handling via different modalities. Outsourcing of claims can be accomplished via onshore/inshore, offshore, or a combination of offshore and onshore/inshore.
VCS is staffed by specialists in all types of marine and inland marine claims. VCS carries all required insurance, e.g., Error and Omission.
VCS principal value propositions are at least 30 percent in savings to prospective clients and increased quality of service delivery by the most experienced marine claim adjusting staff in the United States. VCS also has expertise in handling energy claims.
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In May 2007, VCS was trusted by another major insurance company to assist in the handling of assigned marine insurance claims, as well as to provide a small-scale software application program to monitor cases. With that relationship established, VCS was assigned more claims, mostly excess liability claims. File reviews of VCS as an independent contractor by the client showed outstanding results. Under General Observations of their Audit Report issued in 2008, it partly reads: "First Jose Guerrero's file handling was recognized as outstanding." This observation remains up to the 2013 file reviews for having the most number of outstanding results. At the end of 2013 with the decision of the company to eliminate all contract workers after the reorganization of their claims department, VCS was the last one to leave the company.
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In mid-2013, VCS created a database to test loss reserve adequacy for a major insurance company as part of their decision-making process in buying a book of business. The audit was headed by VCS and assisted by various maritime attorneys hired by the client.
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In 2014, VCS was hired by another major insurance company to do claim file review and continued to present year, 2016, with the assistance of maritime attorneys and a retired marine claims executive.
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In 2015, VCS was hired by a seafood company to assist in the recovery of their cargo claim. With the further assistance of counsel, settlement was reached.
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In 2015 and 2016, VCS was retained by counsels on behalf of its clients as insurance expert witness to render an opinion in evaluating the propriety of the insurer's claim handling process.
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In 2016, Jose Guerrero of VCS gave presentation in Qingdao, China for the BIT's 5th Annual World Congress of Ocean-2016. The presentation material, as attached, is titled: "The Philosophy of Partnership and How to Apply It to the Touch Points of Cargo Transit." Text of the speech is available upon request to: jagjr@virtualclaim.com
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In 2017, VCS led a claim file review for a major marine insurance company and an MGA. VCS also led a major overhaul of a claims adjusting manual for a marine insurance company which led to the enhancement of dollar authorities of the claim's handlers.
Jose Guerrero was hired as an expert on insurance matters in litigation relating to bad faith claim handling issues.
Jose Guerrero participated in a small industry group conference to discuss industry conditions and concerns.
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In 2018, VCS continued, with assistance from maritime lawyers and a marine claims executive, reviewed claim files and provided observations and recommendations for the improvement of claim handling for two marine insurance organizations.
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Attached is an example of how Jose Guerrero, as claims adjuster and claims manager of All American Marine Slip, handled a wreck removal claim which became "t[T]he final chapter in the book on the meaning of 'compulsory by law,'" according to the defense counsel, Harold K. Watson, in Grupo Protexa, S.A. v. All American Marine Slip, 753 F.Supp. 1217 (D.N.J.1990), reversed, 954 F.2nd 130 (3rd Cir. 1992), on remand, 1993 WL 166275 (D.N.J. May 12, 1993), affirmed 20 F.3d.1224 (3rd Cir.1994). The link below, which summarizes the above case, is from Justia US Law, which is a publication of Justia - a company that offers legal information to the public.
https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/district-courts/FSupp/753/1217/1460215/
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Jose Guerrero of VCS has started working on the 2nd edition of his book titled: Marine Cargo Insurance: Adjusting, Claims Administration, History, which was published by Witherbys Publishing 2003. The new edition will include new chapters. The mantra is: "Data is the new oil."
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Jose Guerrero’s passion for data started in the early 80’s when he stayed after hours at MOAC to use the only computer available at that time dedicated to MOAC’s marketing manager, an IBM PC (with floppy disk), working with Lotus 123 and Word. Although he studied COBOL and RPG at SUNY Maritime, IBM PC brought the enormous power of data crunching to a much higher level. At MOAC the complexity of Ingram’s insurance program required a spreadsheet to monitor its losses.
Jose continued his passion with the first statistical loss report issued to the subscribing members of All American Marine Slip (a subsidiary of MOAC). After AAMS, Jose went back to MOAC and led the biggest improvement in loss processing by changing the data entry from DOS screen to GUI screen using Lotus Notes and Flashpoint. This eliminates the completion of data entry form by hand, thus removing the hand off, speeding up processing, and reducing cost.
At Wm. H. McGee Jose had the unique experience of being part of its due diligence sale, called Project Nautilus. Jose made presentations to the potential buyers in which the successful buyer was Fireman’s Fund Insurance Company (now part of Allianz). The sale booklet for claims starts with: “Since 1995, McGee has transformed claims from a weakness to a strength.” The booklet describes the integrated team approach to claims and underwriting. After the sale, Jose became claims head of the combined organizations and met the challenge of integrating both.
It was at Wm. H. McGee that Jose’s passion for data resulted in his creation of a data entry screen and reports generator for Philip Morris and Motorola based on Microsoft Access. He worked directly with Marsh and AON. The Motorola Access Database was installed at VeriClaim’s website and became the web-enabled data entry screen for both Vericlaim and McGee for their reporting and underwriting purposes. At McGee, the IT manager introduced Business Objects, and that was another turning point for Jose, furthering his excitement in looking at data (data mining) for underwriters and insureds, as well as a claims productivity tool. With VCS, Jose worked on SAS, then Tableau, and is now using Microsoft BI. Jose even created his own website and emails using IPOWER and now Jose improved his website by utilizing Weebly.
There is a big movement in data utilization and collaboration. Jose hopes to be able to participate in this Blockchain development in the supply chain.
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Click the link below to view the PowerPoint presentation given in China by Jose Guerrero. This is not the full text of the speech.
The philosophy of Partnership and How to Apply It to the Touch Points of Cargo Transit
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PropertyCasualty360 published Jose Guerrero's article titled "Insurance consideration for cargo owners during COVID-19. How will COVID-19 impact marine cargo insurers and insureds during and after the pandemic." April 28, 2020
COVID-19
NU Claims Magazine May/June 2020 issue featured Jose Guerrero's article titled "Getting on the Fast Track." The premise is that the application of artificial intelligence on high frequency low valued marine cargo claims run by bots can benefit both the insureds and the insurers.
Getting on the Fast Track
www.propertycasualty360.com/2020/05/12/getting-commercial-maritime-claims-on-the-fast-track/
VCS is developing a touchless claims handling of low severity high frequency marine insurance cargo claims - the future is here.