Sedgwick Zorgschade is now allowed to carry the National Personal Injury Quality Mark. As a result, all Sedgwick disciplines that fall under Personal Injury have entered this quality mark.
The National Personal Injury Quality Mark (NKL) is an initiative of The Personal Injury Council. He introduced it less than a year ago as a quality stamp for advocates, insurers and recovery-oriented service providers in the personal injury industry.
General Manager Persons Martin de Haan considers bringing in the NKL an important step: “We attach great importance to this quality mark. It shows that as an organization you stand for quality and are a bona fide party; knowledgeable, honest and transparent. Damaged parties can rely on advocates who run the NKL. Advocates and insurers, in turn, can feel good with us as a recovery-oriented service provider.”
Training
To claim the NKL, Sedgwick Zorgschade underwent an extensive audit round. The audit firm looked at it on the basis of files and a policy document whether the business unit meets all NKL criteria. For example, is there independent surgery, simultaneous communication to parties and are reports first submitted to the interested party? Training requirements are also part of the list of criteria, as well as how personal data and complaints are handled. ‘In short: you have to show that as a company you really stand for something,’ says De Haan.
In its almost 2-year existence, Sedgwick Zorgschade already sorted ahead of the guidelines of the new quality mark. For example, Merkx and Goeseije followed training in the field of personal injury. De Haan: “It is important to also know something about the settlement of personal injury in general when giving care damage advice. You need to have some legal context, and knowledge about, for example, the Wmo and the Wlz.”
In charge of your own hands
Sedgwick started a Care Damage department in 2019. Martin de Haan was at the basis of the business unit and as Zorgschade- experts Astrid Merkx and Jeroen Goeseije joined. ‘Previously, as personal injury experts, we worked together with external parties in the field of care damage,’ says De Haan. “That sometimes resulted in delays and/or duplicate actions, because if you wanted to do something for an interested party, you had to hand it over. Now we work together with our customers – usually insurers – and the advocate. So we keep the control ourselves and can better highlight what still needs to be arranged.”
According to De Haan, there is also a better view of how Sedgwick can control and limit damage burden in this way. “You can immediately see how serious something is. With that science, you can take parties and manage expectations. Damage control and limitation ultimately remain two important parts of Sedgwick’s services. In addition to our most important value of course: “taking care of people is in the heart of everything we do. Caring counts.”
Good handling
According to Astrid Merkx, the NKL clarifies the position of the recovery-oriented service provider. “In the Regulations for Recovery-Oriented Services of The Personal Injury Council, the criteria for an expert party are clearly identified. We meet this with our paramedical background and other requirements in the field of training. Because we comply with that register, we have been assigned the NKL. The register and the NKL therefore also go beyond the Care Damage Guide. It states that the expert can be any party that those involved agree on. The NKL is much more of a guarantee that the handling is done professionally and properly.”
According to De Haan, the quality mark is a quality stamp that can be seen. And it should get more prominence, he thinks. “As far as I’m concerned, De Letselschade Raad hires advertising broadcasting time to achieve that. It would also be a nice counterweight to the sometimes somewhat negative media coverage of our beautiful profession. My experience is that most people in the sector just want to do their job well. And the NKL is a solid seal of that.”