Death claims are one of the most consequential things a Super fund does, and one of the messiest.

Today we're talking to Keri Vogel, head of insurance, claims, Performance and Delivery at cbus, about what it takes to redesign a claims process from the ground up.

Let's get into it.

Welcome to that super show, the podcast where we talk about all things super from the inside.

I'm Neil Benson, Chief Product Officer at Chandler cx.

And I'm Sarah Penn, CEO of Mayflower Consulting.

Each week we unpack what's changing in the industry, what funds are wrestling with and how tech and reg are shaping the landscape.

Sometimes we bring in expert guests, but mostly it's just us having a real conversation about how super is working and what could make it even better.

Let's get into It.

Welcome to that Super Show.

Hi, Neil, how you going?

I'm great.

Sarah, how's it going with you?

I am very good.

And we're joined today by Keri Vogel from cbus, who is going to talk to us about claims handling and fixing it, which we're very excited.

So welcome, Kerry.

Thank you, Sarah, for having me today.

Pleasure.

Why don't we start with telling us a bit about yourself and how did you come to agree to take on the job of trying to sort out cbus death claims handling?

That's an interesting question, isn't it?

So, hi, everybody.

I'm Keri Vogel.

I'm the head of Claims, Performance and Delivery at cbus.

I've been at CBUS for almost two years now, and if you work that back then, you'll realise that I joined at a time when things were quite challenging at the fund.

Coming to cbus for me was something that I saw as an opportunity.

And I know that probably sounds a bit weird for some people, and I do recall when I had let some colleagues and other people know that I was moving to CBUs, they said, are you crazy?

Why would you do that?

But for me, I've always taken on challenges where I felt like I was very passionate about making things right and adding value and implementing change.

So for me, it was an opportunity.

I didn't see it as a negative decision.

I obviously expected that there would be challenges, but sometimes a challenge can lead to some really, really good opportunity and some really great things.

Yeah, well, an opportunity is certainly one way to characterize the situation at the time.

I recall, you know, a lot of bad press, Senate hearings and all sorts of shenanigans going on.

And it wasn't just one fund.

There was.

There was A few funds in the, in the regulators crosshairs at that point.

Some have come through this better than others.

I know some funds just throw lots of people at the problem to try and clear backlogs and things.

And that's, I guess that's one way to try and solve the situation.

But as far as I understand it, seacos has taken quite a different approach.

Can you outline, you know, the situation you stepped into and you know what your first reaction to that was?

Yeah, I guess I'd got a bit of a distinct advantage when I joined the fund because I wasn't in the significant detail of having to respond to members of beneficiaries that were in, you know, this very challenging environment.

So I had the opportunity to really step back and take some time to think, okay, what is the actual problem here?

And having come from an operational environment as well, very similar to CBUs, the challenges are not necessarily different at CBUs compared to other funds.

It was that there was some specific things about the data that led me to think, oh, what is it that we could potentially do here?

So the fund generally is significantly male and young.

There's some low financial literacy in relation to superannuation.

So young men don't care about super.

They're out on work sites and they're doing their thing.

So men paying attention and making a death benefit nomination is the furthest thing from their mind.

So looking at the CBUS data, the binding nomination data is very, very low.

So that then leads to, okay, so what does that mean for a death claim?

How does that play out?

So I put that aside and park that.

And then the other process that the industry has lent into is claim staking.

So we generally lent into this process a number of years ago to provide some comfort and I would say security for the trustee to make sure they're making a death claim payment to the right person.

And whilst that is very helpful for the trustee, it can mean that the process is quite lengthy for claimants, particularly as the Australian family is not what it used to be and there's lots of family challenges and there can be multiple children, partners, relationships.

The other piece was going back to the nomination side of things.

It's prescribed that it's on paper.

It has to be witnessed by two people that aren't beneficiaries to the, to the nomination and signed on the same day and then emailed in or mailed in because you need a wet signature.

So that in and of itself is challenging, particularly today.

People don't do paper, do you?

When was the last time you posted.

A paper if I can help it.

Exactly.

So young people again it's just like that's the furthest thing from their mind and that's like you want them to put a piece of pen to paper even let alone the next steps that's required.

So it's like how do we increase that?

What can we do?

Very early on in the piece I looked at the regulations and we're in a very regulated environment superannuation.

It's like so how can we make this process better working with the regulations we have and increasing the nominations from a binding perspective.

And I sought obviously internal legal advice initially to work through that.

So before I'd gone anywhere it was off the side of my desk working with people close to me.

How can we solve this and start start unpacking it.

So we looked at what else is who else is doing things in the market.

There were a couple of funds doing a few different things in the market but not many.

So we looked at the online bonding nomination process and non lapsing that was one of the solutions but only part of the solution because you still to increase those to get the result.

So you've got to get a high level of take up of that.

So probably around my targets around 50% to try and increase our nomination rate to 50.

We should be able to nomination rate in the single digits.

Yes they are.

From there to 50 is a big stretch.

I look at things from the point of view of like why not.

Because if you nudge and encourage and as part of your contact with members that you and you can see on their profile when we're in contact with a member that they haven't got a nomination is to do it then and then if it's going to be it'll be on our app, it'll be on our website.

So do it there and then.

We're in a pretty unique situation at CBUS too.

We have some great opportunities to have contact with members that are a little bit different to other funds.

So we have a front counter service in every capital city.

So if members come into our offices and talk to and ask questions about their super might want to do withdrawal or whatever it's about that as well.

Hey hey.

We can see you don't have a binding nomination and explain and then we have workplace coordinators that can also go out to members houses or on work sites and things like to encourage separate to that whenever someone contacts our contact centre.

Hey we can see haven't got a nomination in place so all of the touch points are an opportunity to increase.

Our non binding nomination process at the moment is digital and we have about 40% of members with a non binding nomination.

So for me it's not unreachable.

So we'll be essentially replacing that type with a non lapsing binding one.

And we know there's a direct correlation between a binding nomination and the death claim duration.

So that's one part.

Can I ask a question, Kerry, about the regulations there?

Because I've read through the SIS act specifically in terms of nominations and lapsing, which is typically a three year nomination that is binding does require wet signature, two witnesses, everything has to be dated correctly, the witnesses have to be typically their beneficiaries and there's a whole bunch of rules around it and that's all enshrined in the SIS act.

And then in the SIS regulations there's this mention of a non lapsing binding nomination which doesn't need all that rigmarole.

And it seems to me that there's a slight conflict between the CIS act on one hand, CIS regulations on the other.

And it's almost like creating a trust, creating a lapsing binding nomination and it's almost as if the law got it run the wrong way.

It's harder to create a lapsing nomination than it is to create a non lapsing nomination.

Do you think we were speculating on this at the Future Fund Admin Forum whether there was a mistake in how these things were drawn up, whether the law has got things run the wrong way?

Do you think that's possible?

I think sometimes, particularly with super regs, that there's a delay in moving with the community and the community expectations and the community's understanding of things and what we need to do to support members.

I mean the banking industry moves with much more agility with technology.

These things, particularly the ability to operate and do a non lapsing binding is definitely not specific to the specific regulation in the SIS Act.

And of course as part of our analysis of this, we've sought internal and external legal advice to make sure we're operating in the right environment.

The other thing that's really important here is that people get very concerned when you're doing something online compared to doing it on a piece of paper.

Now I don't know why people think that if they've got a form that's been witnessed that that could be done with less coerc or vulnerability than it could be done online.

It's an interesting thing.

People do get nervous when they think something's been done online.

But there's other checks and balances that we're putting in place in relation to making sure or having a high level of comfort that the person that has made that nomination is the actual member.

And then separate to that at death, we test the validity of that nomination.

So if a long time has passed between when a nomination was made, all the checks and balances are in place to see if potentially if the member was ever divorced, if there was a new child, another child born.

But the other piece that gets spoken about as well is did the member have capacity to make that nomination at the time?

So then when we look at our death claim process, we will have things in there like how soon did the nomination get made to when the member passed, what did the member die of to provide that level of comfort.

And then we're also putting an MFA as part of that making a nomination, treating it like a financial transaction.

Whilst there's no financial attribution to that particular process, there is a higher level of risk.

So we're putting MFA.

So member will log in and they'll be MFA'd.

Member will wanna update, create, revoke a nomination, they'll be MFA'd.

So there's a couple of steps there.

I feel that the ease of making the nomination compared to the risk of someone having coercion compared to the membership is low.

Yeah, okay.

That's a really good risk assessment that you've undertaken there to try and think what can we do to make these things easier, smoother and at the same time put in some checks and balances to weigh up the risks later.

You mentioned claim staking earlier and I've worked in claims a little bit, but not, not very extensively.

And I thought claim staking was some kind of obligation that trustees had to undertake.

But what you've outlined is it's not.

It's something that the trustee has decides whether or not they need to do on a, maybe on a case by case basis or on a policy basis for those not involved a lot in claims management.

Can you help us understand what claims staking is and why it takes so long and what the risks are they're trying to be mitigated?

Sure.

So it's been in place for a long time and generally a fund will have chosen to consider claims taking as part of their death claims process.

And it's generally where there is either no nomination in place or a non binding nomination in place because a non binding nomination's not binding on the trustee.

So by the sheer nature of claim staking, if someone Passes with, with that nomination type, it's the onuses on the trustee then to seek out anybody who may have a claim on that member's benefit.

And that can involve a process where.

Or it does involve a process where we write out to interested parties and we will afford them 28 days to respond.

How do you know who's an interested party?

Yeah, well, this is the thing.

This is where it gets a bit interesting because sometimes what will happen is somebody will make.

Will fill a claim form in or make a phone call and say so and so's died.

That might not necessarily be an actual beneficiary or a potential beneficiary, but that therein lies the starting of the process.

So based on the information that is generally provided, which is the first thing will be the death certificate.

And you'll have if there was a spouse, if there was a divorce, if there were children.

So then you start going, okay, no nomination, spouse, children, go right to all of them.

And then you start going down that path.

And then what happens is sometimes the floodgates open and you get a whole raft of other people contacting you as well.

So in and of itself, the process takes generally end to end for one claim staking cycle, about six weeks by the time you write, receive and write back again, potentially.

And is it one claim staking cycle?

Can there be more than one?

There could be.

Which again, depending on the nature of the affairs of the person that's passed away and their relationships that they've had, it can.

You might all of a sudden receive a notice from another party through the claim staking process and then they have to be afforded the same 28 days or the trustee can make a decision, a proposed decision, and say, okay, we're proposing to make this payment to so and so.

And then we let everybody know that that's what we're doing.

And then they have an opportunity to object.

And then the death claim objection process falls into line and that process lasts 45 days because it then becomes part of an IDR death claim objection process.

So it can be very protracted.

Now in all of this, the beneficiaries will all be going, oh my God, why is this taking so long?

Yeah, where's my money?

Where's my money?

Yeah, so that's where I started with if I picked apart the whole process of where is the biggest impact that we could have where somebody doesn't have a nomination?

Yeah.

And we know as well, coming back to the superannuation literacy piece, but not just at CBUs, but I think more broadly in industry.

If a member thinks they've signed a form, they think that's the thing that's binding.

They just, it's done.

I still remember being surprised when I was, when I moved into Superwood in my sort of my mid-20s.

I still remember being surprised that you could fill out a form and then the trustee and telling all my friends and that the trustee could basically ignore it because it was just a suggestion.

It's a suggestion.

How can you fill out a form?

That's a suggestion.

Exactly.

So there's that piece as well.

So the whole looking at the whole death claim experience holistically was through the lens of simplicity.

So how do we make all of the aspects simple?

So by having a non lapsing, binding nomination and having no other nomination on offer, it's simple.

We can talk to our members and say this is what you sign and this is what we will do.

And then we're bound to do that,.

Have the non lapsing.

There won't even be a form, I mean, sorry, the non binding, there won't even be a form for it.

Exactly.

And then we can say to them, we can say to them, please also though, through your life changes, remember to make updates if you, if you do otherwise and it can become invalid.

And then it's on us as a fund as well to provide appropriate reminders throughout the member's life stage and more than annually to remind them to make the updates and why that's important.

So again, as part of this work, we're going to be providing an online video on our website of why it's important to do this.

A quick video of how to make one online.

Just those little snippet things that just take a few, you know, a minute or two to go.

Oh, that light bulb moment.

And then our PDFs and all our collateral can say this is the nomination type that you'll be making and this is what we will do.

And then in the absence of having nothing, we'll also do this.

And that's where I think we've taken the biggest leap because again, it's about certainty and simplicity.

If I was a person on the street and looking through claim files, listening to calls from families and beneficiaries through their process.

If I died with nothing insofar as known type of nomination, what would I generally expect would happen to my money?

Yep, yep.

Okay, well probably expect it to go to your partner.

That would.

The first thing that might come to your mind and then you then, then the question is, oh, okay, then If I have no partner, where would it go?

Oh, if I've got children, I probably expected to go there.

And if failing all of those things, then where else would it go?

Probably.

Well, that's potentially my estate.

Okay.

So we tested that, we tested that internally with our legal team, tested it with our coordinators and our front counter staff.

What do you see all the time?

What do people tell you when you're going through this process?

And you know, we considered a few things and it was a bit, it was challenging because sometimes significant change is challenging for people.

It's like, wow, we're really going to do this.

And I describe it as, you know, people just don't get on the edge.

Sometimes they get on the ledge, they're already there before you've started, so you bring them back from the ledge.

But it's good because it gets people really thinking about what it is that the problem actually is.

And then to support that, it's again going back to the data, which I'm a very data led person from.

When I look at problems that where do we make payments to, who do we make payments to for the last couple of years, what did we do?

What was the actual, what was it telling us?

And it aligned.

So around 30% of our claims had been paid to spouses in the last two years.

Then the next bucket were children and the next bucket was the estate.

And then a combination, all the combinations come into play.

So it was pretty well aligned.

So we thought, okay, that's good, that's really supportive.

Okay, so what else can we anchor to here that supports our position and if I've got no nomination, that we can give people a level of comfort that it's the right thing.

So we looked at what happens in intestacy laws that are already in place in New Southerwise and Victoria.

If you have no will, for example.

Yeah.

And if you, and if you have no will, which is a very similar situation to having no nomination from, in a super environment, it's basically the same again.

So then that was what we presented to the executive and more broadly the board.

This, this makes sense.

Now I'm not suggesting this will solve all the problems because there will always be those very challenging circumstances where you might not have sufficient information that you can anchor to, to follow that process, but there's sufficient discretion in our trustee that enables us as trustee to decide who to pay based on the information we have to hand.

So there's a number of steps that we take as part of that process, but generally it will Follow that order of payment because most of the time you get a death certificate, you get a claim form from the spouse and you can make a payment.

Kerry, have you had to make quite a few changes to your trustee to accommodate some of these new policies?

We talked about the removal of the non binding nomination, removal of the lapsing nomination, and then the flow of a member's benefit in the event of their passing and how you follow a kind of predetermined set of beneficiaries.

I imagine all of those would have had changes made to the trustee to accommodate those.

Yes, that's correct.

And it's very important to do that for a couple of reasons.

From a complaints perspective, if a complaint arises based off our decision, then the fund has followed their fund rules and it also provides certainty and direction for our people making these decisions because the trustee is the guiding principle of making the decisions and our processes then can then flow on from that.

So the trustee, it basically gives us that tool to be able to do what we want to do.

And it's very cleanly documented.

Again, the trustee is on the website.

So, you know, we're being very transparent about what we're doing.

Could you have achieved the same thing by just updating an internal policy which is less transparent because obviously it's internal and have the trust deed just refer to, you know, the trust will have a policy in effect at the time to govern how assets flow in the event of members passing.

What's the difference between ending a trust deed and just creating a new policy?

That's a really good question.

And that was something that was considered, I'll be honest.

It was me that actually requested it to be in the trustee.

So it was open just to have a policy or even like an addendum to the trustee, which I have seen in past in other superannuation funds.

I felt though that strongly the trustee was the most appropriate vehicle to have this change made for the fund in relation to having it very clearly documented for the, you know.

And a trustee change requires board approval.

Yes.

So then we have.

That's a big deal.

We have clear transparency then to our directors and our executives that they understand that this is what we're doing.

And again, the direction and the tool for our people.

Oftentimes I have seen a policy become misplaced, amended without potentially appropriate oversight.

And then it just, it loses its formality and people then make interpretations potentially.

And then similarly through the complaints handling process, when we're dealing with potential complaints with AFCA and others, it's that we have this instrument that we can provide, or even a solicitor.

So then you have.

You don't have that situation.

A solicitor is representing a party that they ask for our policy.

It could be.

It could be the wrong version that someone sends.

It could be the.

All of the things.

Right, but the trustee to trustee and that's it.

Yeah, it's interesting, isn't it?

You've done the work to figure out what really is the best way to handle this and then you're basically enshrining it in law for your fund that this is how it is going to work.

And that way it can't.

I mean, it can still be.

It can still be changed because obviously the trustee could be changed down the track, but it can't easily be whittled away or made overly complicated by death by a thousand cuts or whatever, because it's.

Because it's kind of enshrined in the constitution of the fund.

And that's just an experience thing.

That isn't a C bus thing.

That's just years of being involved with complex environments and seeing how they can potentially become, as you say, watered down and then lose their.

Lose.

The intention.

You mentioned at the Future Fund Admin forum was the validity of a binding nomination.

So when a member has submitted it and the fundamentals, the trustee has accepted it, you can still invalidate it.

If a member has a life event subsequent to the nomination, if they have a child, if they get divorced or remarried, there's a few others, and you kind of automatically invalidate the nomination because you don't know if that would have changed the member's wishes.

Which I think is a fascinating point as well.

Can you expand upon that and confirm whether my recollection is true, first of all?

Yeah, so there's just.

There's some.

There were some things in the CIS act that refer to when a nomination could become invalid.

But similar to what we did with deciding on the payment process was a number of scenario tests of what we would consider what is suitable for a binding nomination to become invalid based on life events.

And we did a lot of testing with our legal team and our product team.

We were working together.

Roundtable, again, a very similar thing.

What would we expect and what feels the most fair if one of these life events occurred?

And again, the nuance of that is described in the trustee.

So we've been, again, quite clear on, again, what those scenarios are.

And I know this often one, sometimes the birth of another child, that isn't necessarily something that's followed across the board.

But for Us, we thought, well, people sometimes forget to do these things.

Or as well, if one of the beneficiaries dies, what do we do?

That's something that is often not specifically catered for, but we've sort of covered those in the deed as well.

So again, it, it enables us to stand behind that when we're making those decisions if it gets contested.

Yeah.

It's interesting too.

I know.

In another super fund where that we do a bit of work with that the biggest complaint that they have actually is on their binding nomination.

Well, the way it works, because it's sort of a quasi government fund, the way it works is if you die and you're still married to that person, then they automatically get the money and, and it causes endless, endless grief because there's no kind of consideration of the fact that you might, you might be, have been separated for years.

You could have been, you know, married for five minutes in your 20s and just never bothered to get divorced.

And 40 years later you die, they get the money and it causes endless complaints and issues because it is so counter to what people think is fair and reasonable.

That's exactly the, the issue.

It's kind of.

When we were speaking to our coordinator cohort and that was their concern, honestly, that was their concern as well as the understanding that if somebody gets divorced that the nomination death becomes invalid.

So just has to, it just has to.

And then there's also, there's other wording around being in a, like a.

Can't remember the exact wording the trustee right now, but it speaks to living in a relation, like living sort of in a relationship.

So that way that situation where somebody has been long separated, that can be considered because like I said at the beginning, Australian relationships these days are, you know, they're complicated.

Yeah.

People, it's not just married for life and that's the end of it.

That's exactly right.

So, Kerry, a lot of the folks on the front line at CBA's handling claims, as I understand, are probably still working with your third party administrator.

And I'm wondering if this new clarity, the improved process has given that operation better way of working as well.

Has that improved relationship between the trustee and its administrator improved and what have the outcomes been like for both parties?

Yeah.

So as part of the implementation of the program, we were very clear with the administrator of what our expectations were.

And it also then enabled us to have very clear documented processes in relation to what we're asking for at the time of when somebody passes.

Historically, because of claim staking, we would have potentially asked for much more than we actually really need.

Now in ASIC's report 806 and subsequent off the press last week, 831 it speaks about reducing friction and not just continually asking for more and more and more and more.

So because we have this order that we are following, we're able to say if it's a spouse, these things are the minimum things.

If it's a de facto spouse, we might want something else.

If it's children, then we need these things.

And it's very prescriptive of what we were requesting at the time.

We have a checklist that's going to be implemented that's going to basically enable people to complete that.

So yes, 100% it provides the administrator with absolute clarity of what the request is at the outset, what the conversation should look like and giving comfort to the, to the beneficiary what the process will be.

I would say there's, you know, we're on that journey.

Change is challenging and at the moment we have a situation where because we implemented one, the initial part for no nomination members that passed from the 1st of December, so there's still a large cohort that if people are passing with a non binding nomination in play that will follow the claims taking route.

So it won't be later this year we will be implementing the process where non body nominators will no longer exist and then we'll be in that phase of everything.

It's either a binding or a nothing and you'll follow the standard process.

So sort of got two processes happening right now.

It's not challenging because we have very defined processes but it will become clearer and I think we'll get more synergy and more productivity and efficiency post that final implementation.

I was going to ask you about has this new claims process transformed everything?

But I guess it is incredibly slow to roll out and realize those results.

And thank goodness because in order to know whether the process is working, it's triggered when a member passes away which can't really test very easily.

It's quite.

Yeah, it's an interesting thought because post implementation you sort of everyone's going okay, how's it going?

It's like oh, that's really sad.

We're waiting for people to die.

So it does sound a little bit morbid.

We have been tracking, we have been tracking the volumes and noting that the volume isn't as significant as.

Because the cohort is, you know, is not as large as it will be later in the year that fall into the new process.

But we are seeing some good indications of the process is significantly reduced.

I sort of caution too, though, that it isn't always just about the duration.

It's a really important aspect of what we do and it's making sure that we don't cause undue delay where.

That.

Where we have enough information to make a decision.

But, you know, I've taken some time to listen to calls that might come through the administrator or to our contact centre.

And look, most recently I listened to a call where we had made an outbound call following up for some.

For the claim documentation and it was to a mum and she'd lost her son, her young son.

And we were just doing.

Following the process.

You know, we hadn't received things and had been, you know, a couple of weeks.

And on the call she thanked the person for.

For reaching out and she said, I don't have to hurry though, do I?

So.

So that for me is that that's such an important aspect of us having the empathy as well throughout the process.

So whilst, whilst I'm absolutely conscious of making significant improvements to how long a claim takes, it's more making sure that this is a human interaction.

This is not just about SLAs on a page.

This is really important.

This is really important stuff.

So, yeah, I'm very conscious of that too.

I'm really glad that you do listen to those kind of calls because it is a very human moment and particularly the trustees and the board and the executive, they haven't sat in the contact centre a lot, but to listen to those calls, to hear the transcripts, to understand the very personal stories of the families of members, I think it's really important that those stories bubble up and we recognize that we're dealing with very tragic situations.

Hopefully making all the rest of it simpler will help the people who are in the call centres to be able to be more empathetic and have the time to be able to do all that, because it is more straightforward, they're not having to try and think, hang on a minute, which of the 65 different forms am I gonna need?

And maybe I should ask for that other one too.

And there was that other case where someone needed these other three things.

So maybe if I ask for them now, that's a good idea.

They can literally just focus on, I just need these two things and then I can think about you as a person.

Exactly.

And that's what I sort of say to our own, our people at CBUs too.

This isn't about, you know, just speeding up the process so we can have efficiency gains of the fund.

It's far from it.

This is about giving people time to do the service, provide the service and show the empathy and to help people fill a form in if they need to or suggest that there's.

We have grief counseling available if someone needs it.

All of the other things that can lead to a much, much better experience than just how long it takes.

But the simplification I think for me is the key.

And us having then the understanding of where a claim is in the process.

Is it with the beneficiary and they just need some time.

Is it with us and have we taken all the steps that we need to and to make a decision as quickly as we can?

So it's just turning the thought process on its head a bit more and considering a claim through a life stage of a claim as opposed to it's just the beginning and an end.

Yeah.

Gary, you've given us a lot to think about there.

The certainty of non lapsing binding nominations, removing the other options because there's far too many having certainty in place in the trust deed about what happens in the event of a member's passing when there's no binding nomination in place, improvements to the systems, the documentation that's required, the nudging and the guidance you can give to members to make sure they do have a nomination.

Are there any other major milestones on your improvement journey that you are yet to put in place that we haven't discussed yet that are still on your to do list?

I think, I think, I think the death claims, we've really looked at it very holistically.

So I think all of the things you described there, when you articulate it, it's like oh yeah, that's a lot.

I think it's then analyzing the data post implementation for a period of time and then again checking back in.

Is there something else that we need to do after being in the industry for such a long time?

I don't think it'll ever be done, to be honest.

My thought process is other claim types and other things that we can do at other claim types and to look at them in a very similar way.

Rather than just making a small tweak here or doing a thing there, I like to look at things what's the actual problem we're trying to solve here?

So there's other opportunities there.

We've really looked at our communication as well and there may be other digital opportunities that we can employ in the future.

I mean at the moment there's Some barriers there to digital application for death claims, but I think they're definitely worth exploring.

There's a few death notification services out there there again, they're on my radar to see what they can potentially do.

So there's always the next thing and either keeps me in trouble or out of trouble.

So it just depends.

I think ever consider yourself done is a very dangerous position to be in.

So I'm thrilled to hear that there's still a lot of potential opportunities on your roadmap.

So that's great to hear.

There's lots of other claims types as well.

Early access claims, hardship claims and everything else.

We all can be made smoother and easier and more efficient and more compassionate.

Yeah, thank you.

Thank you very much.

I have to say we, we talk a lot around, you know, wicked problems and intractable problems and everyone admiring the problem and all this sort of stuff.

So it's, it is actually really, really extra fantastic to talk about actually solving problems and going, no, okay, these things are solvable.

It sounds like you've been very lucky and CBUS has been very, very wise to actually bring someone in like yourself and then give you the space to actually think about it and figure out what, what the best thing to do is.

Because quite often that's what gets put in the PowerPoint up front of how we're going to solve it.

But the reality is, when push comes to shove, oh, we don't really have the appetite for this and that's too hard and that takes too long and we're not really interested in going down that route.

So you do end up just sort of papering over whatever you've got.

That is actually a really, really good point.

The executive support to continue with what was the initial idea was absolutely paramount to the success of this and giving me the space to continue and explore has been really.

It gives me the encouragement then to go and look at the next thing.

And I think internally as well, it gives the.

A positive attitude in relation to how we are supporting our members and that we are comfortable to be bold after being in such a challenging situation because we do have the people internally and, you know, to do these things.

So, yeah, I think it is really important to acknowledge that because it could have very easily been, oh, wow, that's a bit too hard.

So, you know, I worked very closely with Legal Product were instrumental as well, because binding nominations aren't claims, that's product.

So it's been a real significant collaboration across various parts of the fund and buy in.

So, yeah, that has definitely led to the success and enabling us to make these changes.

Yeah.

Change is a team sport.

I love it.

Awesome.

Eric, thanks so much for joining us.

Really appreciate it.

Thank you.

Thanks so much.

Pleasure.

It's been great.

Thanks for listening to that super show.

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