Team size: approximately 250 

Key team members:  Neil Harrison, group general counsel. Leadership team: Chris Durrant, director of Group Investigations, Speak Up and SMCR Office; Elsa Raper, general counsel – Insurance Wealth Retirement; Howard Grand, Aviva UK and Ireland General Insurance and Health; Jonathan Price, general counsel Aviva Investors; Lee Callaghan, general counsel Group Centre and International; Michael Price, general counsel and chief legal officer Aviva Canada 

What significant projects or deals has the legal team worked on in the past year?  Can you provide examples of successful outcomes or major accomplishments?  

The role of the legal function is to protect Aviva by doing the right thing and working with the business to drive growth and deliver the best possible outcomes for our customers. As well as working on key M&A transactions in the last year (including the acquisition of AIG’s UK protection business, and entry into the Lloyd’s market via the acquisition of Probitas), the function also works closely with the business to deliver an excellent customer experience. One specific area is on Generative Artificial Intelligence (GenAI) where an opportunity was identified for GenAI to improve our customer service in motor insurance claims. This has traditionally been a paper heavy process with significant screen time so when our customers call us and ask about their claim, our call handlers have to read that file and process the key messages in real time –be all whilst the customer holds on the call. Additionally, the time that call handlers spend reading notes to talk to some customers means they cannot answer calls from other customers who end up queuing to talk to that same team. 

To resolve this, Aviva has implemented our own smart claims solution, a GenAI solution that can automatically read all the notes from a claims file and immediately provide a summary for the call handler on screen as they take the call. The solution sets out the key issues, leading to increased productivity and improved customer service by allowing claims to be dealt with much more quickly. 

As a legal function, we took a clear lead on this project from the beginning – designing a process that worked and could be integrated with existing technology and operations whilst respecting legal constraints. As GenAI is a new technology it required our lawyers to apply existing law to new circumstances and we advised on issues such as data privacy, updates to customer information, access to records and carry out an in-depth review of the relevant licence terms. The function has been integral in creating and deploying controls to safeguard customer data, such as guardrails to ensure that so called hallucinations or errors are detected, a process for regular assessment of the model and the ability for accuracy to be checked.  

The result? We think the benefits to customers are quicker call handling by 10% and the tool should effectively be bringing down customer hold time by 50%. 

How does the team measure performance?    

As a legal function, we measure our performance in a number of ways which includes working closely with our panel law firms to have clear oversight of service delivery, performance and value.   

To do so, we implemented a new digital-first, data driven approach to the panel’s management, with a roll out of a full-suite of management information (MI). We aligned the panel priorities with Aviva’s values, vision, and strategic pillars. All firms have goals set against Customer, Growth, Sustainability and Efficiency, which we measure to ensure we provide legal advice excellence to our business and customers. The key parts are: 

I) The data we measure includes a value-add framework and tracker which standardises the way firms attribute value to the non-advice activities they provide. This is a groundbreaking move, as every firm records and attributes value differently. This consistency has allowed us to share the data with the panel to benchmark against their peers.

II) We pioneered the direction of the value-add services we receive to include collaboration and support on responsible business initiatives. From a sustainability perspective, we introduced an ESG roundtable series so that the panel can collectively share how they are progressing against their own targets. Two firms on our panel have signed up for SBTi as a result of sharing knowledge from others.

III) All firms now have goals on how they will work together to tangibly make a difference to Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DE&I) and work together cohesively to support our Aviva internship programme and provide full day insights into their respective firms. 

IV) We are bringing our panel together in July 2024 to create an industry leading DE&I initiative and create a toolkit (via a hackathon) for other organisations to pilot alongside us. 

V) We implemented a data-driven approach and set up a continuous improvement culture by capturing matter feedback. We also add to the client relationship model by improving our own team capabilities by identifying our own training needs and building this into our functional training plan.

Together, this activity gives us greater oversight on performance as we rank each firm on their capabilities, financial reporting, communication skills and quality of their advice. We have increased the provision and diversification of value-added services by 50% compared to 2022. 

Apart from legal matters, has the team worked on other company initiatives? (E.g. compliance, diversity, ethics, corporate social responsibility etc.)   

As a legal function, we are committed to continuing to build a diverse and inclusive function. Our aim is to make meaningful and long-lasting commitments to drive change. One of the ways in which we do this is through our Social Mobility Initiative. Each year we develop a full programme of activities which includes school visits, Social Mobility Business Partnership Days across several of our offices, virtual sessions including insight sessions and a six-week internship providing participants with insight across legal areas and teams as well as with the law firms we work with to give them tangible experience on which to build their careers. We looked at the impact of our internship in several ways. We measured confidence at the start and end of the internship, and this started at 5/10 and increased to an average of 8.2/10 by the end of the internship. We are also delighted that 40% of our previous interns have now secured a training place at one of our panel firms following their involvement, and 50% have landed roles within 1 year of graduating from university.