Interim Chief Operating Officer — General Insurance Claims Recovery

The mandate

Exceptional flood-related claim volumes coincided with the claims director's departure and exposed brittle surveyor allocation, repair capacity and reserve updates. The CEO has combined claims and service under the COO seat temporarily so that customer decisions, fraud controls and operational capacity have one accountable executive.

The interim is needed within two weeks for ten months, covering the catastrophe tail and the next renewal season. The permanent operating structure will be decided in month six; a successor may be appointed to a redesigned role, with an extension available solely to complete a six-week transition.

The assignment concludes when catastrophe claims meet agreed age and dispute tolerances, reserve-to-paid development is stable, provider quality has passed independent sampling, and normal operations sustain service levels for two consecutive quarters. Handover also requires an accepted playbook for the next declared event.

The interim may set claim triage rules, authorise settlements within existing executive delegation, add temporary provider capacity and use the ₹18 crore recovery reserve. Ex-gratia programmes above ₹20 crore, repudiation policy changes, strategic provider exclusivity and permanent site or workforce changes require board or CEO approval as specified.

Product repricing, reinsurance placement and long-range policy administration replacement are outside the remit. The interim will supply loss and service evidence to those owners but will not absorb underwriting or investment responsibilities.

Why this seat is open

The event created a workload shock precisely when claims leadership became vacant. Splitting accountability across functional deputies would slow customer decisions and obscure leakage. The board prefers a temporary operating chief with catastrophe experience until volumes normalise and the permanent structure can be chosen on evidence.

What you will own

• Set catastrophe triage cohorts by vulnerability, loss severity, documentation status and time since first notification.
• Approve surge capacity across surveyors, repairers, hospitals and call operations using service, leakage and conflict controls.
• Decide settlement escalation rules and document every exception to normal authority or evidence requirements.
• Reconcile case reserves, paid development and outstanding inventory weekly with Actuarial and Finance.
• Remove providers whose sampled files fail quality, pricing or fraud thresholds and present concentrated exits for board approval.
• Certify the catastrophe playbook through a live simulation covering intake, cash, communication, provider failure and regulatory reporting.
• Transfer the normalised claims book, provider scorecards, open disputes, fraud signals and permanent-structure recommendation to the successor.

Candidate qualifications

• Held COO, chief claims officer or national claims director responsibility in a large general insurer.
• Led operations through a catastrophe, pandemic or comparable claims surge with measured customer and leakage outcomes.
• Managed claims reserves, provider economics, fraud referral and policyholder-service obligations as an integrated system.
• Directed a multi-channel operations workforce and national external-provider network at substantial scale.
• Made defensible ex-gratia, repudiation and settlement decisions under media or board attention.
• Understands Indian insurance claims regulation, grievance expectations and catastrophe reporting.

Non-negotiables

• Can be on site in Kolkata within fourteen days and travel to affected service centres.
• Free of current commercial ties to major surveyor, repair, hospital or claims-administration vendors.
• Will preserve independent Actuarial, Compliance and Fraud challenge over operating decisions.
• Must have direct catastrophe leadership experience, not only business-as-usual claims tenure.

1. 49 words maximum. State your earliest Kolkata start and any period when you cannot travel to affected regions.
2. 49 words maximum. Quantify one catastrophe backlog you stabilised and the customer-age threshold you restored.
3. 49 words maximum. Describe a provider-capacity decision that improved speed without increasing claims leakage.