Claims Administrator Selection

There is a wide disparity among administrators in claims processing accuracy and efficiency. That disparity is the byproduct of claims administrators being selected based predominantly on their proposed cost, without sufficient consideration given to objective accuracy and efficiency data. Inferior claims administrations result in delayed distributions and include, at the expense of class members that submit proofs of claim that comply with judicially approved requirements, improper payments to claimants that are not class members, or to those that, though they are class members, submit partially deficient or completely defective proofs of claim. Given the importance of conducting accurate settlement administrations that avoid claimant objections and thus enable accelerated distributions, as well as class counsel’s need to rely on the very services that low bidding claims administrators curtail or eliminate, class counsel should, when selecting claims administrators, require them to provide with their bids objective data that will enable class counsel to evaluate together with their pricing their claims processing accuracy and efficiency and thus result in selection based on settlement-specific cost-benefit analyses. The settlement management services that JNL offers to enable counsel to select a claims administrator based on appropriate cost-benefit considerations include the following:

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• Developing requests for proposal (“RFPs”) or reviewing those provided by counsel to be used to obtain proposals from claims administrators to perform the Administration Process, including assuring that those RFPs request sufficient information concerning claims administration accuracy and efficiency.

• Coordinating with bidding claims administrators to address any questions or concerns that they may have.

• Evaluating responses to RFPs.

• Making written recommendations to counsel concerning the results of JNL’s evaluation of responses to the RFPs.