Reference check report

I was Austin's direct manager from January 2024 until he left in June 2025. He joined BGMMN as a TPD Claims Assessor in March 2022 and reported to Helen Crowe before I took the pod. We sat in the same retail TPD team. I allocated his work, signed off his declines over the delegated authority, and did his mid-year and year-end reviews. I spoke with him most days, and formally on a weekly 1:1. His title the whole time I managed him was TPD Claims Assessor. He did not have direct reports. He did mentor two graduates on how to read a treating-doctor report against the policy definition.

Austin and I were peers on the same TPD pod from early 2023 until he left in mid-2025. I started a few months after he did. We shared a queue, covered each other on leave, and peer-reviewed files when a decline sat near the authority limit. I was not his manager. Priya was. I still saw his work several times a week: standup, file discussion, and the cases he asked me to sense-check before he wrote the letter. His role was TPD Claims Assessor on retail policies. He was not on the group-scheme desk except for overflow in late 2024.

I managed Austin from March 2022, when he joined as a TPD Claims Assessor, until I moved to Claims Operations in November 2023. After that Priya Nair was his line manager. I still saw his files in the monthly quality sample until he left in June 2025. While I managed him we had a weekly 1:1 and a daily huddle. I set his authority, reviewed his first six months of declines, and signed his probation confirmation. I later updated my job title on this form because I am now Claims Operations Manager. The role I held when I knew him day to day was Team Leader.

Austin starts with the policy, then the occupation, then the medical. He does not write a decision from the treating letter alone. If the definition is any-occupation, he will ask for duties, hours, and whether the adviser has an alternative role on file before he accepts a total-disablement narrative. On incomplete medicals he is conservative. He would rather issue a scoped information request than guess. The trade-off is that a handful of files sat a day longer than they needed to while he waited for a specialist report that a tighter request might have unlocked earlier. That is coaching, not a quality problem. When evidence conflicted, he documented both views and said which one he preferred and why. Those files were the easiest to defend when complaints or legal asked for the rationale.

I sat next to him, so I saw the habit up close. He highlighted the definition in the policy schedule, then annotated the treating report against those words. If a GP used 'unable to work' he would check whether that meant this job, any job, or a temporary flare. He caught two files in 2024 where a colleague (not me) had treated a partial-capacity comment as total disablement. He also cross-checked dates. Claim notification, date last worked, and the waiting period had to line up before he would recommend admission. That sounds obvious. It is how we avoided a payment that would have been outside the waiting period. On group-scheme overflow he was slower because he did not know the deed as well as the retail wording. He asked questions rather than improvising, which I respect.

In his first year I reviewed every decline. Austin's files already had a clear path: definition, occupation, medical, then the decision. He did not bury the hard point in the last paragraph. One early file had conflicting IME and treating opinions. He set out both, said the IME was more recent and occupation-specific, and recommended decline with a plain-language letter. Complaints did not overturn it. He improved quickly on asking for the right medical, not more medical. By the time I left the team I was sampling him, not coaching the structure of the assessment.

His main strength is that he treats the file as something another assessor will have to pick up. Notes are dated, the definition is quoted, and the letter matches the recommendation. I could take over his cases on leave without a handover call. He is also good under volume. In the 2024 Q3 spike he kept SLA and still asked me to look at two messy medicals instead of rushing a decline. Those two files would have come back if he had guessed. With claimants he is direct without being cold. Brokers told me they preferred his updates because he said what was missing and by when. That reduced chase emails for the rest of us.

Consistent SLA and KPI performance. In the year I managed him he was in the top quartile for aged claims and I do not recall a missed statutory deadline on his desk. Strong medical-report interpretation. He compared treating comments to the occupation and the definition instead of accepting a headline phrase. Decision documentation was structured enough that I used two of his letters in training for new assessors. He was also steady with graduates. He would sit with them on a file and show the mapping, not just tell them the answer. That is useful in a small team.

The main development area is pace on incomplete medical files. Austin will hold a case a day longer than he needs to while he waits for a specialist report. I coached him to issue a well-scoped information request earlier, close the loop with the adviser, and keep the file moving. Quality was never the issue. Cycle time on those cases was. He is also less practised on group-scheme wording than on retail TPD. If your role is mostly scheme work, give him a short induction on the deed and the typical definitions. He will ask until he is sure. He will not bluff. I do not have a conduct, attendance, or teamwork concern. I would not hold a hire for the points above.

Group-scheme overflow showed the gap. Retail definitions he knows cold. On the scheme desk he needed longer to find the right clause and he asked more questions. That is expected if he has not lived in that product. A week of paired files with a scheme assessor would close it. He can also over-explain in standup. The content is right; the update can be shorter. Not a hiring issue. I have not seen him cut corners, shift blame, or avoid a hard decline. I would work with him again.

When I managed him the development work was early-career: tightening the information request so he asked for the right medical once, and getting comfortable presenting a messy file in the huddle without reading the whole chronology. Both improved before I left the team. I did not have a performance plan on him and I confirmed probation without conditions. If I were hiring him now I would still check how much recent scheme experience he has, because my time with him was retail TPD. I would not treat that as a risk to character or quality. It is a product-knowledge gap you can close in induction.