SAN DIEGO, Calif. — Last week at the annual Warranty Chain Management Conference, the Global Warranty and Service Contract Association (GWSCA) named its 2014 industry award winners. Among them was the Ford Motor Co., which won Excellence in Service Contract.

A call for nominations was issued in late 2013. The nominations were reviewed by GWSCA Advisory Board nomination committee. To avoid any conflicts, applications were rated by individual committee members, and when compiled the high scores and the low scores were stricken.

GWSCA found that Ford’s Extended Service Business has taken a customer-driven, innovative approach to reviewing claims. Under this approach, ESB requires the company’s approval on only 5% of all claims, with dealers self-adjudicating 95% of all ESB claims, which the association noted increased the speed of vehicle repair for the majority of customers. And when a claim requires prior approval, Ford ESB has developed an extensive array of Web ESB Prior Approval (WEPA) tools, the organization added.

Other winners of GWSCA’s industry awards included:

Excellence in Warranty: Sub-Zero Group Inc.
Innovation in Warranty: Oracle
Innovation in Service Contract: Seagate Technology and Fulcrum Analytics

Additionally, the group’s board of directors also honored the Service Contract Industry Council with its 2014 Pioneer in Service Contract Award, recognizing the group for its longstanding contributions to advance the issues facing the service contract industry.

“We sincerely appreciate the nominees and our awards committee,” said Terry Hawkins, president of GWSCA. “All of our nominees were deserving of recognition and we look forward to even a greater awards program for 2015.”