The Overnight Adjuster Dilemma: Insurance Claim Adjuster Training

Before I get to the dirt on insurance adjuster training, a short preface is necessary:  Between late nights in the office, missing cargo claims and property appraisals, I can occasionally be found mudding through the piles of resumes that end up on my desk.  Its not that my office is looking to expand, but rather I feel compelled to send a quick email to the folks who submit them letting them know it was received and that well keep in on file.  It never hurts to give someone hope who’s entering somewhat of a closed door type business; its not like we have applications laying around to be filled out.  Conversely, there might be a really well qualified candidate in one of our sub-markets who’s interesting in freelancing.

I once heard that the best weapon an attorney has are writing skills.   This rings true for more than one profession and independent claim professionals are no exception.  Ive personally seen insurers lose scores of litigation (or enter litigation misinformed) because an adjuster or claim representative worded something poorly.  All to often we forget the subtle differences and nuances of the English language; which is amplified to the Nth degree in litigation.

Most of the resumes our office receives (the upper 70-80%) are from inexperienced persons who have just left some kind of go to claim school or adjusting training and get rich scam.  I say its a scam because the odds of getting rich are undoubtedly slim to none.  I wont even go so far as to call it an insurance adjuster school because its a cram-crash-scam course in nothing but how to barely scope a loss and write a paragraph or two explaining what was seen.  Its no joke that the insurance industry has a hard time finding intelligent employees, and this type of flood in the market can be a deadly combination.

The catastrophic claims business started boiling during and shortly after Hurricane Katrina and Rita.  Dozens of catastrophic adjusting companies came out of nowhere and were left with no real consistent business after the storm season 2005, leaving many of them to open up these so-called adjuster training classes. Catastrophic claim adjusters rarely have any experience writing more than a few sentences to a paragraph for each claim theyve completed. This raises the question of how these businesses feel they are qualified to educate persons on reports that can be scrutinized in a court room. Most will tell you that since theyve obtained an adjusters license that they are qualified, but my office strongly disagrees.The result?  Another natural disaster.  Im not saying these applicants arent capable of learning or that some of these training companies arent doing a fair job.  I dont even open the bulk of their resumes because the greeting email or cover letter was so poorly written that it scared me to know anymore about them.

Coupled with the failure of independent adjusters and firms to construct any kind of reasonable website with relevant content (which would contribute to ranking well for related keywords), these adjuster school / businesses have saturated the web with unrealistic expectations about how adjusters can make thousands of dollars per day plowing through claims. This often out-ranks search engine results for claim associations and legitimate insurance claim businesses, clouding the market with false advertising and hopes of a successful claim career.  In light of recent news where attorneys are filing class action lawsuits against universities for allegedly providing misleading job market statistics, it appears many of these adjusting companies that engage in training have probably over-exposed their general liability insurance.  Please note this site may be unknowingly hosting ads for adjusting training classes through our third-party ad hosting agreement.  The authors views are not necessarily that of this website.Its doubtful to expect anyone can enter the industry with a full knowledge of the business but basic writing skills should be a minimal standard.  I suspect everyone will think the concept of introducing some kind of writing literacy test requirement into adjuster licensing is ridiculous, but theres a standard in my office and it absolutely requires excellent writing skills over everything else.  It should be the standard everywhere. Theres a reason our offices have always remained free of errors and omissions claims.  Of course, Im not getting rich overnight either.

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