The Art of Adjusting® Podcast

Episode # 80 - Knowledge is Power

• William Auten & Chantal Roberts • Season 3 • Episode 80

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This one’s for the adjusters who keep learning even when nobody’s paying for training anymore.

Heather and Chantal talk about what real professional development looks like today — from learning policy language on your own to staying sharp as tech, AI, and consumer expectations change faster than your claim count. They dig into why mold and low-impact claims are making a comeback, how leadership can actually support adjusters, and why communication skills matter just as much as technical ones.

It’s a fun, honest conversation about taking ownership of your career, sharing what you know, and finding the balance between empathy and efficiency in claims.

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What’s something you’ve learned on your own that made you a better adjuster? Drop it in the comments — your insight might help someone else.

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For more insights, you might consider a career in liability adjusting or if you're searching for reliable adjusting services, visit Auten Claims Management.

To explore more about Chantal Roberts and her contributions to the industry, visit CMR Consulting.

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SPEAKER_00:

I'm Bill Auten of Autin Claims Management.

SPEAKER_03:

I'm Chantelle Roberts of CMR Consulting, and welcome to the Art of Adjusting Podcast.

SPEAKER_00:

Today we're going to talk about life as an insurance adjuster from the perspective of property, auto, liability, or workers' compensation adjusters. Our goal is to bring interesting topics in the world of claims adjusting to people who are working as an adjuster now and to people who are considering a career as a claims adjuster.

SPEAKER_03:

Hey Heather, how are you doing? Fantastic, Chintel. How are you? I am like sleepy tired. And I think it's because the weather has finally started changing here in Kansas. Uh, you know, I think today is like our last day of the 80s, but it's been getting down in the 60s and everything. So I'm like, oh, maybe, maybe we'll have a little fall weather or something. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

It's uh Oklahoma's still incredibly bipolar. Um, we are like some 90 degrees mixed in with 60 degrees in the morning. And so yeah, no. Just call it seventh summer year.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah, I was gonna say, are you having your false fall or whatever that um October? Yeah, yeah. I love it. I love it. I love it. So we're gonna talk about uh an evergreen topic. Um, I've actually changed some things up because I know we had teased Paul coming on this next episode, this one that we're talking about right now. However, I thought it might be super fun to have him and us have a bonus episode, maybe. You know, I don't know. Um, so we're still working that out, but maybe have a bonus episode for Halloween. So fingers crossed, we can do that. But anyway, um, so this one is kind of an evergreen topic that that we talk about quite often. It's it's almost as often as we talk about good faith claims handling practices and the Unfair Trade Practices Act, and that is education. Uh unfortunately, carriers don't send their client, their adjusters off to educational events as often as they used to, say 20 years ago, back when I started, uh, and and even longer than that. Uh so anyway, that's what we're gonna talk about is like how can you, as an adjuster, get some education and become smarter?

SPEAKER_02:

Well, absolutely. Um, what you just said about carriers, I want to say that's crazy that they don't do that anymore because um those education events are like rich environments where adjusters can grow exponentially their skill sets and their capabilities. And but the reality is is you have to find the education where you can find it today. Yes. And I think you have to be a seeker and a hunter for the right type of education that you might need as a claims professional today. Right. But knowledge is power, 100%. Absolutely. I believe that with all my heart.

SPEAKER_03:

And and I mean, I'm sure you've had a a personal antidote or something like that where education has made a difference for you.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, 100%. I know that. And and I'm gonna like slip into like Star Wars mode here. I love it, love it, go for it. The more you know, the more you realize you don't actually know. And I think for me, like that, you have to be curious all the time as an industry professional, otherwise you can get super stagnant and just stuck in your lane and not continuously learn what is outside of what you might be doing today, because you never know where your claims career or where your insurance career is going to carry you. And so a moment where education made a difference for me is and and I I can tell you it was honestly like on the job style education, where I I just sat down and I really dug into like commercial policy language and really understanding the implications of oh, you have coverage here, but then the coverage is taken away here, and then the coverage is given back over here. And I just became like this student of understanding the application of that to the policy circumstances, and it helped me to make good claims decisions when I handled commercial policy claims. Um, but I could think you can get really like tricked into the idea that education has to be something formal. I think it has to I think it has to start from like a personal curiosity to want to grow what it is in your tool bag as an industry professional and and to and to like sincerely desire that and really realize like I don't care how long you've been in this business, you don't know everything.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

And there's so much more to learn.

SPEAKER_03:

Right. So many things that I could I I resonate, I resonate or resign myself to. I don't know, whichever whichever one. But it's it's it's both today. Um to be honest with you, it's both. Uh uh so so many things. Hold on. I'm trying to uh you know get my thoughts uh it around some of the profound things you said. First of all, I just I'm gonna plug us. I my goal in this podcast, the Art of Adjusting Podcast, is to be educ educational, educational, and to help adjusters be better. If it's one or two little things that you could listen to us while you're working out, or or if you have to drive somewhere, you know, if if you're having to return to work or whatever, it's that kind of deal. Um because like you said, it's not gonna be every single like going off. I went to Dallas to do a talk. You went to Illinois to do a talk. Uh in two weeks, we're gonna be in New Orleans uh uh talking there. Um so uh uh with the CBCU. So it doesn't have to be a formal event, it can be something small. Uh I like formal events for the sheer fact, like you said, you get to know other people and you get to bounce ideas off of. I have always talked about joining your local adjusting society, like the Greater Kansas City Claims Association or uh CPCU now allows people who are pursuing their CPCU designation. Used to be you only could be a CPCU before you could go. Now you could be on the pathway to getting your CPCU. I definitely encourage everybody to do that. So, and and the one thing that you'd said that also resonated with me is you don't the more you know, you the more you realize that you don't know. I used to say that to my adjusters even when I was hiring them, before I hired them, I would say, look, here's the deal. I know you used to work at State Farm or Geico or whatever, and you think you know how to how to adjust claims. We're going into a completely different level. We're we're working with the excess and surplus lines market. So it's a totally different marketplace. There's a totally different expectation. You don't know anything yet. And what's what's going to be scary is if you stick through it in a year, you're gonna go, oh my gosh, I don't know anything. And then in five years, you're gonna scare yourself even more because it's like, holy cow, how in the world did I get through five years because I don't know anything? And now you're where, you know, like you and I are, uh 20 or so years into it, and we're like, yeah, we don't know anything, anything at all. We can point you kind of like where to go, but it's like, oh my gosh, what do you do?

SPEAKER_02:

Well, and the reality is is like the landscape of claims in general is massively evolving, right? And and I think that's pushed by technology in a lot of ways. I think it's pushed by the consumer public want and need for, I don't know, microwave Amazon service to get things done. And and I and I also know that like and I and I've had this conversation with a lot of different industry professionals, but I can tell you like Chris Stanley, who we had on the the pod here a few weeks ago, and and Mike Casselny as well, like legend giant within the industry as well. They talk about this thing called like fossilized institutional knowledge that has kind of gotten locked up in the professionals of the industry, and really isn't being pushed back into the next generations who are coming in. And the impact of that today is like the the claim, the claims industry and the the industry landscape is evolving so fast right now that that knowledge is so crucial, and and it's just sitting there, and these people who know the stuff that they know and realize you know that they don't know everything as well. And there's so many challenges with that, um, for new adjusters, especially. And and so I know like Chantelle, you talk with people in the industry all the time, probably a little bit more even than I do in in the world that I live in today. But what are some of those new challenges that you hear from adjusters out there? And what are they what are they saying is really hitting them hard?

SPEAKER_03:

Uh you know, I think it's always again, it's it's the evergreen issue. Uh, in fact, Kevin Quinley, who has uh kindly been remarking on our podcast, uh, has had said did a did an article in Insights, CBCU Insights, where he started it off saying something to the effect of, you know, someone from the Ivory Tower comes down and is walking through the claims office, and the the claims manager goes, yeah, like our guys have 250 claims each. And that person from the Ivory Tower says, Okay, great, they should have 5 billion claims each. They should be able to handle like 5 billion claims each, like no problem. And of course, you know, we sit there and go, oh, yes, yes, insights. Uh, if you've if you've on YouTube, you can see that insights that Heather just like flashed up. And you're just like, oh, bless your heart. Yes, there it is. That's Kevin's thing. Bless your heart. You don't you wouldn't know a claim if it if it hit you, um, except for when it scratched your Lamborghini. Okay, anyway, not that I'm bitter. Okay. But one of the things that I think is interesting, and I and I've written about it, and this is one of the things that I'm going to be talking about in New Orleans, is that mold has started coming around again. Mold claims have started to come around again for the past couple of years. And I wrote an article, I guess it was about three years ago, about mold. And I think I started it out saying how everything is uh new again. And 20 years ago is is not 1963, because which which is what we all think about, because we all feel like we're still 18 and and all of that. But but 20 years ago is 2000. And so these adjusters who are coming in don't know anything about, for example, the Ballard, Texas case. And they don't know all of the things that they should be investigating and looking for, because there have not been a lot of mold cases uh for 20 years. So everything is coming around again. Um low impact claims coming back again. I wrote another article uh this time in in uh insights as well, and uh talking about how to adjust claims from for a low impact claims point of view. You know, you don't handle that the same way, and again, that's that institutionalized knowledge that, for example, I have, but I'm no longer in a carrier. So I'm not I can't teach that to anybody except through talking and articles and what have you. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

And that's why I think like today, traditional on-the-job learning just isn't enough anymore. If you work in a carrier, obviously they're gonna give you incredible training on their process and their procedures and their standard operating manuals and all of that and guidelines and everything. And they're going to teach you about the policy and and maybe estimating and all those other things. But the the reality is the lane that you travel in as a claims professional requires that you consider hopping into the ditches occasionally to learn something that's outside of what might be happening. And so, like for me, I know when I was handling claims, I really wanted to understand like the legal implications of what happens in the claims process and how the application of law to those claims processes, mainly because like I wanted to be a lawyer when I grew up and that didn't happen, you know. But you thought better of it. Yeah, I thought better of it. Also, I I sat there and I realized, like, oh yeah, by the way, case law in particular states impacts what happens in the types of claims that I might handle. And oh, by the way, the coverage application that might have I'm that might happen in that particular claims instance. So I went out and I thought like the claims law programs, you know, that are out there. What is it, the American Educational Institute? I think is that.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah, it's the S C L A, is what the is what is what the designation is.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, one of those alphabet soup things that you get. But to me, like I had so much fun learning about like reading the case law. And I know that means I'm a total nerd, right?

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah, you are a total nerd, but I love you anyway.

SPEAKER_02:

That kind of stuff. But it helped me to realize that there is some, there's a world of things that you don't understand when you've got the blinders on of here's the policy, here's my processes, here's my guidelines that my company tells me. And not knowing that, hey, in Louisiana, there's this type of case law that applies because Louisiana is the upside down world of insurance claims, right?

SPEAKER_03:

So stupid Napoleonic code. You know, what you're saying is uh it reminds me of of something that I heard at at the Dallas I Day where I was I was speaking, and there was a woman up there, and she was talking about how she started her CPCU venture. You don't have to start with number one, by the way, guys. You you don't. I started with law because I thought it was going to be the hardest, uh, and I was wrong. It was it was accounting, but that's just me. Who knows? I don't do math, but that's that's just me. Anywho, uh bygons. Um, she also started with the with the uh litigation one, and uh she said she had just finished reading about contracts, and she was married, her parents-in-law were getting their kitchen redone, and the contractor decided to switch something on the contract mid-repair. And uh, because she had learned about contracts, she asked her parents-in-law to to read the contract that they had signed. And then she went to the contractor and said, Yeah, you can't change anything because it says so right here on the contract. And she was able to save her parents-in-law a lot of grief and held the contractor to what they had originally agreed to. And and that's she was giving that example as a wonderful way that CPCU or education can impact your life, even though it's not necessarily insurance related. And that really spoke to me too. And I think that's exactly what you're talking about as well. Um one of the things that I'm doing next week is I am attending a little lunch and learn thing through another forensic engineering thing. Where and I've done this particular one before, but I'm going back for a refresher course, which by the way, guys, we're talking about new adjusters learning things. You got to keep up your skills too, because something that I learned, little side note, going off into left field, is that like origin and cause people don't talk about alligatoring anymore for fire. And I'm like, I didn't know that. I still called it alligatoring. I don't want to be talking, I don't want to be showing my age and that I'm not keeping up with the lingo and and all of this kind of stuff. Anyway, so next week I'm going to see how a tractor trailer is crashed and uh, you know, how an engineer would be looking at, okay, so this is what we're looking at when we're looking at a semi-tractor trailer rig and how we can properly figure out what happened, who's at fault, uh blah, blah, blah. And I've I've done that before. I'm gonna do it again, you know, to keep my skills up to date.

SPEAKER_02:

And so, like, education can mean a lot of different things.

SPEAKER_04:

Right.

SPEAKER_02:

You talked about going to that lunch and learn next week. I'm gonna be in New York doing an educational exercise basically with startup companies and insure techs.

SPEAKER_03:

Nice.

SPEAKER_02:

And like we, you know, uh all credit goes out to like the Europe CBCU chapter because they're the ones that kind of birthed this particular event called Riskathon. And they started in Zurich years ago. It got brought into the US via the Cincinnati and Columbus, Ohio chapters. Um, and then I was like, okay, we got to get this into another place that's a little closer to me. But then they did one in Bermuda.

SPEAKER_03:

And I was like, Oh darn, you gotta go to Bermuda.

SPEAKER_02:

But I but I had to go to Bermuda.

SPEAKER_03:

Oh man, poor thing.

SPEAKER_02:

And then last year, like after the Bermuda event, I was like, Chicago's doing this, like we're gonna have this in Chicago. And Risk-Athon essentially is like a risk analysis educational exercise where you wear CPCUs and you know, those in the industry sit down with the startups and the insure techs and essentially go through and like map out their risk that is associated with that business. Now, obviously, we don't talk about anything that's trade secret, right? Yeah, talk about these things that are publicly available about the company, and then you almost go through like a pitch competition associated with that company at the end of it. And to me, that educational exercise has taught me more about how businesses are set up.

SPEAKER_03:

Sorry, the if you're if you're watching via the iron, the iron claw is here.

SPEAKER_01:

So he was so excited about risk-a-thon.

SPEAKER_03:

He had he is, he is so excited about risk-a-thon.

SPEAKER_01:

He's like, I've gonna get involved.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah, the iron claw.

SPEAKER_02:

Anyway, and so like I was like, New York, you gotta bring this in because there's a there's a whole startup community there as well. And the reality is, is I think a lot of times people think education has to just stay in the lane of, oh, I need to be a better claims adjuster, or I need to be a better underwriter. And insurance is changing and evolving so much where the ecosystem is getting really flattened, you know, and everything's kind of crossing across each other that you've got to get into this space where you're going, okay, I I I don't need to just educate myself about claims. I don't just need to educate myself about underwriting. I need to see the whole picture and I need to see all those things that might be outside of the traditional insurance world as well. So informal education, just like that event and what you're going to as well, maybe formalized in a session that you're going through, but it isn't like I'm going and getting my CPCU or my certifications or degrees, which are also still important, not just Absolutely, not knocking them, not knocking them at all.

SPEAKER_03:

Uh and and I think the interesting thing is, and again, we sit there and I can just hear all of the adjusters going, yes, but corporate just told me I have to have five billion claims uh and close six billion in in a month and and that sort of thing. Um, but they also want me to keep costs down, you know, whilst adjustment expenses down. And you're like, yeah, I can do all of that, absolutely. Um how am I supposed to do all of this training and going everywhere and everything when I've got this big huge you know lump of claims on my desk? And uh the answer is I don't know. I I I do not I do not know.

SPEAKER_02:

Well, I think I think you have to get yourself out of the mindset that education is an expense and not an investment. And I know like that's a that's not only like an individual opinion about it, but it's also a corporate opinion.

SPEAKER_03:

Yes, yes, I think you're right. I think you're right. Because I think that's what the the people up in the ivory tower think is that it's it's an expense, not an investment.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah. And and here's the thing with the mass retirements that are coming to the industry, like the cliff is here, folks. You're falling off of it right now. Um the education right now is so crucial and so valuable for the next for how the the industry needs to evolve. You need people in the adjusting space who understand how to how to like train algorithms, right?

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah, I'm sorry, I can't have an um a serious uh thing right now with a cat butt up in my face. And so I'm giving him a little milk so that I can finish having my tea and have a serious discussion with you about algorithms and and everything. Um, they're kind of like algorithms. I still have a cat butt in my face. It's completely off camera. But um, yeah. Think about it today. I didn't even want to do this today. I was like, you know what? I just kind of want to like cancel today and just like do a hey, you know what, guys? I'm like really overworked, and so I'm gonna take a meeting and just like not do it. Um, but I would much rather have a cat butt in my face and talk to y'all about education. Sacrificing for you all. I am. I am sacrificing for my six listeners, um, which, by the way, Heather, just FYI, as I was driving across Oklahoma and waving to you, unbeknownst to you, um, I was listening to this podcast. And this podcast, the woman um started saying, Hey, I would like to end or, you know, come on next week and have 20 likes and 20 followers or whatever. And she would always get like, I don't know, 25. So I'm gonna say, could I get five reviews on YouTube or Spotify or something like that? I will uh and reviews and everything. Like, share, subscribe, comment, blah, blah, blah. Because now she's up to like a a a thousand. And I'm like, oh, but of course, your content's a little bit more interesting than having a cat butt in your face.

SPEAKER_02:

With great power comes great responsibility, right?

SPEAKER_03:

Uncle Ben, yes. Uncle Ben, yes. Okay. So let's talk about this this responsibility that I mean, even adjusters uh have to do with with themselves. They have to take responsibility for themselves instead of just waiting for someone else to train them.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, and I know like we have like preached and preached the bad faith issues and unfair claims settlement practices acts as well, but like education is the center of how you like unlock your capability for ethical decision making and claims. And like and and people want to say ethics and claims and do those those things never like are in they shouldn't be in conflict with each other.

unknown:

Right.

SPEAKER_02:

Um so you have to you have to put yourself in this place of taking on that responsibility and and not not just shoving it off and saying, well, my company didn't teach me that.

SPEAKER_03:

Right. And and I think even those companies that may have in-house trainers or something like that, and no shade on the in-house trainers, because both you and I are members of Site, uh, which is uh an insurance training professional organization, even them, I'm not necessarily sure if those trainers are training on good faith claims handling or unfair trade practice acts, so much as uh, you know, hey, this is what's going on, or here's how you use this new thing, or this is how you talk to people. Because soft skills, again, are are very, very important as well. Um, it's something that I mentioned at uh the Dallas I Day when I was talking about uh a reservation of rights letter and the 60 Minutes episode uh or expose along with uh the Weiss reporting, where it was a little clickbaity. Uh, I had commented it on it in in LinkedIn where Weiss ratings had said something to the effect of 95% of claims in Florida for Hurricane Laura had been declined. And when you ended up reading the article, it was not that they were declined, it was underneath the windstorm deductible.

SPEAKER_04:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03:

And I know that there are some companies that go out who who have this beneath deductible letter, which is actually called declination letter. And as I said in in Dallas, I'm like, well, what how do you feel when I say I've declined your claim? But the thing is, is your claim is not declined. It's not, it's covered. It is absolutely positively covered. You just didn't breach the deductible. That is a completely different word set. And we're not manipulating, we're not playing psychological tricks, although some may think that we are. It's just the way that you word these things. And that's kind of the soft skills, the educational aspect of it, that just because your company says this is a declination letter because it's underneath the deductible, doesn't mean you when you when you call and use your voice uh to the insured, you don't go, your claim is denied because it's underneath the deductible. No, it's we can't pay anything because it's underneath the deductible. But if you find more damage, I mean, obviously we would be paying for that.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, absolutely. And that is where those those skills that, and and again, you said the word soft, and and I'm I'm trying to retrain everybody in the industry just so that you know to stop using the word soft, because there's really nothing soft about them. That's true. I think they are uniquely human skills. Okay, because the iron clawed. Does not have soft skills.

SPEAKER_03:

He does not. He does not. He will put his butt right in your face.

SPEAKER_02:

He will. And so communication, empathy, negotiate, you know, those, those ability to be able to deal with conflict, those fit into the educational picture as well. And I think even more today, as we have become this world of let me put a text message out to somebody really fast. And that's how we communicate. And text messaging does not convey human emotions or emphasis or anything. And tone is very hard to judge in it. Yep. Don't be afraid to learn how to talk to people. Because in the claims, in the world of claims, you have to have that ability to be able to de-escalate, to be able to bring the emotional levels down. Because people are frustrated, they're angry, they're upset, they've had something really crappy happen to them, and you're sitting in the middle of it representing to them that, oh, by the way, your ten thousand dollar wind deductible has not been breached at this point. They in their mind think, well, they're telling me they can't pay. I've paid all these years.

SPEAKER_03:

I've paid all these years, blah, blah, blah. What does my coverage pay for?

SPEAKER_02:

What does my dollars go into? And that's that moment where you have to help them to step back and realize here's why you have a ten thousand dollar deductible. And I don't know that adjusters are really taught those capabilities anymore.

SPEAKER_03:

They are not. I was in a pod of four, and my direct supervisor was sitting off to my right, and I was talking to the insured, and he could tell that I was getting ready to say something. He's like, Don't say it, don't say it, don't say it. And he's whispering to me. And so I'm like, I know I I need to claw that back. And and we don't have that now because I'm sitting in my office with a cat butt in my face.

SPEAKER_02:

I mean, and and I know, like I I totally got the world has shifted when it comes to the workplace and and how people operate and where people expect to come from. But and and I get like you can learn in different ways. And and maybe there's some technology that can be used so that adjusters can sit in and listen to somebody in some, you know, a hundred miles away in another house somewhere. I'm sure that that technology exists. But I learned so much hearing the voices of people around me and how they maintained calm and they maintained, you know, respectfulness and and empathy and and focused on what they could do versus what they couldn't do in those conversations. That that taught me a lot. And I, you know, it all I also was taught a lot by my very first manager in claims. And we called her the hammer. Um yeah, because she was tough and like she came out of the SIU division into leadership and everything, and she had a non-traditional path to leadership as well. And I credit her today with teaching us, you know, baby seal adjusters who didn't know what in the world, flopping around not knowing what we were doing. Right. The ability to have a backbone and ask hard questions, but also get somebody to the resolution of a of a claim. And she made us take recorded statements on every single claim that we handled coming in the door because we handled the crime claims, you know.

SPEAKER_03:

Right, right, right.

SPEAKER_02:

She made us take recorded statements on every single claim that came in the door for like three months straight.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah, yeah. And that's like the best thing. In fact, again, uh, you know, we're talking about what leaders, you know, what roles do leaders have? And again, you don't have to be like your team leader. And again, I've talked about this in uh previously, but I did actually mention it and I need to send the guy an email. But in Dallas, there there was or is a group that they like teach people how to become someone in the insurance industry, uh, either adjusters or agents or whatever. And I said, Hey, I heard that you have adjusters, I would love to talk to them. I am happy to do a mock recorded statement because again, when I was at Liberty Mutual, I was still young, baby adjustment, but they recognized something in me, I don't know what. And I would do these mock recorded statements where I would not be cooperative with the the newer adjuster who was doing the recorded, the mock recorded statement. Because everybody is so afraid of being yelled at on the phone that if I was deliberately rude to that person, then by the time they got to the insured or the attorney or whatever, they're like, oh, that's not so bad. Because I was like, no, I'm not giving you my record my social security number, and no, I'm not giving you my driver's license number. Don't you have it? I put it on the application and uh, you know, all of that kind of stuff. And so um I think our leaders play a big part of that learning culture part of things. And I wonder how if we have any leaders in our six listeners, um, how they could encompass that. Like uh you mentioned having phone calls with with other people or letting them listen to phone calls.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, I think it's a I mean, and here's the thing, like tech could help with this as well. I don't know that AI and algorithms are there yet, you know, but I think like technology could definitely assist in helping to like helping to like give the leaders resources to be able to go back and coach or help people with conversations that might have been tough, you know. Um, and and you know, when I sat in the various environments that I sat, I mean I had leaders who were constantly engaged in like that the hammer would sit down with us and play back our recorded statements on the tapes, you know, that was a digital, right?

SPEAKER_01:

Right, right, right, right.

SPEAKER_02:

She would sit down and she would play the tapes back, and then she would stop it and she would say, Okay, here's what I'm hearing, and here's the other questions that I think you might needed to have asked here. Yeah. But then she would start turning that on us after she had done that a few times, and she would go, Okay, what qu what additional questions should you have asked?

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

And talk about like a training and learning experience, and I get it, like time in the claims environments today, with their five billion claims and we have expectation to handle six billion, right? Time in the claims environment today feels like it's so compressed, and they don't have time to to really coach and sit and do these things. But what I would challenge most of your your corporate folks that sit there and make the decisions about your claims environments is what risk are you creating by not doing that right now?

SPEAKER_03:

Oh, absolutely. Yeah. I I look at these expert witness cases that I get, and I just sit there and and shake my head and then beg defense counsel to let me do a a lunch and learn for all of their adjusters. Because these things so often can be curtailed. It's something that you and I have talked about before, where but again, it it just takes a little training for you to know about someone to sit there and tell you about, which is why we keep hammering on it, not just you and me, but Bill and me as well. But we just keep talking about how don't send an email, pick up the phone. It's okay to send an email. It's okay to send a text, but if you just get into an email war or text war, obviously you need to pick up the phone. You know, and it's really hard to explain coverage over a text. So say I'm gonna call you sometime between nine and ten. Anyway, we've mentioned it before, it's a dead, it's a dead, dead horse. So um I would say they can't handle the truth.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, and I uh that Colonel Jessup, a few good men here. You can't handle the truth. You can't handle the truth, you know, and I I I think I think the reality is is there's a lot of adjusters who feel like cost, time, and access is keeping them from pursuing education. Yes, and then also just I think like the emotional exhaustion of the job as well right now is keeping adjusters from really wanting to to learn more. But what you what I think the role that leaders play in that right now is you've got to uplift those people to realize that claims is a lifelong career that they can grow through and develop in and not just their foot-in-the-door job. Yeah. Because and and not that, hey, there are fantastic claims professionals that go on to do incredible things in other areas of the insurance ecosystem. But the reality is, is stop treating the claims job as if it is just that. Oh, well, the red-headed stepchild. Yeah, the red-headed stepchild job. It's not, folks, like that's where the magic happens. That's where the the products deliver. That's where adjusters really like they're they're exposed to everything that might shape how the policy looks in the future. Thank you. Allow them the opportunities to be able to give that back. Because I feel like one of the best things for me as a claims adjuster, as I was growing through my career, is when somebody put me in the place of teaching the things that I had learned. Because the reality is when you become that teacher to other people, you are empowered to learn more about it yourself because you want to make sure that the people behind you know it better than you did.

SPEAKER_03:

Exactly. Exactly. That's the that's the complex truth of what a claims adjuster is and what the claims department is. Because, as I have always said, I really believe we are teaching insurance incorrectly at all of our universities. Because why do people get insurance? It's not even to have stuff covered, it's to have their damaged things paid for. They don't even want the coverage, they want the money. That's what they want. And where do they get that is in the claims department. And I love what you said. We do need to reframe how we are thinking about our education. Because again, I get it. We are all tired. We're taking our kids to soccer practice and piano practice and ballet practice. And the last thing we want to do is go to uh the Claims Association or a CPCU thing, study for CPCU tests, or the SCLA test, or whatever designation. But the the deal is that it actually makes your job easier. It does. And again, it gives you a tribe. And I I you were talking about policy language, and I want to talk about that real quick, but I'm gonna say one more thing. My husband has uh started another hobby, and so he's found like a new tribe and everything, and he is so refreshed and invigorated that he goes into his claims job refreshed and invigorated. And and so that's something to think about. Uh, it's not only just learning all about claims, find a find a hobby, but also you were talking about policy language and earlier, and so I want to come back around to that, is of course one of my passions, again, because I feel like we're teaching insurance wrong. So when I'm teaching my students, I teach them from the claims point of view, and then we work backwards. So I teach them how to read a policy, and every time, every chance that we get, we have a module called Is This Claim Covered? I think I've talked about it before. This past time we were starting off with our personal auto claim, and Edna got Edna Mode, we we we study the incredibles. Edna Mode was struck by the underminer who is uninsured. And the question basically was does insurer care's policy, which Edna has, pick up the claim, the uninsured claim. And it nearly blew their mind because you were talking about reading the the commercial claims, because in the insuring agreement of the PAP, the personal auto protection policy, was a definition and a declination, uh, you know, an exclusion, all within the insuring agreement. And the students had no idea. So think about what your what your normal person, you know, your lay person has. So as a the whole point is as an adjuster, yes, it's hard, but you can take that opportunity if you were reading that and learn from it.

SPEAKER_02:

Like you like you and and here's my challenge to corporate insurance today, right? Um you've got to do a better job supporting adjuster learning and not just about your processes and procedures and boxes that have to be checked for the claim file. That's those are important, don't get me wrong, because they guide the process, right? And they get it from A to Z. But supporting your adjusters growing and learning in their role, but also in beyond that as well, is incredibly important because adjusters are like running away from the industry right now.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah, because who wants to sign up to get yelled at for eight hours a day? Like, oh, yeah, none of us are lining up for that job, guys. None of us.

unknown:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

And and I think like you gotta humble yourself to the fact that the way you're teaching adjusters today is probably not working that well, and and and own up to that and and not get back to exactly the way that it was whenever you and I were taught. Because like there's so much tech and there's so much capability to be able to push knowledge into people's lives in different ways and into their brains in different ways. But get back to the basics of here's here's a claim and here's how the coverage model works, and let's talk that through. And you tell me what questions you have about that. Right.

SPEAKER_01:

You know, I mean, like when I learned about liability, I had a boss who sat down with cars, like Hot Wheels cars, yes, and desk, and showed me, you know, he's like 90% of claims probably gonna be somebody doing a left turn the wrong way, you know. Thank you.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah. When I started, I got a semi because I started off in the semi-tractor trailer rig section of Liberty Mutual liability. So I got me a semi-tractor trailer rig, you know, toy car or whatever. And then I got a little bitty car. And if I could not envision what the truck driver was telling me when I was doing the recorded statement, I'm sitting there at my desk with the toy trying to go, okay, so you were turning right, and was it a left-hand squeeze, right hand squeeze? What was it? You know, and and it was just the way that you had to to do it. And I know everybody looked at me like I was crazy, but I don't care. I'm sitting here playing with my toys while I'm taking recorded statement.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, and then use the like use the visual evidence that's out there today as well. Because like cameras are everywhere. Everywhere. You could take take that camera evidence that's out there and turn it into training for people. Like, here's what actually happened, folks. Here's what you see, and you tell me what you think about this circumstance. Because again, and and and realize, like, not everybody's gonna have all the answers, and that's okay. But as it's quoted by Socrates in Bill and Ted's excellent adventure, like excellent best show ever. The only truth with them is knowing that you actually know nothing, right?

SPEAKER_03:

And that kind of brings us all the way back, doesn't it? I I hate the phrase circle back because I feel like it it that in pivot like so was overused in the pandemic. So I'm not gonna say circle back, but it brings us full circle to what we were talking about before. Like you don't know anything, and the more you know that you don't know anything, the better off you will be. And and I think that's true in life, not just in claims, but in but in everything. So yeah, I um I love that. Love it. Um so I think we're good. Uh what else do we need to talk about besides how wonderful we are?

SPEAKER_02:

Really quick.

SPEAKER_03:

Yes.

SPEAKER_02:

One skill that every new adjuster should learn today. What do you think? Or every adjuster in general.

SPEAKER_03:

Every adjuster in general would be how to write good claim notes.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, and I'll take that one step further. Like letter writing capability. I get it. Like we're moving in the world of AI where AI is gonna start like doing the letters. But if you don't understand the language well enough to not know when it's wrong, okay, you've got to get that skill set of knowing when things are not accurate.

SPEAKER_03:

Okay. I you and I need to talk off off record, but that is such a good point because one of my students once said to me, uh, because when I was talking about how complicated it is to read a policy, how do we expect a layperson to read it? And they said, Oh, we'll just plug it into ChatGPT. And I said, Well, how do you know they're not eating mushrooms? I mean, like, how do you know that that's the day that Chat GPT decided it needed to eat mushrooms? You know what I'm saying? And he said, good point. And I need to make a an assignment to do that. So you and I need to get our heads together so I can I can torture torture my students because I'd love to torture people, and that's why I'm an adjuster. Anyway, um one of the things that you that you had talked about with the letters, that too. Again, I had mentioned this in Dallas, and I'll mention it here again. I actually have a lawsuit where I'm the expert witness right now, and one of the lawsuit complaints is, oh, you didn't pay us for XYZ. And actually in the claim, it the claim notes, it says, you know, you don't need XYZ because of ABC. But the 30-day letters that the adjuster sent out never had that language removed. And and I'm like, I don't know of one insurance company that doesn't have standardized 30-day letters, but you can change them, guys.

SPEAKER_04:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03:

You have that permission. I give you that permission. And when your boss complains, give them my number. And I'm going to explain why you have that permission.

unknown:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03:

There you go. Just give them my number.

SPEAKER_02:

So learn how to write file notes, learn how to write letters, understand when the language that might be auto-plugged in is wrong.

SPEAKER_03:

Is wrong. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

You know. Um, and that takes time, experience, and and educating yourself about it, right?

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah, because you're not gonna, again, necessarily be able to relate or rely on your supervisor who may not be there. Yeah, because adjusters usually get thrown into the deep end. Baptism by fire. Oh, yeah. What about you? Uh, best resource or best thing that you think that an adjuster should know.

SPEAKER_02:

Like I I think you have to expose yourself to the whole world of insurance. Um, and I get it, like it's it's complicated and hard to hard to get out in the lane of I handle property damage claims. But if you if you pitch pigeonhole yourself with just one thing, yeah, you can get good at it, but you're not gonna understand the broader implications of that across the ecosystem. And again, like I hate using silly words like ecosystem, like it's some kind of environmental disaster, or whatever which insurance is a disaster.

SPEAKER_03:

No.

SPEAKER_02:

But insurance is becoming more and more and more flat. And if you don't understand how it all operates and works together, then you're really doing yourself a disservice. Yes. As a professional.

SPEAKER_03:

Totally agree. I I I that is the whole reason why I use the Incredibles to teach, is because I tell my students, look, I'm not embarrassed to say that it took me probably 10 years to figure out how all the cogs fit together. Because when you read even the CPCU notes or whatever, or the books, they'll talk about company A does blah blah blah and company B does da-da-da-da-da. And that doesn't make it fit for me. But if I talk about insurer care all the way through and then plug in a new insured or whatever, like how would Insurer Care's marketing team work on this? How would Insurer Care's premium underwriting team, how would the actuary that makes me understand it? So I totally get it. I totally get it. I love it. Okay.

SPEAKER_02:

Here's to hoping the Halloween special episode, spooky episode happens.

SPEAKER_03:

I'm hoping so. I think it'll be a lot of fun.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah. And 100% all of you out there, the six listeners that we have right now, right? Right. You six people could change the world just by investing in your own learning.

SPEAKER_03:

Absolutely. And in all giving me a uh review on either Spotify or LinkedIn and then sharing with a friend so that uh I can be just like this other podcaster I know. And then we can have 10 viewers. I have no idea. That's what I'm going for. I'm going for five. So we would have 11. So woo!

unknown:

Let's go.

SPEAKER_03:

All right. We will we will see you uh soon, Heather.

SPEAKER_02:

Definitely.

SPEAKER_00:

Okay, talk to you later. Bye. Thanks for joining us on the Art of Adjusting Podcast, where we talk about life as an insurance adjuster.

SPEAKER_03:

If you enjoyed this podcast or this episode, please give us five stars and a review. It does help the algorithm pick us up.

SPEAKER_00:

Hit that subscribe button real quick and tell all of your adjuster friends to check this out as well. For independent adjusting services, go to www.autin.claims. And for anyone interested in working as an independent liability adjuster, go to the Contact Us tab to join our roster.

SPEAKER_03:

In the meantime, you can contact me at theartofadjusting.com for consulting and training purposes.

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Chantal M. Roberts, CPCU

Co-host
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Heather Blevins, CPCU

Co-host
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Sandy Avina, MBA

Co-host
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William Auten

Co-host
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Nicholas Kearns

Editor