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One step is already to late. By keeping as much inhouse over the last year, the companies have allowed to ranks of experienced cat adjusters to become depleted. Penny wise pound foolish.

I guess it has been quite a while since we all heard about Ray's FICUS theory.  Will that be what saves the penny-wise carriers?  Only time will tell...

Just wait for Billy Bob to share his company's catastrophe fee schedules with his buddy Bobby Joe, there will be enough sparks to ignite another modern day gold rush.  Ebb and flow is the only constant description of this industry.

I would advise the property claims office to discuss how to settle problem claims with the liability claims office. It seems the property claims department is always trying to get better results by making changes to the proven methods.

That's a good idea Ray.  Have you seen this happen, if not, how do you see that plan work out? 

I have a college friend who's a Recruiter with Travelers.  He indicated that they are cross training adjusters from other lines/departments to become lightly equipped for the event of another major disaster.  Yet, they would only be able to do fast track claims, phone duty, and basic light damage claims.  Training them beyond the basics would be futile since they wouldn't have much opportunity to use their knowledge and thus retain it.  At first glance, handling problem claims appears to be a risky step.

As for experienced property adjusters leaving the industry, there are still plenty who will and have stayed behind in the catastrophe arena because they chose not to work for the big 5 Insurance carriers.  There are plenty of carriers who would be hard pressed to ever justify an all in-house catastrophe team.  It is these carriers that pay decent fee schedules and choose to be penny wise and pound smart.

I've also heard that one large carrier in particular is getting antsy about not having used their newly hired 400 catastrophe adjusters last year.  Those adjusters have been drawing from a decent salary, benefits, co. cars, expenses, etc.  Ins. carriers just simply cannot have properly equipped and trained adjusters for events on the scale of Katrina, Andrew, or Camille.  Their stockholders, policyholders, state rating commisions won't allow it.  This is why there will always be a reliable state of change.

The one adjuster one house at a time will not be able to keep up with the timly inspection laws imposed on catastrophe claims of 30, 45 or 90 days depending on the state and line of coverage. The carriers will always have to have temporary workers to fill these needs.

The vendor system will always be in place for the liability aspects and labor laws. These vendors are retooling their operations into compartments that are more productive than the one on one approach.

Yesterday was the golf and today is the meeting for one of the four  large  commercial only vendors for Zurich. Over 125 adjusters with large commercial experience was invited to the meeting in Houston . Team work will be stressed. Now with 500 commercial adjusters dedicated to Zurich this year, they seem to have a handle on their problem. If each adjuster has 10 helpers this pool swells to 5,000 instantly and so forth.

Just read that ICAT and Boulder Claims has been signed to work commercial losses for Citizens in Florida.Get you resumes in commercial and condo adjusters. The large teams will be in demand.

F.I.C.U.S.

F.I.C.U.S. to a degree has been the norm for CAT vendors that use green non adjusters. The problem at one vendor in 2004 was the fact the non adjuster staff (they were called CAT adjusters by name) so outnumbered the experienced adjusters that they could not keep up rewriting the claim files and many quit and the company collapsed for the most part.

Alistair Cooke’ four stages of the highbrow treatment in talking about a certain person are stated to be first, he was derided, then ignored, then accepted, then discovered. In the case of F.I.C.U.S. I think we can see from reading on CADO the idea/author has been “derided” and clearly “ignored”. More are starting to “accept” the concept so maybe the only question is when will it be “discovered”?

www.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alistair_Cooke  

Gale,

I don't think the use of field estimators is new atleast from the staff side. I managed a large unit in 96 that consisted of field adjusters and field inspectors. It was not popular with the insureds because they wanted their coverage questions answered while the inspector was out in the field rather than a field inspector stating they could not answer coverage questions because they were not a licensed adjuster. A good example was on shower pan claims that often involved rot in the shower. This would be the same issue on the wind versus water damage. You are entering dangerous territory having a field estimator making the call on their estimates as to what is covered under the wind policy versus what is covered under the flood policy. While an adjuster in house oversees the field inspector and reviews their estimates, I can still foresee major problems with this. The estimator reports a non coverage situation to the staff adjuster who must call the insured to deny the non covered portions of the claim. Insureds are not happy with that scenario having their claim denied by someone who hasn't inspected their property.

It was also not popular among the adjusters and inspectors. There were also different pay issues between time card inspectors and salaried adjusters. We are seeing this very issue today with some of the adjusting firms that are using adjusters as inspectors. The pay is much less than a full assignment requiring an adjuster. Adjusters are resentful of the reduced assignments and you are not going to find large numbers of adjusters willing to go on the road and incur huge travel expenses with motels for reduced "field inspector" fees. The fees we are seeing range from 35.00-50.00 per file on the offers we've gotten from some firms who use new adjusters for these positions. It's a great opportunity for a trainee to get a start in this business but you can be assured anyone that has gone to the trouble to get licensed and incur thousands of dollars in training courses such as Vale is not going to work for those type of fees for long.

I am hearing the same complaint from MANY adjusters who have attended vendors meetings this year to be told that some of the carriers
are going to maintain the file in house in their claim central operations and only assign limited portions of the claim assignment to a field independent. The adjusters fee is going to be greatly reducing their income thus limiting their ability to do cat work with the tremendous expenses for gas and housing while on the road.

Having managed in a claim central operation and as a field manager, there are many problems that arise in this scenario. Yes- they can process a vast number of small storm claims but by the time an insured has talked to many in house adjusters working on teams and complications develop, it's a true mess to resolve by the field adjusters who the claim gets bumped out to when a decision is finally later made to bump it out to the field. The field adjusters were left feeling that the only property claims they were assigned anymore were the problem cases or major large losses that did not go to the in office operations.

This is just a few of the complications involved in using estimators versus licensed adjusters. Other considerations were agents who were not happy with the process,etc

The first time I ever heard the phrase it made sense. It's an old London Underwriters phrase. "the right horse for the right course" . The race course will change, but the rider and  the right horse will win most races. Insurance Underwriters need to know what they have ASAP and any trained set of eyes and camera is most important.