Crawford & Company (Crawford) has appointed seasoned insurance leader Diana Abel as the new Sydney operations manager for its property loss adjusting team.
Abel (pictured) has served various senior roles in the insurance industry. She entered the industry in December 1999 as a national claims manager at Westpac. In April 2010, she joined Cunningham Lindsey Australia, where she took on various roles such as claims manager, human resources coordinator, and branch manager. Most recently, she served as a general manager at Mk3 Pty Ltd for over seven years.
Abel joined Crawford this week. She is responsible for a large team of claims adjusters responsible for various property claims on behalf of insurers.
Scott Shepherd, the head of property at Crawford, commented: “While Diana joins us following several years as the general manager of an independent building firm servicing the insurance industry, her professional passion is leading an operational team, so this puts her in an excellent position to take on this operational role with us here at Crawford.
“Diana is highly skilled when it comes to both leadership and technical claims judgement. She spent nine years with Westpac General Insurance, becoming its national claims manager leading a team of claims managers, and spent five years with another large loss adjusting company, managing one of its Sydney metro branch offices.”
Abel's appointment comes only weeks after Ryan Peacock became the metro operations manager for Adelaide and Perth. He has 18 years of experience in the insurance industry, predominantly at Suncorp, where he had developed a reputation as a solution-focused, customer-centric operator.
Shepherd said: “He's led various teams in his time and is known for creating an environment that promotes individual and team excellence.”
Shepherd added that the new hires will ensure the smooth day-to-day operation of the company's high-volume property claims portfolio across the greater Sydney region and the Adelaide and Perth metro areas.
“For us, it's always about ‘who is the best person for the job’ and, quite often, that's an internal person because we do have solid training platforms for our people to grow and develop. However, there are invaluable benefits that come as a result of external appointments – people from outside bring a fresh perspective, new ideas, promote diversity of thought, and all these things aid in evolving and improving our service delivery and client experience,” he said.
“When we announced these appointments internally, people were genuinely excited because both Diana and Ryan have strong reputations in their respective states for developing and implementing a whole range of initiatives for greater claims customer service and doing it in a way that's inspiring for the teams they lead.”
