Crawford welcomes renowned industry player to team

Crawford & Company Australia (Crawford) has boosted its forensic accounting team by appointing renowned industry player Chris Ehlers.

Ehlers (pictured) is a property, energy, and cyber claims expert with 20 years of experience providing independent forensic accounting advice across Australia, New Zealand, and the Pacific Islands after beginning his career in the UK and the US. Early in his career, he worked for Aon and Mercer.

“Chris brings a nuanced difference to what we've historically had in the team in that he's built his career around extremely high precision forensic accounting, which is critical when it comes to claims of extremely high value or complexity,” said Craig McLeod, head of specialty loss adjusting at Crawford.

Crawford's newly created role

Ehlers joined Crawford Forensic Accounting Services (CFAS) as the national technical head, a newly created role.

“This is a significant appointment for specialty – Chris is already bringing unquestionable value in terms of both the professional development of our broader team within CFAS and also when it comes to improving our overall value proposition in the forensic accounting space,” McLeod said.

“With this hire, we have added depth to our forensic accounting service offering; when there's a dispute over indemnity, the numbers need to be absolutely precise, and this is what Chris is known for.”

Ehlers said Crawford “already feels like home” due to his existing connections with its senior adjusters.

“Internal relationships are so important in order to get the right outcomes for our clients. To do our jobs really well, constructive relationships must exist across the major loss teams and the forensic accounting adjusting teams,” he said. “For years, I've worked alongside and had great respect for Crawford's construction, power, and energy specialty adjusters, for example, given Crawford is widely considered the ‘go to’ for claims management and loss adjusting services.

“I'm most looking forward to the teaching and mentoring part of this role and getting back to spending more time in the technical detail of claims.

“Obviously, when you run a business like I did in recent years, you spend a great deal of time running the actual business and managing the operation, which is a necessity.

“But the reality is that I love the technical detail of working on claims, so I'm really excited about this new career chapter.”

 “There's no doubt in my mind that when it comes to claims management where a financial loss has occurred or is in question, our CFAS team is one of the best in the country,” said McLeod. “With Chris Ehlers in the building, it's giving us an opportunity to also hone the skills of some of the more junior members of the team to an even further extent.”

Crawford's recent appointments

Ehlers Crawford appointment followed executive property adjuster Michael Dinan re-joining the company, managing large and complex losses in South Australia and the Northern Territory via Crawford's global technical services property team.

Last month, Crawford appointed Jon Stagg as a senior general adjuster for its liability claims team, focusing on major public and product liability, product recall, property damage, service and repair liability, and cyber liability.