“We often see people at their absolute worst,” said Paul Field (pictured below). “So we have to take a little bit on the chin at times.”
Field is a marine loss adjuster and surveyor. His Auckland-based firm, Field Assessors, focuses on insurance claims involving pleasurecraft.
“When people are super stressed, their adrenaline is going and they’re wound up, they just want somebody to make it better,” he said. “Invariably, that’s where we come into the scene.”
Field described his industry role as “the epitomy of the middleman in any claims scenario.” He said a marine loss adjuster is often the focal point for claim staff, claim managers, brokers, lawyers, accountants, customers and repairers.
One of his more functional roles, he said, is problem solving to find out how a boat accident happened.
“We do the initial problem solving,” said Field. “If the customer’s boat is underwater in a remote bay at the back of an island somewhere, we get contacted to coordinate with the salvage operators, with the insureds, with the Harbourmaster and with government agencies that may be involved as well.”
He said this involves establishing what happened, how it occurred, when it happened, what the insureds have done and what they didn’t do.
“We’ll provide advice to the insurers about whether the vessel may need further scrutiny by the underwriter or if the behaviours of the operator might need some scrutiny by an investigator potentially,” said Field.
He said “it really does come down to us being those eyes and ears.”
There’s also a very human side to the direct, face to face interactions with boat owners in a claims process.
“The role also incorporates, to a certain extent, an element of counselling with a lot of customers,” said Field. “Some of the more serious events that we deal with, for example, where there’s the misfortune of a fatality and a major and catastrophic loss.”
He said, in these cases, his work involves the repair issues paralleled with a direct interaction with the customer “and being an empathetic voice.”
Field said sometimes his face (or that of one of his team members) is the only face an insurer’s customer will see during their claims process.
“Obviously, the customers have a good and close relationship with their brokers but the brokers are obviously a little bit of a side aspect to it [the claims process],” he said.
It’s still a busy time of year for boating fans. During February, Field said each of his four assessors was dealing with 100 claims per day.
“Ultimately about 60 or 70 claims a person is probably the most manageable level but when you’ve got summer weather, every man and his dog goes out in his boat that might not have been out on it since winter time,” he said.
The result, said Field, is lots of claims.
After 25 years in the job and with a team of colleagues including a veteran boat builder with 40 years of experience, he said insurers sometimes “ring up just to pick our brains on things to try and figure out how we’re going to resolve somebody’s scenario.”
Field said his firm focuses on the large boating areas around Auckland and Northland but for some of the large underwriters the work can take them all over the country.
“There’s also the option of doing digital assessments where we’ll get all the costs and the repairer will do a whole heap of photographs for us and we’ll have a look at it,” he said. “Technology is working for us now.”
He said this can involve asking a customer or someone at a boat’s physical location to show him around the vessel and indicate the damage using a phone’s video function.
Insurance Business asked if there is any limit on what type or size of boat he can assess?
“That’s an interesting question because it doesn’t matter if it’s a 14-foot trailer boat, or 130-foot super yacht,” said Field. “You’re still ultimately dealing with similar systems and similar products.”
Apart from differences in price and the availability of parts and suppliers “you’re still looking at the same thing,” he said.
However, pleasurecraft describes the sector he works in, he said.
“There is another genre of surveyors who specifically look at large commercial vessels, including cargo vessels,” said Field.
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