Think of them as insurance’s first-responders. When a flood catastrophe strikes, many companies won’t have enough permanent adjusters on hand to deal with the claims. So that’s where the claims cavalry comes in.
Jo Ann Howard, owner of H2O Partners, knows how it important it is to have claims adjusters on the ground in natural disaster areas as fast as humanly possible. That’s why her company trains about 6,000 people a year on NFIP (National Flood Insurance Program) knowledge and the claims process.
“We train them on what the flood policy provides,” she said. “We do training for FEMA (Federal Emergency Management Agency) under contract. We train agents and adjustors on … the nuances and the changes. That’s for them to satisfy their certification to adjust flood claims.”
The adjusters her company trains may not have regular work, but they help big companies manage their claimants promptly.
“Independent adjusters are hired when they’re needed. And when they’re not needed, a year may go by and they may not have much work. You either need them a lot or not much,” Howard said.
“You don’t know whether it’s going to be a large event or a medium event. If you have 200 houses with flood loss, that’s one thing; if you have 2,000, that’s another. You have to be able to scale, and that’s the challenge: to have enough when you need them.
“You have to be able to access them and know that they’re sufficiently trained to be ready to get right in the field. You need them there in 24 hours, not in five or six days.”
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Adjusters must react quickly and professionally whenever they’re called on by the insurance companies who employ them as contractors. They are, effectively, permanently on-call, at the whim of Mother Nature.
“The people who have a claim may not remember or may not have ever been told what’s covered. So the adjuster is put in the position … of being the bearer of disappointing news. There’s a lot to understand. And claim time is a very emotional time for people,” Howard said.
“They (adjusters) come from all over. They’re there on their own nickel and they’re trying to get the claims and complete them. That’s stressful too – they’re not in an office, they’re working out of a motel, they’re working out of a pickup.”
In an emergency situation, while it may be the army of the National Guard helping keep people safe, it’s the army of adjustors who are on the ground helping get insurance settlements to the affected.
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