Similarities to Adjusting

After I finished with the Army, a journalism career opportunity did not arise, but one as an adjuster did. It was almost identical. The “story” became the “claim.” It required investigation. The adjuster had to find out not only the who, what, when, where, and why, but also the “how much” of each. Like an editorial writer, he has to evaluate the information acquired in the investigation. Did it fit the coverage? Who or what was responsible for the loss? Was there “fault” that could be the basis for subrogation, or “liability” that sent the adjuster out to settle with the claimants. Who were the witnesses? Just like that editor in Brier's novel, the key was names. “Get names!” he would shout. “Names are news, man. Get names!” Get addresses. Get the facts. Verify everything. Is that not just as true in claim adjusting?

Real estate agents will tell you that the three most important things in real estate are “location, location, and location.” They actually stole that idea from Joseph Pulitzer of the St. Louis Post Dispatch, who claimed that the three most important things in journalism were “accuracy, accuracy, and accuracy.” That, too, is just as true in claims. Unless we are accurate regarding the information we obtain on losses that we investigate, we may as well just print and sign blank checks and throw them out the window.

The Style Sheet

In beginning journalism classes, one of the first things taught is the importance of “the lead.” I'm sure similar things are taught in sales classes as well. No salesman ever made a fortune with an approach such as, “You wouldn't want to buy a widget, would you, Mister?” That won't sell news stories either. How often has the “come on” at the beginning of the news show, something like “Mass mayhem on the downtown freeway, details to follow!” kept you tuned to the station through umteen boring reports of the daily stuff of news, only to find out in the last two minutes of the broadcast that some truck dumped a load of garbage on the freeway in the middle of the night, but that it got cleaned up before rush hour?

The lead has to tell the whole story, with as much detail as possible, in the first sentence, but has to do it in such a way that the reader will keep on reading. The opening lines of novels also must catch the reader. The old chestnut, “It was a dark and stormy night,” no longer does it! It's a “so what?” How about, “The body looked unusual, the way it lay at the side of the road.”? Curious?

Most adjusters no longer have to write leads. The age of the “full formal report” in our professional vocation has gone the way of the dictaphone. Most reporting is now done online or in some computer data system. It's fill-in-the-blank type stuff, all to a pattern. One dog bite is pretty much like any other dog bite report, one auto wreck the same as any other auto wreck – how much damage, and if the insureds at fault settle it.

Formal reports used to be like news reporting. Journalists are taught to write in “pyramid style.” A short concise lead. Then a paragraph with the basic details. Finally more paragraphs with all the details. The headline should catch the reader. For example:

MAN BITES DOG! Joe Smith was forced to subdue his neighbor's Great Dane Tuesday morning by biting the large dog on its ear in order to keep it from chewing up his leather briefcase [Who, what, when, why, even where]. Smith, of 123 South Street, was on his way to work Tuesday morning when Ralph, his next door neighbor's dog, smelled the contents of Smith's briefcase, a new essence for beef barbecue, and ran across the lawn to grab the briefcase [The second sentence gives more details]. Smith, a chemist who works for Ace Odors Company in Jonesville, had been working on the formula for the fragrant sauce in his home the night before, and was transporting the product to his office when….

Writing headlines can be fun. I recall headlining one story about a husband who found his wife in bed with her psychiatrist, and shot him: “Head Examined? He Thought She Said 'Bed Examined.”

The Bad Description

Supervisors used to read all the reports before they went to the home office or to an independent's client. Some were good, but most suffered from lack of good reporting skills or simply bad writing. I recall accident-description paragraphs that went on for 200-300 words. I pitied the poor claim examiner at the home office who would have to decipher such garbage. Most did the pyramid backwards. They started with the details and ended with the real nut of the event: “On Tuesday, July 7, the insured started for work in the insured's new Buick, and turning on the radio to hear the traffic he learned that the freeway was blocked, and decided to use an alternate route on Elm Avenue. When he turned east on Elm off Maple, the sun was in his eyes and he proceeded to put down his visor….” (blah, blah, blah). Hundreds of words later, we learn that the insured rear-ended a school bus. Were the other details important? Maybe, maybe not. But what is important was lost to the reader amidst all the non-essentials.

Adjusting is similar to journalism in other ways, as well. News is nothing if it is not current. The Internet is quickly eroding the value of print media because it is immediate, like radio news. (It was on my classical music station, while I was working on my computer, that I heard the first announcement on Sept. 11, 2001, that an airliner had hit the World Trade Center. I had the television on before the second plane hit. Likewise, claim handling must be quick, current, and timely. The sooner a claim is reported, the quicker it can be handled, and the sooner it can be settled. Like some news stories, claims may take time to develop, but the key is fast response.

Fair and Balanced

The National Association of Insurance Commissioners' Model Unfair Claims Settlement Practices Act mandates that claims be settled “fairly, promptly, and equitably whenever liability is reasonably clear.” As in journalism, the response must be prompt. Adjusting can be boiled down to six words: investigation evaluation and negotiation of coverage, liability, and damages. Similarly, journalism can be boiled down to three: reporting the facts. But in both fields, the “facts” – the evaluation – can be slanted.

One cable news network proclaims that its reporting is fair and balanced. Undoubtedly, a good many insurance companies will tell you that their settlements are fair and equitable. But saying so does not necessarily make it true. Most claims for loss have two sides to the story, as do most news stories. Often the same event will trigger both a news story and a claim. When two cars collide and people are seriously injured or killed, it is news, but it is also a claim for settlement by someone on behalf of one or the other of the parties involved.

The stories of what happened often disagree. Some witnesses favor one driver, others favor the second driver. The adjuster must investigate, but must also evaluate. If only one side of the story is investigated, the evaluation will not be fair and equitable. (Equitable comes from the Latin word equi, or “even,” basically meaning “balanced.”) The same is true in the news. If one only hears one side of the story, paying no attention to the other, then the news is not balanced. It is lopsided, unfair, and misleading.

Most journalists pride themselves on being impartial. That is difficult in politics, but perhaps easier in non-political stories. When a building collapses, the collapse is the immediate news. But eventually “evaluation” of why the building collapsed becomes important, and that may involve politically differing points of view. The owner may blame the contractor, who may blame the engineer, who may blame the supplier of the concrete, who may blame the weather. From the public's point of view, they may blame the city building code inspectors. That makes the story political, subject to slanting. All sides deserve to be heard, but if any one side is missed, the story (and the claim) is faulty.

Is it not the same in adjusting? Recently this columnist blamed the severe damage from Hurricane Katrina on several factors – some readers wrote to comment on those, suggesting still other factors, or questioning the one's I had cited. No claim is without many facets. Finding those facets is our career, our vocation as adjusters. Just like journalists, we must hit the street and dig out the facts. Doing that becomes addictive. It gets in the blood. We wouldn't trade our careers for anything once we're hooked. We want to shout out, “Stop the presses!” or “Breaking news flash!” What we find out is important, and we want the world to know it.

Brier's book could just as easily have read, “It makes a claim adjuster out of you. Once you go through a major disaster – some smash catastrophe – the germ gets under your skin. It's like a disease – an incurable disease … Once you are caught in the spell, you see your work in a new light. It no longer seems like a job; it becomes a duty. Men give up their lives for duty.”

Ken Brownlee, CPCU, is a former adjuster and risk manager, based in Atlanta, Ga. He now authors and edits claim-adjusting textbooks.