Talking shop with an automotive engineer can be a mind-numbing experience. Sure, there is a great deal of subject enthusiasm, but when obscure terms and equations get thrown around, a math-averse audience will tune out rather than focus on the revelations hidden within the numbers.

However, the instinct to duck and cover could be misguided. Chances are, an engineer just might deliver the answer needed to resolve an automotive claim that is threatening to exceed policy limits. Perhaps that earnest engineer deserves careful listening and, when prompted, will respond to savvy questions with plain English stripped of Greek letters, variables, and vectors. Clearly, the automotive insurance business is complicated enough without adding engineering lingo to the claim equation. However, the engineer's report will offer the insights needed to resolve claims both appropriately and expeditiously when the claims adjuster has a better understanding of the automotive engineer's world and the analytical tools at his disposal.

Ultimately, engineers who are tasked with reconstructing accidents will use basic physics instead of advanced theoretical mathematics to analyze the series of events leading to and succeeding an automotive accident. Do you remember high-school physics class? Take a deep breath. Now nudge those dozing brain cells that once absorbed a 12th-grade lecture about Newton's Laws of Motion. The physics will make more sense now because the insights of that falling-apple-inspired genius have real-world applications for settling automotive insurance claims.