Insurance, by nature, is a trauma-adjacent industry. Aside from purchasing and tweaking policies, or maybe the occasional phone call to pay their bill, most carriers don't hear from their insureds until they've experienced some kind of loss. Not every claim will involve a traumatic experience, of course, but as the first point of contact for these policyholders in crisis, claims professionals can end up stuck between trying to remain empathetic to the insured while also keeping the claims process moving.
There's also the issue of secondary trauma dealt to those who work in claims. According to the National Child Traumatic Stress Network, secondary traumatic stress is the emotional distress experienced by an individual who hears a firsthand account of another person's trauma. Claims professionals may spend much of their time taking in difficult information and seeing the aftermath of disastrous, tragic events, which can lead to emotional distress and burnout.
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Brittney Meredith-Miller
Brittney Meredith-Miller is assistant editor of PropertyCasualty360.com. She can be reached at [email protected].
