After a claim has been closed, we need to call the insured seven days after the claim has been closed as a “courtesy/care” call. It doesn’t matter what the outcome of the claim was, or if there is anything further needed on the claim.
I’m in the claims department. I routinely get calls from members complaining that they haven’t heard back from their adjuster, and when I pull up the files and research the adjuster, I see the adjuster is no longer with the company.
I’ve had multiple members complain about how their claim has been only open for a few weeks and they’ve already had 3 or more adjusters. I go through the claims history and see this is the case. There was one claim that had been open for a year (large loss) and the claim had been through 10 different adjusters in that year. Needless to say, the member was very unhappy about this.
This isn’t only about individual claims. There are years of accumulated institutional knowledge and experience lost from the high attrition. Nobody wants to talk to a different person every time they call about claim. If USAA values the member experience, then they should really try to lessen attrition.
Perhaps this varies by carrier, especially the ones who emphasize customer service culture and metrics.
Suppose you get 30 claims in a week. Suppose 28 of those 30 insureds/claimants are reasonable or at least accepting of the outcome, whether denial, partial denial, payment but wanting more etc. But you have two insureds/claimants who cannot accept the outcome, whether it’s a denial or they want a larger settlement. They call you, email you repeatedly asking for a larger settlement or for a denial overturn, and you have to answer their calls, return their voicemails, emails, text messages due to carrier (and DOI) requirements.
Then another week comes, you get 25 new claims, where you receive one new of these insureds/claimants who cannot accept the outcome, and have nothing else better to do, in addition to you still dealing with the one from the week before.
Over the course of weeks, months, and years you accumulate tens to hundreds of these insureds who refuse to accept the outcome, on top of your existing workload and the infinitely incoming workload.
My carrier has a requirement that we must respond to all emails, calls, texts etc within a very short time frame. There is no ignoring these correspondence.
I have only a little over a year of experience in property claims. Besides that, I have a double bachelor’s in Econ/Mathematics. Before working in claims, I worked in Human Resources for a few years.
I love working in insurance, but dislike claims. When I was in university, my goal was to go into the actuarial field, but it sadly fell by the wayside and I didn’t do enough to prepare for exams and do the needed internships.
Besides that, I have some CPCU coursework completed. Does anyone have any advice or is willing to take a look at my resume to see if any/what kind of adjustments are needed to help me move into underwriting? (PM)