As we get into the heat of the summer, wildfires are burning in the western part of the country and tornadoes have struck in the Midwest. The total damage from these events is still being calculated, but the impact will definitely be felt by insurers in the coming months.

With a busy claims season come the challenges of balancing the traffic flow of adjusters' high caseloads and effectively managing time and other demands for attention. Gary Jennings discusses the collision of these blockages in his article, "Malfunction Junction." He identifies the causes of the malfunctions and looks at the responsibilities of both management and adjusters to manage or mitigate the situations encountered.

Michael Voelker tackles the topic of legacy systems as many insurers weigh the cost benefit of retiring their existing computer programs for more up-to-date systems that are automated and provide the functionality they need to work more efficiently like drop-down lists, automated class code lookups, underwriter-agent communication and other features that increase usability. If your company is engaged in this debate, you'll want to check out his article.