In this eight-part series, Carl Van shares his thoughts on the characteristics of the awesome adjuster. The series is to serve as a sort of road map for those interested in knowing what it takes to be among the top in their field.

Imagine that you are a claim supervisor. Two of your adjusters, Stann Rose and Dopey McClaim, come up to you on the same day with essentially the same situation. Which one would you want working for you?

Dopey: Is Med Pay subrogateable in California?

You: In some situations.

Dopey: What situations?

You: Let's go over it.

After taking 30 minutes to review the circumstances under which California might allow subrogation in Med Pay cases, Dopey leaves. A little while later, Stann approaches and says, “I have a question.”

“What is it?” you ask.

“I have a claim and I need to figure out if Med Pay is subrogateable in California. I asked a couple of senior adjusters, and they gave me some information, but not enough to conclude whether it applies in this case.

“Then I went to the FC&S books and found a case similar to mine. It helped me, but still I couldn't nail it down. So, I called our in-house counsel, and they gave me the name of a law firm they use in California sometimes, Dew Knot Winn & Pay. I called them, and Mr. Winn told me about a case in California about subrogateable rights for Med Pay, but said that it really came down to the wording of the policy.

“I looked up the case he referred to and found out what policy was analyzed in the court case. I got a copy of that policy and read it. It appears that the wording of that policy and our policy are very similar, with just slight variations. After looking at it for a while, I believe that the case would apply, and that we are entitled to subro for our damages, but I would like to go over it with you.”

My guess is that you would rather have Stann working for you. Is Dopey a bad claim adjuster? Of course not. In fact, he is average. Most of us operate just as Dopey did. When we have a question, we ask our supervisor. Stann, however, took steps that showed initiative.

Because of that, Stann will learn in his career five times faster than Dopey can ever hope to. While researching his answer, Stann gained a great deal of knowledge in many other areas that Dopey will never even be exposed to.

Stann is now a top claim executive for a national insurer. Once upon a time, however, he was an adjuster, and I was his supervisor. Stann demonstrated a high level of initiative from day one. I did not instill it in him; he just had it when I met him. Nevertheless, I have seen that characteristic in every awesome claim adjuster that I have ever met.

It is true of Tom Del Corso. He is a regional claim manger now, but once was an adjuster of mine. Like Stann, I found Tom to have a high level of initiative that helped him learn and grow faster than everyone else around him. By the time Tom came to me with a question, I was confident that he had done his homework and had thought things through. Even if he were wrong in his conclusion, it was the effort that he had made and the initiative that he had displayed that I most appreciated.

A good adjuster is one who comes to his supervisor for answers because he is concerned with doing things right. An excellent adjuster follows his supervisor's suggestions on where to go to find the answers. An awesome adjuster, however, is one who feels obligated to do as much legwork and analysis as he can on his own and then comes to his supervisor for guidance.

Take the Challenge

Can initiative be learned? It is not easy, but it is not impossible. It is important to describe what we mean by initiative. Most adjusters do not really appreciate it. Even most supervisors do not fully appreciate what initiative really is and, therefore, they have no way of imparting it to their adjusters.

We teach a full-day class on just attitude and initiative training for claim adjusters. Believe me, it is not a quick thing. Therefore, I cannot outline here everything that you would need to know to inspire high levels of initiative in yourself or in someone else. I can, however, give you one simple training technique that, if you apply it, will triple the amount of initiative that you display in just a month or so.

Interested? If so, you'll have to put up with a little challenge that I give to my Teaching and Coaching for Claim Supervisors and Managers class. The point of the exercise is to get people to think about what initiative really is. Here is how the conversation goes:

Carl: So, is initiative important? Would you rather have Stann working for you or Dopey?

First Student: Yes, initiative is extremely important. I'd rather have Stann working for me.

Carl: How do you instill initiative in your adjusters?

Second Student: I always tell them to read their policies before they come to me.

Carl: Then that's not initiative. They are just doing what you told them to. Initiative is doing it on their own before they are told.

Third Student: I always tell them to research something and come to me with a suggestion on what they think the answer is.

Carl: Again, that's not initiative. They are just following your directions. Don't get me wrong: if they carry out your orders by checking something out before coming to you, that is better than if they just come to you directly, but it's still not initiative.

Fourth student: I tell them they need to take the initiative to find the answer on their own.

Carl: That's not initiative; they are just following your orders. Remember, initiative is when they take steps on their own without your telling them to do it. They do it out of a sense of obligation.

At this point, my students begin to realize the Catch 22 here. You cannot tell someone to take initiative and have it truly be initiative.

Carl: Does anyone, right now, have someone working for you like Stann and Tom?

Class: We wish.

Carl: So whatever you are doing now to instill initiative in your people is not working. The proof is that you don't have anybody like Stann and Tom. You said you would like someone like that, so all you have to do is do a little training.

First, you must ask yourself. Do you want to be like Stann and Tom or Dopey? If your answer is that you would rather be more like Stann and Tom, here is the trick: from this point forward, any time that you find the need to ask your manager for the answer to something, first ask yourself, “What steps did I take to get the answer before coming to my boss?”

If you answer, “Nothing,” and feel okay about it, go ask your boss your question and forget about it. The next time you have a question, again ask yourself, “What steps did I take to get the answer before coming to my boss?. Believe it or not, pretty soon you are going to feel obligated to yourself to take some initiative. And guess what? You will start changing your behavior.

If, however, after six or seven times in a row, you can ask yourself what extra steps you have taken and can still say, “Nothing,” and feel okay about it, go work on your letter-writing skills or something, because initiative is just not your bag.

That's it. That is just one small example of how easy it can be to create initiative in yourself, once you decide how you want people to see you.

Carl Van is president and CEO of International Insurance Institute and dean of he School of Claims Performance. He can be reached at www.insuranceinstitute.com.

Special Reports /

In Search of Initiative

Related Stories

Recommended For You