Sour Economy Impedes Claims Hiring
The economic crunch on property-casualty insurers is adding to a critical problem in attracting and retaining claims personnel, an academic expert contends.
Jim Jones, director of the Katie School of Insurance and Financial Services at Illinois State University in Normal, Ill., gave his assessment during a panel presentation at the ACESCLA annual conference earlier this month in Orlando. The conference is co-sponsored by The National Underwriter Companys Claims magazine and the Society of Claim Law Associates.
Mr. Jones said that with current economic conditions creating a large pool of applicants, now is the time for insurers to set about hiring and investing in new personnel. However, financial pressures on carriers are keeping them from capitalizing on this opportunity, and "its making the situation worse" in staffing, he added.
He said the costs to insurers from claims-employee turnover is "skyrocketing" at a time when there is a growing need for intelligent personnel who can handle the increasing complexity of claims. The need for talented people, he said, is particularly acute because the increased cost that can result from mishandling a claim has never been higher.
Mr. Jones said that insurers looking at their operations need to do an evaluation and decide what resources they need, which might mean hiring claims support personnel rather than adjusters.
Mr. Jones plugged the value of hiring people who have had a major or minor in insurance while attending one of the 12 colleges or universities that offer insurance training. "These people stick in the industry," he said.
Jeff Garrison, vice president of DynaSearch in Waukee, Iowa, warned of the "halo effect" that allows an interviewers first favorable impression of a job candidate to distract from a careful investigation of the prospect. There is also a reverse halo effect where an interviewer with a negative first impression asks questions the interviewee cant answer, he noted.
In asking questions, Mr. Garrison suggested making them open-ended, asking for an example of a success, and then probing to find out if the facts reveal that it resulted from some special effort, or was simply a routine processing of something that happened to involve big dollars for a company.
Figuring out if a candidate is a cultural fit for a company might involve questions to see whether their career track and interest is what is wanted.
"If you are not a supervisor who likes to mentor, dont handle people who need to grow," he suggested, and advised that the converse was true as well.
He suggested that advertising is frequently not a cost-effective way to attract personnel for a specialized job, and that recruiters, if they are used, are best if they are of a niche variety that know and understand the business involved.
Interviewing a candidate, Mr. Garrison said, also involves promoting the company with the prospect. "Look at what you have thats unique to attract candidates. Listen for the candidates hot buttons. Youre not only interviewing. Youre selling the position," he advised.
He said that he personally likes to hire people who were cheerleaders at school.
Reproduced from National Underwriter Property & Casualty/Risk & Benefits Management Edition, September 30, 2002. Copyright 2002 by The National Underwriter Company in the serial publication. All rights reserved.Copyright in this article as an independent work may be held by the author.
© Touchpoint Markets, All Rights Reserved. Request academic re-use from www.copyright.com. All other uses, submit a request to TMSalesOperations@arc-network.com. For more information visit Asset & Logo Licensing.