Claims Boss: Cat Field Staff Need Support

NEW ORLEANS--Insurance companies handling catastrophes must focus on supporting their claims staff on the ground by educating and cooperating with the media, regulators and other interested parties, a claims expert advised.

That counsel came from Dakin Kinser, State Farm claim manager, catastrophe services, speaking here yesterday at the ACE claims conference sponsored by National Underwriter.

Mr. Kinser, discussing lessons learned from the hurricanes of 2005, made a dollars and cents case for supporting adjusters.

Underscoring the point that carriers have an interest in using their labor proficiently, he said that insurers' loss adjustment expense for Hurricane Katrina was $1.3 billion, and the number-one cost was labor.

In State Farm's case, after Katrina, proficiency meant going to Houston to find lodgings for adjusters and booking charter flights to take them into Baton Rouge, La., each day and get them out before a 5 p.m. curfew.

Adjusters, he noted, face emotional trauma from extended separation from their families and the continuing stress of facing "good people in desperate times."

"Day after day our folks are going to get tired. We've got to make sure there's a support mechanism in place for them," he said, adding later that their judgments should be supported, and "if we put them in charge, they should be making decisions."

In dealing with the news media, Mr. Kinser suggested, "call them up and invite them in, and tell them the story of what we do to help."

State Farm, he noted, allows reporters to do "ride alongs" with claims personnel. Insurers should learn to "put out message points and get our message out there," he added.

Mr. Kinser also advised that insurers get to know their departments of insurance and establish lines of communications to make them aware of what a carrier is doing during a catastrophe.

"You'll gain their favor and they will become your advocates," he said.

In Florida, he said, insurers and others meet with regulators as part of a state program--Partners in Recovery--to talk about the "what ifs" should catastrophes occur.

"We learned if you partner before an event, they will come to you for information," Mr. Kinser said, adding, "If we don't tell them something, someone else will."