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.
Michael Pinto examines the various documents that comprise the industry standard of care for mold remediation and water damage restoration. Too often contractors, insurers and third-party administrators rely on a single document for the decisions they make on a project, but the industry standard of care comprises multiple documents from a number of sources. Pinto identifies these documents and helps insurance professionals separate the sales hype from the facts when it comes to remediation technology.
Our cover story this month looks at a growing area of insurance restoration — contents claims. Not all contents restoration companies are created equal, so Barb Jackson and Steven LaVelle provide practical information on how to determine whether the company you've selected really knows their contents. Check out the "10 Questions to ask a Contents Restoration Company" to see how knowledgeable your vendors should be.
Make sure to check out Brady Dugan's article on 10 Ways to Identify a Top-performing Claims Adjuster. He highlights the traits that all successful adjusters exhibit. Do you recognize these traits in yourself?
If you want more claims news in between each month's issue, make sure to check us out on PropertyCasualty360 or follow us on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and Google+. Happy reading!
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