While those outside of the insurance industry looking in think that it's stuffy, staid and boring, those on the inside know the reality is anything but. Fraud, auto claims, property claims, workers' compensation complexities, ever-changing technology and a challenging workload leave little time for complacency and boredom.
Here's a quick overview of several books that tackle different aspects of the insurance industry. Two are non-fiction books – one addresses the mechanics of working more efficiently and the other discusses a fascinating case involving the worst recreational fishing accident that ever happened in San Francisco.
The last book is a work of fiction that many will recognize is based on very real events that adjusters encounter in the world of auto fraud.
The challenge is frequently how to maximize the time and resources available to provide the service your customers expect as quickly and efficiently as possible. In Essentialism, Greg McKeown provides claims professionals with the tools they need to regain control of their day. By investing some time up front doing things like creating automated document templates to use for claims correspondence, you can eventually reduce some of the time spent on mundane, repetitive tasks.
Email can literally consume hours a day if we let it. McKeown suggests spending only two hours a day on email and the problems it generates, then spending the balance of the day solving issues that are important to you and your goals. By eliminating the trivial of the many you can focus your efforts on what's vital. He also advocates solving problems early to eliminate more effort later. Sound familiar?
Essentialism can help claims professionals better prioritize where and how they spend their time managing the myriad details, projects and people clamoring for their attention – helping them choose the essential vs. the non-essential.
Jay Jacobs was a young, relatively inexperienced lawyer when the widow of a fishing boat captain asked him to defend her in a lawsuit involving the worst fishing boat accident ever to happen in San Francisco's maritime history. The captain, Francis Dowd, his son and three other men had gone out on Dowd's 34-foot boat for a day of salmon fishing on the Pacific Ocean. It would be the last time any of them were seen. The boat, the crew and the fishermen vanished leaving only speculation as to what had occurred.
The Widow Wave recounts the events leading up to the ill-fated trip and the aftermath ranging from the lawsuit filed by the widow of one of the men lost at sea to the three-week jury trial with all of its intricate twists and turns.
Jacobs shares the challenges of going against a legal giant with a case that never should have been tried except for the determination of the captain's widow to remove the cloud of negligence that hung over her husband's name.
As the name suggests, this fictional work starts with a fraud frequently known as the swoop and squat, a lucrative business for the story's protagonist until his team grabs the wrong car. Insurance claims investigator Jake McFarland finds a dead body in a burned van and is pulled into a web of intrigue that takes him from the streets of downtown Los Angeles to the political power seat of Washington, D.C.
Along the way he encounters a beautiful FBI agent, a number of corrupt politicians, the kingpin of a Mexican drug cartel and key players in a terrorist organization. Based on Tidball's decades of experience in the insurance industry as an insurance claims investigator working with law firms and law enforcement agencies as well as his work as a claims consultant, Swoop & Squat provides a look into the world of insurance investigation few ever get to see without being on the front lines.
It's not often that insurance is portrayed as something more than a risk management strategy for the "what ifs" in life, but this fast-paced thriller provides an insider's look at some of the questions investigators face every day and will keep readers guessing until the very last page.
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