How to be a Professional Claims Handler
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A Proposal to Create a Staff of Insurance Claims Professionals
\\nSee the full video at https://youtu.be/1nVg3ZqtDpA
\\nTo avoid claims of breach of contract, bad faith, punitive damages, unresolved losses, and to make a profit, insurers must maintain a claims staff dedicated to excellence in claims handling. That means they recognize that they are obligated to assist the policyholder and the insurer to fulfill all the promises made by the insurer in the wording of the policy.
\\nWhen the claims staff is made up of claims people who treat all insureds and claimants with good faith and fair dealing and provide excellence in claims handling litigation between the insurer and its insureds will be reduced exponentially.
\\nTo keep the professional claims staff operating efficiently and in good faith they must be honored with increases in earnings and perquisites.
\\nConversely, those who do not treat all insureds and claimants with good faith and fair dealing should be counseled and given detailed training. If they continue with less than professional conduct they must be fired.
\\nThe insurer must make clear to all employees that it is committed to immediately eliminating staff members who do not provide excellence in claims handling and must be ready to publicly and quickly fire those who do not provide excellence in claims handling.
\\nAn excellence in claims handling program can include a series of lectures supported by text materials like the program I created for Experfy.com. It must be supplemented by meetings between supervisors and claims staff on a regular basis to reinforce the information learned in the lectures. To guarantee that the training and requirement for excellence in claims handling is effective the insurer must also institute a regular program of auditing claims files to establish compliance with the requirement to deal fairly and in good faith to the insured.
\\nThe insurer\\u2019s management must support the training and repeat it regularly. Management should be closely involved in all claims and required to audit claims files to determine that the training has taken and is being applied to each claim.
\\nThere is no quick and easy solution. The training takes time; learning takes longer. If the insurer does not have the ability to train its staff it should use outside vendors who can do so using available sources like this publication, training from professional organizations, and continuing education providers.
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