Insurance claims
What the claims committee needs
Insurance & Property Claims Advisor · Read Sarah’s biography
Organizing the facts, coverage questions and damage evidence behind a disputed number.
Transcript
Boards ask me whether a public adjuster is worth 10% on a $100,000 claim. Before they decide that, they need to know what the carrier's committee is actually looking at when it decides what to authorize because whoever writes the number, it ends up in the same room.
So when an adjuster sends a file to committee, the committee is going to be looking at the
investigation, the facts of the loss, if there's any liability or coverage issues that need
to be resolved, and also, and most important, they're going to be looking at the damages.
Based upon all of that information, the committee will decide what the course of action will
be for the file, whether they will assert coverage issues or liability issues, or whether
they will set a reserve to make a settlement offer. So do this. Take whatever number you last
sent the carrier and split it into three columns. Agreed, disputed, not yet investigated. If you
can't, that's your answer about why it hasn't moved. For the board. Give a board three columns
and it can decide. Give it one contested total and it will table it and so will the carrier.
When the number moves later, and it will, the board already knows which column it moved from.
That's a revision, not a surprise.
If you own the building, your lender wants the same three columns for the same reason.
If you own your house or home, a house claim rarely goes to the committee, but the file still gets read by someone who's never seen your house.
Write for that person.
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