- September 14, 2009 3:13 pm
- Rick McCord
- No Comments
Claims Technology
I don’t want to make myself sound like a dinosaur, but I started in the claim business many years ago at a tender age when there were no fax machines, internet, e-mail, or cell phones, and let me tell you it was a different world altogether.
My father was an independent claims adjuster who worked from our home, and when I was growing up I helped him on weekends and over the summer. I was answering the phone and taking reports of new losses starting when I was maybe twelve. I do remember that my voice hadn’t changed yet, and the callers generally assumed I was a female secretary. When I was old enough to drive, and possibly slightly before, my dad would send me to take photos of wrecked cars and to the police station to pick up accident reports.
I had decided pretty firmly that I was not going to go into the claims business. In fact, my father always preached that if I ended up in insurance for some incomprehensible reason, I should at least go into marketing, since that paid better than claims. Needless to say, I did eventually drift into handling claims, and that’s what I’ve done all my life.
I recall that my dad had an old photocopy machine that actually took a picture of the document, and what came out was essentially a negative. The page on the copy was dark, with the lettering in white – an exact opposite of the original. The copy was on heavy slick paper, and was initially blank. You had to place it in a pan of liquid developing fluid for several minutes, and then hang it up to dry. We had a place in the corner of the office with a small clothesline where we would use clothespins to hang the documents until they were dry enough to put in a file.
As a young adjuster I spent most of my time in the car. To call someone, I had to find an outdoor, drive-up pay phone. Usually the cord would barely stretch to the car window, no matter how close you were, and so you usually had your head part way out the window. I can tell you that in the winter in Nebraska the phone calls were kept as short as possible. You also had to make sure you always had plenty of dimes for the pay phones.
Along with every other adjuster at the time, I used to take handwritten statements from insureds, claimants, and witnesses. Some of the old timers I worked with when I was getting started carried around a portable typewriter in their car for typing statements, release forms, and the like. They would sit in the car, or at someone’s kitchen table or picnic bench, with an old Underwood on their lap, and usually with one finger, type everything out for signatures right on the spot.
At times I used an old fashioned Polaroid camera, the kind where you would snap the picture and then pull out the undeveloped negative by the tab. It was covered with some kind of developing goo, and much like the old photocopy machine needed several minutes before you could peel off the covering and actually see your picture. I learned that in cold weather the goo became thick and wouldn’t work well. When I was out at an accident site in the winter I would have to tuck the undeveloped pictures under my arm, or take them back to the car and put them on the floor under the heater vent. In fact, ballpoint pens would freeze as well, and I learned to keep a spare under one arm to remain thawed, and then switch them back & forth as one stopped working.
Naturally, we had no GPS in those days, so as an outside adjuster it was important to get good directions to where you were going. Being in the Midwest there were plenty of claims involving farms and travel in rural areas. The layout in Nebraska is pretty simple. There is generally a country road every mile. So the directions would be something like “three miles north and one and a half miles west” of some particular town or landmark. It usually worked out OK.
At one point I was handling claims in Houston, Texas, and ran into a somewhat different method of giving directions. One old guy I was going to see directed me to a specific convenience store. He explained that when I walked in there, they would have a big tub of iced beers right inside, and I should buy myself a cold beer. Then, while sipping on my beer (it was legal then in Texas to drink and drive) I should start driving north on a certain road. When my beer was getting down to about half empty I should watch for a big red barn, and make a right turn. Then when my beer was almost gone I would be there. It was the first and only time I’d ever been given directions “by beer”. I can’t help chuckling to myself when I think of telling someone that I’ll meet them “two beers north, and then half a beer west”. I guess it would be important that the driver drink his or her beer at approximately the same pace as the one providing the directions, or it would never work.
I also recall that when faxes were first introduced, they were only used for particularly important messages. And back then they were printed on very thin slick paper that curled up from being on a roll, and it was hard to flatten them out to put in a file. It probably didn’t matter that much since the ink always faded after awhile anyway.
While I am not a techie by any stretch, I have to admit that some of the gadgets and technology that have come along have certainly made our lives easier. Everyone has a cell phone, and most business people have a Blackberry or similar device. A great deal of our communication these days involving claims is done by e-mail. And you can obviously get on the internet and have access to a wealth of information, not to mention quite a bit of junk.
Perhaps the biggest change for the claims industry brought about by the introduction of some of these new technologies has been a sense of immediacy. At one time an insurance company claim examiner, upon receiving a new loss, would send a typewritten assignment to an independent adjusting firm by mail, and diary the file ahead for 30 or 40 days. It was accepted that the local adjuster would conduct their investigation, get photos of the damage developed, and mail in a full report generally within a month or so. Upon receipt, the examiner would review the adjuster’s report, write back (again by snail mail) with any questions or clarifications, and maybe extend authority to the adjuster to try and settle the claim. Or, the examiner might need to request the paper policy file from the Underwriting Department, and it would eventually show up in the interoffice mail cart in a few days or a week. Then, maybe in another month, the signed Releases and payment recommendations from the local adjuster would show up. The examiner might then submit a payment request, which could languish on someone else’s desk for several days or a week, and eventually a check would be typed and mailed out. It could be months in some cases between the time the loss occurred and the time the settlement check was received, even in fairly routine cases.
These days, particularly in the world of transportation claims, those kinds of timeframes are no longer acceptable. It isn’t unusual for our office to receive notice of a new loss shortly after it occurs. Sometimes we’re contacted by the driver calling right from the accident scene. With faxes and e-mail, communication is almost instantaneous. We often have electronic access to our clients’ policy information so that coverage can be confirmed right away. We may assign a local adjuster by phone, fax, or e-mail upon receipt of a new loss, and in the case of an emergency we may instruct the adjuster to immediately drive to the accident scene. We no longer can afford to wait weeks for the adjuster’s report, but often receive them within days or weeks of the loss. In many cases where we have the ability to issue payments on behalf of our clients, we may issue a check to a towing company or for temporary repair costs in order to minimize downtime or further costs, or to get a cargo reloaded and delivered. We have literally had claims that were reported one afternoon, and we were able to have a check delivered across the country the following morning.
There is definitely a sense of urgency involved with many losses in the current claim environment. Because of advances in technology, our claim handlers are able to gather information and get things done with a speed that would astound adjusters from decades ago. While the basic elements of investigating and handling a claim may not have changed dramatically, the timeframes have undoubtedly done so.
No, I don’t miss those old days much when I think about what now seem like pretty silly things we had to do. I do sometime wish I still had that old Polaroid camera; it would probably bring a few bucks on E-Bay as an antique.