[ad_1]
I not too long ago shared a put up titled “Public Adjusters Need To Raise The Bar For Admission If They Want To Be Seen As Professionals,” which sparked a energetic and insightful dialogue. I’m really grateful for all of the participating responses and concepts which have been shared.
In essence, I echoed within the put up a sentiment shared by Brian Goodman, the General Counsel of NAPIA, and Steve Badger in a presentation they made this week on the First Party Claims Conference: the necessity for public adjusters to raise the requirements for acquiring a license. This is a subject I’ve typically introduced up in my ethics speeches to numerous public adjusting associations. I’ve privately raised it with public adjusting leaders.
The focus of the put up, Donice Krueger, who occurs to be my higher half and a Certified Public Accountant, raised an intriguing query. She questioned if policyholders are conscious that hiring somebody with a public adjuster’s license would possibly typically imply entrusting their claims to somebody who won’t be totally competent for the duty. To illustrate this level, Donice, with out prior expertise in public adjusting, studied for about 4 hours utilizing a guidebook and efficiently obtained a Texas public adjusting license.
This revelation led to numerous reactions, with some shifting the dialog as to whether insurance coverage firm and impartial adjusters must also have greater necessities. Others recommended that the main focus needs to be on eliminating dangerous actors inside the insurance coverage business. One attention-grabbing perspective was that some would possibly see it as a viable enterprise mannequin to acquire a license with minimal competence after which delegate the precise work to others, basically a “bait and switch” strategy.
This brings us to a elementary query for all public adjusters who care deeply about their career: Do we wish to enable the licensing of people who might not be totally competent to deal with claims on behalf of policyholders?
I suggest that the reply needs to be easy – both “yes” or “no.” It’s a matter of deciding whether or not we view public adjusting as a significant and revered career that calls for stringent entry requirements or if we’re content material with a system that doubtlessly permits unqualified people to symbolize policyholders.
I invite everybody within the public adjusting group to replicate on this and think about what steps we will take to make sure the career is held within the excessive regard it deserves. Your ideas and strategies on this matter usually are not solely welcome however important for our collective progress and enchancment—me included.
I recommend that these on this subject additionally take a couple of minutes to learn The Professionalism and Ethics of a Property Insurance Adjuster.
Thought For The Day
Your life doesn’t get higher by probability, it will get higher by change.
—Jim Rohn