I just lately shared a publish titled “Public Adjusters Want To Elevate The Bar For Admission If They Need To Be Seen As Professionals,” which sparked a vigorous and insightful dialogue. I’m actually grateful for all of the partaking responses and concepts which have been shared.

In essence, I echoed within the publish a sentiment shared by Brian Goodman, the Common Counsel of NAPIA, and Steve Badger in a presentation they made this week on the First Occasion Claims Convention: the necessity for public adjusters to raise the requirements for acquiring a license. It is a matter I’ve usually introduced up in my ethics speeches to numerous public adjusting associations. I’ve privately raised it with public adjusting leaders.

The main focus of the publish, Donice Krueger, who occurs to be my higher half and a Licensed Public Accountant, raised an intriguing query. She questioned if policyholders are conscious that hiring somebody with a public adjuster’s license would possibly generally imply entrusting their claims to somebody who won’t be totally competent for the duty. For instance 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 if insurance coverage firm and impartial adjusters also needs to have increased necessities. Others recommended that the main target ought to be on eliminating unhealthy actors inside the insurance coverage trade. 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 change” strategy.

This brings us to a elementary query for all public adjusters who care deeply about their occupation: Will we need to permit the licensing of people who will not be totally competent to deal with claims on behalf of policyholders?

I suggest that the reply ought to be easy – both “sure” or “no.” It’s a matter of deciding whether or not we view public adjusting as a significant and revered occupation 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 neighborhood to mirror on this and take into account what steps we will take to make sure the occupation is held within the excessive regard it deserves. Your ideas and strategies on this matter should not solely welcome however important for our collective progress and enchancment—me included.   

I recommend that these on this matter additionally take a couple of minutes to learn The Professionalism and Ethics of a Property Insurance coverage Adjuster.

Thought For The Day

Your life doesn’t get higher by probability, it will get higher by change.

—Jim Rohn