Habit 1: Communication
Insurance claims adjusters ought to possess excellent people skills. An insurance adjuster will deal with all manner of people in every frame of mind – from happy and grateful to angry and suspicious. As representatives of insurance companies, claims adjusters are often the only point of contact between the insurer and insured. Customer service with an emphasis on cordial, patient, and professional communication should always be striven for.

Habit 2: Time Management
Wasted time and stress are twin enemies of an insurance adjuster – particularly an independent adjuster handling catastrophic claims. Effective time-management will minimize stress and maximize profits. It is not uncommon for insurance adjusters to be handed stacks of claims numbering in the hundreds. And in a catastrophic situation, each claimant wants the adjuster there yesterday. Managing expectations, multi-tasking, and using time wisely are essential to surviving the insurance claims “storm”.

Habit 3: Computer Proficiency
The days of hand-writing estimates are over and nearly every major insurance carrier now requires that claims estimates be delivered electronically. Becoming proficient in general computer usage will dramatically elevate the ability of an insurance adjuster to close claims quickly. Those who struggle with typing, using a mouse, or navigating through a Windows based program should strongly consider enrolling in a basic computer skills course before taking on insurance claims.

Habit 4: Integrity
An insurance adjuster, particularly an independent adjuster, has significant freedom and power and therefore responsibility. Temptations to abuse the position (i.e. taking bribes, contractor kickbacks, etc) exist and a good insurance adjuster should constantly be vigilant in guarding against even the appearance of ethical infractions. Crime may pay in some professions but not in insurance adjusting – an unethical adjuster is an adjuster soon to be out of work.

Habit 5: Insurance Policy Knowledge and Application
Knowing how to read an insurance policy is fundamental to proper insurance claims adjusting. But the real skill is in applying the policies within the context of very specific aspects of a particular insurance claim. Excellence in adjusting is as much art as science – formulas and rules can lead you through the black and white but when grey areas arise an adjuster must rely upon intuition, conscience, and experience – in short, good judgment.

Habit 6: Construction/Engineering Knowledge
Being familiar with the makeup of the property adjusted is obviously essential. If an adjuster doesn’t know what is behind a wall in a house, he or she certainly won’t know to account for it in the estimate. The goal of the insurance adjuster is to compensate the homeowner, car owner, or business owner to an extent sufficient to return their property to its pre-damaged condition. Understanding how those properties are constructed, from foundation to roof, is indispensable in coming to a fair and accurate claim settlement amount.

Habit 7: Innovation and The Will to Succeed
Sometimes claims adjusters find themselves confronted with seemingly impossible situations. Difficulties ranging from language barriers, unresponsive claimants, impassible roads, and software bugs can make an insurance adjuster long for greener pastures. In catastrophic events this is particularly true. Some folks take their footballs and go home, and some muddle through an event not to return the next year. But others rise to the challenge, facing problems with innovation and the will to succeed. Being proactive and having perseverance are hallmarks of the highly effective adjuster.

The purpose of this first contact with a recruiter is to:

• Let the recruiter know that you exist, you’re sort of looking around, but you’re in no big hurry
• Give the recruiter some idea of your technical talents
• Share with the recruiter your career plans and goals

Some recruiters don’t want you to call them until you’re desperate for a new job. Avoid these recruiters. Continue searching until you find a real professional.

1. Find a recruiter that specializes in your talents. Most recruiters specialize. A recruiter usually specializes by geography, technology, or industry, or some combination of the above. When looking for a recruiter, try to find a recruiter who specializes in your technical field and geographical preference. We get lots of non-I.S./telecom resumes sent to our office, and they always wind up in either the paper shredder or get processed with a ‘delete’ key.
2. Find a recruiter that you like to work with and that you trust. No matter how perfect the technical and/or geographic match you are with a recruiter’s specialty area, you MUST like working with this particular recruiter. If a recruiter “bugs you” for any reason, find another recruiter. It is far better that you find a recruiter that you like and can trust but is slightly out of your talent area, then continue to work with the “perfect recruiter” under a lot of friction and stress.
3. Don’t be too quick to send your resume to an unknown but “smooth talking” recruiter… especially if you’re still employed. When you finally find a good recruiter, your goal is for that recruiter to keep you in mind for career-building positions as they arise. Most recruiters are true professionals with very high ethics. They will gladly keep you in mind for new positions that are “right up your alley” as they are uncovered. However, there are a few unethical recruiters in the marketplace that will do whatever it takes to get you to change jobs. For example: How would you like your resume to wind up on your current boss’s desk next week? How would you like your resume “shotgun blasted” to hiring managers at every one of your current employer’s competitors in the U.S. and Canada? How would you like to have your carefully crafted resume “doctored” to say things you haven’t done, mention technologies you haven’t used, or credit you with academic credentials you don’t have?

All of the above has happened to others. Some intentional, some maybe not. Be careful! Before you send a resume to a recruiter, make sure you know exactly what they will be doing and not doing with your resume.

1. Provide the recruiter with current salary information and expectations. Most people (including most recruiters!) find it hard to discuss something as personal as compensation. And that’s fine. However, there are at least three people in this world that need to know your current salary: the IRS, your spouse, and your recruiter. The first two need to know for obvious reasons. Recruiters need to know for the following reasons:
   • Suppose you are making $50,000/year, but you wouldn’t tell us this fact. How many interviews would you want to go on where the job paid a maximum of $40,000/year? How many times would we continue to call you until we “guessed” your current salary?
   • Suppose you are making $50,000/year, but you wouldn’t tell us this fact. Suppose we asked you to interview for a great career-enhancing position that paid a maximum of $40,000/year, but since we didn’t know how much you currently make we neglected to tell you how much the new job paid. Suppose you went on that interview, you loved the company and the job, the employer loved you and made an offer of $39,000/year. What would you think of the employer? What would the employer think of us?
   • Suppose you are making $50,000/year, but we “guessed” you were making $70,000/year. Would we call you to interview for a great opportunity in your field that only paid a maximum of $65,000/year? Probably, since we seldom ask our candidates to take salary cuts.

Don’t put important facts in the cover letter you send to a recruiter. Cover letters tend to get lost in the shuffle, are often not even read, and most recruiters only keep the resume anyway. Keep your cover letter short and specific. On a cover letter, you may include:

• your salary expectations
• your geographic limitations
• specific things that you want to say, but are not normally found on a resume

Make it easy for a recruiter to get and read your resume. Don’t assume that every recruiter has every possible technology in place to receive and read your resume. We sometimes hear:

Web Browser? Download a copy? Multimedia resume? ZIP disk? Email? Quattro Pro format? A recruiter is usually a businessperson, not a technology person. Before you send your resume, ask the recruiter how they prefer to receive it (fax, email, postal mail, etc). And remember to send the best, cleanest, and clearest resume that you can. For example, when faxing a resume always use “high resolution” mode. The fax’d image that the recruiter receives of your resume is much sharper in “high resolution” mode.

• Recruiters are usually NOT good vehicles to help you change careers. For example, a technical person with great programming skills and no sales experience wants to become a sales person or account manager. Or a seasoned project manager wants to return to the “technical trenches” and become a Web Programmer. In both cases, the people described above probably have great potential to do the jobs they really want to do. However, employers do not usually use recruiters to find them people with great potential. Employers use recruiters to help them find people with a particularly well-honed skill set, and several years of practical experience in a particular field. If you’re an unrecognized “super star”, recruiters are usually quite good at helping you get recognized and accelerate the advancement of your career. We are not very effective at helping you change careers.
• Executive recruiters recruit; career counselor’s counsel! Recruiters are inundated with requests for free career counseling, free resume writing advice, free practice interview sessions, etc. Although most recruiters are very qualified in all of the above, our “real” job is to find qualified people to work for our client companies. Most recruiters spend half of their day uncovering great job opportunities with their clients and prospective clients, and the other half of their day searching for qualified candidates to fill these jobs.

Recruiters are usually pretty good at career counseling, resume writing, and interview prep sessions. However, a recruiter’s “real” job is to uncover the best career-building positions in their specialization, and then recruit qualified people for these positions. Although part of the recruitment process often includes some career counseling, some resume “tuning”, and some interview practice sessions, if you really need extensive help you may need to hire a professional career counselor.

• Executive recruiters recruit; bus drivers drive busses! Recruiters get lots of calls that go a bit like this:Monday afternoon, a Systems Analyst gets notice that he will become part of a major RIF at his current employer. He immediately calls a recruiter that he just found in the phone book and says: “I’ll fax you my resume. Now go find me something!”Two days later, the same Systems Analyst calls the same recruiter and says: “You guys find me anything yet?”Two weeks later, the same Systems Analyst calls the same recruiter and says: “You guys aren’t worth a #$%^! You never find me anything when I need you to.”

The above scenario happens much more often than you may think. We affectionately refer to these candidates as “ticket to ride” candidates! These candidates must think we are bus drivers waiting to collect their “ticket” (aka “resume”) and move them along to the next “stop” (aka “a better paying job”).

See Tip #1 for a better way to work with a recruiter!

So why did I take him on? I hired Shaq because during his interview he clearly demonstrated that he was intelligent, had a lot of energy and seemed to come out on the “glass half full” side of things during stressful situations. Because of these qualities, within three months of joining my company he was out in the field, conducting examinations on his own. Shaq had absorbed the training so fast that within a year of his hire he was testifying in court and handling our most complicated cases.

When hiring new employees, most recruiters consider qualifications first – and last. They’re looking for someone with the best education, the most experience and the most impressive skills. This is a mistake because you can teach employees what you want them to know, you can give them the experience you want them to have, but you can’t change who they are on a fundamental level. Their attitude, values, willingness and work ethic are all ingrained in them.

The most effective way to hire fantastic, loyal employees who will fit into your company culture and help you meet your goals is to hire them for their inherent abilities (that which can’t be taught), such as personality, learning style and core values. You do this by identifying behavior patterns during the interview process.

Still looking for the pattern you ask, “What about your first job?” After you get through “tell me more,” the candidate says, “I loved my colleagues, but I couldn’t stand the bureaucracy. They had me filling out irrelevant forms all the time.”

A pattern is starting to become clear. Do you see it? This candidate doesn’t like rules. If your company depends on employees adhering to strict guidelines, he’s not a good fit. If, on the other hand, you’re looking for an independent type of person, he has potential.

This hiring practice takes time. Your interviews won’t be over in 15 minutes and you won’t hire employees based on shiny resumes and gut instinct. Instead, your interviews will probably last two hours, and you’ll make a decision based on your confidence that the candidate you hire will behave exactly as you need him to – because now you know how he’s behaved in similar situations in the past. While it may take a bit longer up front, you’ll save time and money in the long run because this method reduces turnover and increases company morale.

Hire the candidates with the most potential to succeed in your company, regardless of experience. The right people will be able to handle anything you throw at them. If they’re anything like Shaq, it will be nothing but net.

Adapted from the Wall Street Journal

Good interviewing techniques, like dating advice, can increase your chances of avoiding the bad breakup.

So why is a job interview like a date’ Check out these six tips for success in your professional and personal life.

1. Dress for Success

Sorry, it’s a cruel world. Few companies are going to be impressed if you show up to your first interview wearing a hoodie and flip flops, blowing bubbles with your gum. Yes, you’re beautiful on the inside, but organizations and interviewers want you to demonstrate that you can be put-together and appropriate at important occasions.

2. Discretion – Your Best Friend

Your first date is not the time to talk about all the times you’ve messed up, gotten your heart broken or been unfairly dumped. In the same way, it is absolutely not the time to complain about past jobs. Save the emotional baggage for later…or preferably, never. Discretion is key. No matter how well you’re hitting it off with the interviewer, or how romantic the mood lighting is- remember! You are being judged. At all times. Being a mess isn’t adorable. Being incompetent isn’t charming. And bad-mouthing a past employer, for any reason, is never smart. Just stick to the basics and keep it together. Rule of thumb- do not say anything you wouldn’t want printed on the front page of The NY Times.

3. Put on a Happy Face

Quite simply, be positive. We’ve all made mistakes. But your first date-interview is a short window of time in which you get to express your many wonderful qualities and skills, not your drawbacks. Stick to talking about the time you made a positive impression on someone, took the initiative, or performed above and beyond what was asked. Lean forward, smile, be engaged, and relax. Practice your conversational skills. You are a happy, positive person and Company X would be lucky to have you as a permanent fixture!

4. Honesty ‘ Make it Your Policy

Be honest. If Company X loves football, cheap beer, and wings, and you’re more of a Madame Butterfly and champagne kind of gal, don’t try to talk about Tom Brady’s most recent stats. Instead, try to find some common ground. You’ve prepared for your interview using our tips here, so focus on what drew you to this company in the first place. Then, post-interview, be as honest with yourself as you would be after a date. Maybe Company X would make a sports-loving, beer-guzzling lady very happy indeed, but that doesn’t mean it’s a perfect fit for you. Pay attention to corporate culture and how that might fit with your own preferences and working style.

5. Q & A

Everyone says, ”ask questions” on a date, and you should do the same at an interview. Use this time to find out more about the company, the role and the expectations. What are the company’s long-term goals’ What would the ideal hire for this position look like’ What does Company X expect of you’ What will your relationship together look like’ What will you name your kids’ Okay, maybe not that last one.

6. Affirmations

A wise person once relayed some strange advice to this PYP, and I’m going to share it with you now. As you sit in the company’s lobby, waiting to be invited in for your interview, repeat this mantra to yourself over and over again: ”I am awesome. I am wonderful. I will dominate this interview!” Yes, it sounds strange, but by the time you head in for the do-or-die moment, you will be sailing on a high of your own amazingness..

And there you have it. Go get ‘em!

Glenn,

I have a rather unique experience with a “Maury Moment” I wanted to share with you. My parents are insured with Safeco and were victims of the tornado that hit the St. Louis area on Good Friday this year. To date, they are still trying to put their house back together. It’s been a struggle for them because my mother has emphysema and is on oxygen, and my father is in very poor health as well. Mentally, they are much older than their physical ages of 68 and 69 years.

Obviously, being a casualty manager myself, I have very little experience with property claims, so I continued to refer them to their adjuster for questions on the claim. I deliberately would not get involved for the obvious reasons, and to my knowledge, their adjuster was not even aware that he was handling a claim for the parents of a Safeco CTM. However, my parents had kept me up to date on the status of their claim over the past few months. They’ve shared some of their questions, their frustrations with contractors, but through it all, they’ve said the various adjusters have been pleasant and helpful. However, their current examiner, Kevin Evans, has truly created loyalty in the heart of my parents, which is why I’m writing to you today.

In the midst of all of the upheaval related to getting their home back in order, my father became ill and was diagnosed with lung cancer last Friday. I spent the day with them on Monday trying to help them sort through the business of a terminal illness and all of the related unpleasantness that entails. When we got to the status of their home repairs, my mother started talking about Kevin Evans. She said that she and Kevin talk frequently, and that he knew about my father’s diagnostic test that was scheduled on Thursday. He wished them luck and told them he would say a prayer for them. Then, on Friday, Kevin called them to ask them how it went with his test the day before. When my mother shared the bad news, Kevin told her he was so sorry, and that when he went to church on Sunday, he was going to light a candle for my father and pray for them both. Then, he told them not to worry about a thing where their claim was concerned, that he would take care of everything for them. My mother thinks Kevin is one of the kindest people she’s ever dealt with, and smiles when she tells me that “he’s kind of a southern guy and calls me “darlin’, he’s from Texas you know”.

Glenn, when my mother told me this story, I was very touched by Kevin’s kindness to my parents, and I immediately thought of your “Maury Moment” story. I realized that Kevin had created that without even being a part of our meeting that day in St. Louis. I don’t know if he’s heard the story, but I do know that I am very grateful for his kindness and consideration in dealing with my parents. He didn’t have to follow up with them on my father’s test results, but he did. It had nothing to do with adjusting their claim, and everything to do with creating a personal relationship with them out of the kindness of his heart. Kevin has truly exemplified nearly every one of our guiding principles of service, has become my parents’ hero, and as a result, mine as well. This experience is yet another reason why I am very proud to work for Safeco. Thank you, Kevin.

Cory Johnson

What a beautiful city! It was my second trip and my cohorts first. We were all blown away at just how clean and accessible the city is. Our hotel, here comes a cheap plug (Fairmont Waterfront) was nice and one block from the convention center. Avoiding those shuttles is the way to go, walking over even in the rain is so nice.

Setting up was interesting, we all were asked to wear orange safety vests, not a bad look on a few of us, and I have attached a photo for your review.

After setup came time to begin our party circuit. Robin and Debbie attended the opening ceremony and said as always was well attended and well done. The odd part was the dog riding the turtle? Not sure where that came from but have to say nice touch.

Jason and Kevin caught up with clients for a few drinks and discussion on upcoming hiring needs at the other Fairmont, which is spectacular. We then moved on to the Hartford Party at Rogue Kitchen, again what a great party with some very good Clam Chowder! We saw many friends and then moved on to the Chartis Party, were live music and candy were a plenty. Nothing like drinks and candy (including to-go bags for those late night or early morning munchies). We had a great night and yes that was our VP of Sales tearing up the dance floor! Everyone should have her energy and attitude, what a wonderful teammate and dancer she is.

We opened the show Monday morning in great form, with bagpipes playing and we were off to networking and selling the greatness of our two companies. As always, Robin and Jason were marketing king and queen. For those that do not know, those two are really good at what they do, so we appreciate your business and we hope you know that we have true talent working for us that makes us look really good!

Night two,  again the boys and girls split up to tackle the town. Robin and Debbie went to York to hang out with them at the top of  the Banc Building; we hear they did a great job and saw some fantastic views. The boys spent some time with XL, who  put on an amazing show at the Vancouver Aquarium in Stanley Park, wow the dolphin show was really something to see. Up close and personal with some amazing creatures.

We joined back up in time to see ACE put on its annual bash, this year featuring Sugar Ray which I have to say I was not sure about this decision by ACE. I left really impressed with them and just how much fun we had singing along and kudos to Mark McGrath, he is a true lead man of a band. Thank you as always to our friends at ACE for having us.

We had dinner at an amazing restaurant called Coast, if you are in Vancouver make this one of your stops because it is tremendous and the service was impeccable. Servpro invited us to the Penthouse suite for a hospitaility suite and again the views of the city were spectacular, we appreciate them including in us in some great conversation and drinks!

We finished the show tired and exhausted but after we tore down the booth, Robin and Debbie gave big thumbs up to Granville Island, wonderful food and a market that is a must see!

So the night, our last night ended at Sedgwick Party. As always they delivered by renting out Joe Forte’s', another must go eatery. Wow, a wonderful place and everyone ended the show on a high note (it seemed like everyone that stayed for that last night attended this bash). Dancing and eating until we just could not go anymore. The dancing was done by Debbie and Robin, I with very little dancing skills decided to just sipp on wine and enjoy the night.

Once again a wonderful trip and we look forward to filling those new jobs we collected and we  already are beginning our plan for 2012 in Philadelphia!

Kevin M. Burch
President/CEO