Paul Cameron Profile

It’s a side of loss adjusting that he’s recently moved into, having spent the previous 20 years or more working for various companies in the traditional adjusting role of representing Insurers. This included a summer stint in Dubai where the temperatures reached 54 degrees, an experience he describes as ‘terrible’. “You had to literally open the car, set the engine going and hang around for 5 minutes just to let the car cool down inside, because you couldn’t touch the steering wheel”.

Seeking a change of scene he applied for a position with a company that works for policyholders who want help with their claims, whose founder he had met earlier while working on a claim in London. He says this was a good move, and work has now improved both in quantity and quality, with his workload moving from large numbers of small cases that had to be dealt with as quickly as possible, to fewer, but often larger cases. “Obviously because you’re spending that much more time with the policyholder you can’t deal with vast volumes of work. The jobs we get are all a decent size, quality and are worth working on as the fee is reasonable at the end of the day. One reason for this is the Lorega Scheme, whereby policyholders receive cover under their policy allowing them to have a qualified loss adjuster represent them in the event of a claim over a certain limit. This leads to a lot of work on claims of at least £10,000, which is often the limit that is set. His new work is more rewarding on a personal level too. “Representing the policyholder means they want you to be there, which is a good start. As long as you get their expectations managed in the early stages and they know what we can achieve at the end of the claim then they’re happy.”

Paul feels there will always be circumstances where some policyholders are determined to fight for the unobtainable. The adjuster has to act professionally but even under such circumstances compromises can be reached. He mentions one case where his client put in a claim that was ‘well over the top’: “I had an off the record chat with the adjuster working for the Insurance company and said ‘look I’m sending this through now, you’ll not believe the fi gure’. I was upfront with him and I said I can’t justify it, and in the end a compromise was agreed. However, in general, we only put forward a claim if we are happy with the figures we’re presented with and can substantiate them”.

When I ask him about interesting claims that he’s been involved with, he gives me a good example of the kind of detailed work that he now finds himself undertaking. A minor fire in a nursing home cut off all the services, leaving 26 residents in need of immediate re-housing while the repairs were carried out. Before Paul had even reached the scene the residents had been moved to another care home nearby, and for a while this seemed to have solved the problem. The proprietor of the original nursing home would be able to claim under his business interruption policy for the cost of housing the residents temporarily in the new home, and then resume business as usual when they were moved back in after the repairs. Unfortunately things took a turn for the worse when the person running the care home where the residents were being housed temporarily attempted to charge outlandish fees for housing the residents, threatening to throw them out if his demands were not met. With the insurance company refusing to pay unreasonable fees, and the possibility that the residents would have to be moved to a different home permanently, Paul’s
policy-holder was facing financial ruin. The problem was only resolved when Paul involved the Primary Care Trust and the Social Services, and they were able to persuade the proprietor of the temporary home to water down his demands. “It’s the most challenging thing I’ve had for a long time” he says, “At the end of the day the bottom line was, if these people don’t go back to our nursing home, our policyholder is going to have a total loss as far as the business interruption side is concerned. You’re looking at £700,000 or something like that, because if they lost all the residents you can’t just get them back overnight. The reality is nursing homes are shouting out for business and it takes a long time to build up residents.”

Away from loss adjusting, Paul is and has always been a keen sports enthusiast, captaining and keeping wicket for a local cricket team in his home county of Durham. A lifelong Newcastle fan, he says that lately he has become disillusioned with football. “I’ve given up on football. Newcastle are a huge club, the potential is there, but the teams just don’t match the expectations.” He cites the increased commercialism of the game, which has driven away many of the true fans, as another reason for his loss of interest. “In football generally I’ve lost interest. I used to play when I was younger, I used to go all the time to Newcastle games – home and away before I was married – but I wouldn’t think of going nowadays.”

Rob Didcock
CILA Web Editor