Careers in loss adjusting

Life as a business interruption (BI) adjuster is interesting and varied, despite not being something that many people would even have heard of let alone consider for their future career.

Much like other loss adjusting roles, the thrust of the job is to resolve insurance claims, primarily business interruption but also other financial risk claims, in accordance with a policy wording. The role offers opportunities to work with a wide range of businesses across the whole gamut of industry sectors. There isn't really a typical day, but a business interruption adjuster’s day might involve, any or a combination of the following:

• attending a meeting with a policyholder following an incident, in order to understand their business and the effect of the incident upon future business performance
• interpreting financial and other data, to determine the performance of a business both before and after an incident
• advising on strategies to minimise the financial impact of an incident
• keeping other members of the adjusting/insurance company team appraised of developments and ensuring key milestones are hit or improved upon
• advising on policy coverage as it applies to an incident, quantifying financial losses and setting of reserves for an insurance company
• negotiating final settlement of a claim
• commenting on and assisting in how to structure insurance cover even before a loss occurs
• providing expert witness opinions/evidence to clients, lawyers or even a Court

In your duties as a BI adjuster, you will routinely liaise with policyholders, brokers, lawyers, and other specialists.

Minimising the financial impact of an incident may require actions such a change of working hours or practices, relocating or even the use of insurance funds to acquire a rival. Influencing these actions, monitoring and justifying them is a key component of the role.

Because of the need to understand and be comfortable with financial data, many BI adjusters come into the adjusting profession as qualified accountants and then train as Chartered Loss Adjusters. Alternatively, some BI adjusters qualify as Chartered Loss Adjusters first and then specialise in BI due to their natural interest in commercial matters.

Typically, a BI adjuster will start on smaller commercial claims and work up to more technically challenging and/or larger cases. Individual loss adjusting firms will have their own views on how to develop their BI specialists, but almost certainly, the end result will be a rounded commercially aware claims professional.