How Smart Insurance Adjusters Are Prepping for Hurricane Season

The 2024 Atlantic hurricane season is fast approaching, and with preliminary forecasts predicting one of the most active seasons on record, there are plenty of how-to guides and checklists out there to help corporations and homeowners proactively prepare for what lies ahead in the coming months.

But risk managers and property owners aren’t the only ones in preparation mode: insurance adjusters who will spend the season responding to catastrophic events are hard at work with training and preparation right now as well.

Training is the lifeline of preparedness in the claims adjusting world. This is a unique industry; adjusters might sit idle for months or even years, but when a hurricane strikes, we’re expected to leap into action with precision and expertise.

Effective training ensures that, when the storm hits, we’re not just weathering the chaos, but steering through it with skill and resilience. Policyholders expect and deserve excellence in their time of greatest need – and that’s what independent adjusters are preparing to provide as the season draws near.

Like most other kinds of expertise, adjusting involves skills that need to be practiced to be retained. There is a massive learning curve to this profession and studies show that adjusters who don’t apply what they learn in training to real-life scenarios retain less than 30% of the skills that they have been taught.

In an ideal world, adjusters are utilizing training videos year-round to reinforce class training and keep skills sharp during the downtime. But even if they have stepped away from their training during the off months, now is the time to re-engage.

Related: 32.7M Homes at Risk of Hurricane Damage, Report Shows

Here are the top things that smart adjusters are doing right now to prepare for the season ahead:

Often described as superheroes minus the cape, great adjusters have a unique DNA. They are here to take care of folks in a real and genuine manner, but also to take care of business. The role is not just about closing claims, but also involves investing time in each customer, making sure they are ok and are in a position to get their property back to its pre-loss condition.

The more prepared that adjusters are for the season ahead, the more responsive they can be to insureds when they are needed most.

And so, as policyholders everywhere drag out the sandbags and shore up their window boards for the season ahead, adjusters everywhere are polishing up their skills and packing their field kits. Whatever lies ahead for the 2024 hurricane season, we will be ready.

Conrad is director of training at Crawford Catastrophe Services. He is responsible for developing and delivering training programs for claims adjusters. He also oversees the development of their training curriculum and the evaluation of training programs.