December 20, 2016

Carrier Adjuster Licensing Best Practices – Pt.4:
Emergency Licensing and CAT Losses

By: Jay Davis

With this year's destruction caused by Hurricane Matthew, many of you may have recently experienced the strenuous processes associated with emergency licensing for catastrophic (CAT) losses. For those that aren't familiar, here is a quick rundown.

We're all aware of the severe damage that a natural disaster can cause. As an adjuster is concerned, they must manage claims for the several families and individuals that were affected. It is imperative that insurance companies attend to these families as quickly as possible because in some cases, many are without homes. But unfortunately, there are simply not enough licensed adjusters to do so. That's where emergency adjuster licensing comes in.

Insurance companies must quickly license adjusters in order to have them manage claims in the states that were affected. And as you are already aware from our previous posts of the complexities of licensing, it's especially difficult when thousands needed to be licensed right then and there.

How does emergency licensing work?

Depending on the state, emergency licensing is different (of course.) Fortunately, it isn't as complicated as other actions such as DHS licensing, because pre-licensing is not required. If the adjuster is already licensed in another state, then the carrier simply has to prove that they've provided training to handle the specific type of claim that they're managing. In many cases, carriers can handle much of this licensing electronic on individual state websites.

Due to the nature of emergency licensing, states main concern is to help the consumers, so they typically approve a majority of the adjuster applicants as quickly as possible.

Because of this, the risk comes several months later when the state reviews those requests as it is not uncommon for a state to find that an adjuster shouldn't have been licensed. In this case, your business may then receive an inquiry of your list of approved adjusters.

So if you were panicking before, you may not be in the clear simply because your requests were approved.

How do carriers do it?

In most cases, licensing for CAT losses is a lot of work in a short amount of time. Carriers must call on their licensing department as soon as disaster strikes. A lot of people are needed to be able to coordinate in a timely manner. Although educating yourself on adjuster licensing is a good first step in understanding the process, learning efficiencies to avoid any mistakes is the hard part. Sometimes, many carriers will need to bring in more people in addition to their licensing team to assist–this is where mistakes could really happen.

It's like an insurance policy for insurance carriers

When disaster strikes and you need to deploy adjusters to a specific region or territory, you need a piece of mind that your organization isn't going to crumble. Insurance is bought for a piece of mind, and when something happens, you want to be ready for your customers because they expect it. No matter how much knowledge an individual at your or organization may have, it takes a full team of experts to ensure that it is done properly.

At Sircon, we understand the importance of responding quickly and efficiently. That's why our Sircon Licensing and Registration experts provide that piece of mind for our customers by offering our services on standby for CAT losses. This team brings expertise and scalability to respond quickly and get adjusters licensed to service your customers. As an extension of your claims function, our LRS team provides 24/7 support to customers who opt in to this service and are only charged at the time of use. As we said before, you don't want to risk a state contacting you months after an event with inquiries about your adjusters.

Click here to learn more about our Adjuster License Management services NOW before a catastrophe hits.

---