In a lot of my speeches this 12 months, I’ve invited viewers participation and heard from many former insurance coverage firm adjusters and unbiased adjusters about their coaching applications. I’ve notably requested concerning the role-playing workout routines designed to simulate real-world declare disputes. These workout routines, meant to arrange property insurance coverage adjusters for the pressures of negotiation, too typically depict public adjusters and roofers as grasping, overbearing, and untrustworthy. Public adjusters, roofers, and mitigation contractors are mocked, caricatured, and portrayed as enemies to be outsmarted fairly than professionals to be handled civilly and respect.
That will sound like innocent “toughening up,” nevertheless it’s not. It’s a cultural cue. And it may well have lasting penalties for the way adjusters method actual folks in actual claims.
The Dangerous: Reinforcing Adversarial Bias and Institutionalized Mistrust
When role-playing constantly depicts public adjusters and roofers as “the enemy,” it does greater than educate negotiation techniques. This sort of role-playing situations insurance coverage firm adjusters’ worldview. As a substitute of approaching each declare as a seek for the reality and a good consequence, the adjuster learns to see the opposite aspect as manipulative and dishonest from the beginning.
This mindset can corrode the precept and obligation of good religion claims dealing with. Claims professionals are imagined to act as fiduciaries of equity, balancing the insurer’s obligation to its policyholders with the contractual rights of the corporate. However bias-based coaching replaces professionalism with tribalism. It undermines what The Claims Setting itself stresses, that declare representatives ought to deal with all events, together with public adjusters, with skilled courtesy, respect, and evenhanded communication:
After all, declare representatives cope with folks aside from the insureds and claimants. Attorneys might act adversarial, however they needn’t be considered enemies. The principles {of professional} courtesy all the time apply to a declare consultant’s communications with authorized counsel.
Public adjusters are representatives of the insureds. The identical guidelines regarding courtesy to the insured apply in coping with public adjusters. The declare consultant who assumes that each one public adjusters are adversaries will solely make the declare course of tougher than it want be.
Contractors and distributors ought to be handled pretty and respectfully. The declare consultant will most likely cope with contractors and distributors on greater than only one declare. The courteous dealing with of a declare will pave the best way for cooperation and good relations in lots of future claims.
These phrases, written by James J. Markham, Kevin M. Quinley, and Layton S. Thompson in The Claims Setting (1993), are timeless and maybe even extra related in the present day. They remind us that courtesy and equity aren’t simply smooth abilities. As a substitute, they’re moral obligations rooted in declare professionalism. When insurers ignore that, and as an alternative educate adjusters to ridicule or mistrust these on the opposite aspect, they erode not solely public confidence but additionally the ethical basis of the trade itself.
Psychologically, as soon as adjusters are repeatedly skilled to count on deceit, they start to see it in every single place. This results in affirmation bias, the place each discrepancy turns into proof of dishonesty, and each disagreement turns into “proof” of greed. The result’s that official advocates for policyholders, who play an important position in balancing the asymmetry of data and sources, are dismissed and even punished by way of lowballing, delay techniques, or defensive posturing.
This coaching additionally exposes insurers to regulatory and authorized threat. Company tradition is commonly mirrored in inner communications and coaching supplies. These inner communications reveal the insurance coverage firm’s true intent. If these communications present that firm adjusters have been being skilled to deal with public adjusters as liars and roofers as opportunists, it turns into exhausting to argue that the corporate fostered a good-faith claims surroundings.
I’ve beforehand mentioned this in Claims Adjusters Are Brainwashed: Public Adjusters Are To not Be Trusted, and Insurance coverage Firm Adjuster Coaching Scripts and Function Taking part in.
The Attainable Good: Managed, Contextual Function-Taking part in
That mentioned—and to be honest and balanced—role-playing itself is just not the issue. As a substitute, it’s the way it’s framed and what classes are drawn from the role-playing.
Used correctly, role-playing is usually a highly effective coaching device to arrange firm adjusters for the fact that some actors within the discipline, on all sides, might behave badly. There are dishonest contractors, unscrupulous public adjusters, and unprofessional attorneys, simply as there are unethical firm adjusters. Pretending in any other case is naïve.
The bottom line is whether or not the train is designed to construct professionalism or to reinforce prejudice. Moral role-playing would:
- Current a number of eventualities, together with cooperative, moral, and unethical public adjusters or roofers.
- Give attention to skilled response, not character judgment. For instance, a query could possibly be posed about “How do you retain the dialogue fact-based, document-driven, and courteous?”
- Emphasize de-escalation and problem-solving, not “profitable” the argument.
- Anchor the train in actual coverage language and claims requirements, displaying that honest outcomes come from process and precept, not character.
In that gentle, property insurance coverage adjusters be taught emotional management, empathy, and talent fairly than cynicism and a poor perspective. That sort of coaching aligns completely with what Markham, Quinley, and Thompson wrote in The Claims Setting: skilled courtesy ought to by no means be deserted, even when coping with attorneys, public adjusters, contractors, or perceived adversaries.
The Ethical Take a look at of a Claims Tradition
The deeper implication is that these role-playing periods reveal an organization’s claims tradition. If the tone is mocking or derisive, it tells you all the pieces about how the group actually sees the claims perform as a cost-containment weapon fairly than a promise-fulfillment mechanism.
However when role-playing is used to develop maturity, professionalism, and talent beneath strain, it displays a company that also understands that the center of insurance coverage is belief.
In brief, badvert coaching and improper position enjoying educate adjusters who to mistrust. Good role-playing teaches adjusters tips on how to keep reliable even when others aren’t.
Immediately’s weblog originated from my current podcast interview with insurance coverage educator Christopher Boggs, famous in Has the Insurance coverage Business Forgotten the Which means of Its Personal Insurance policies, and a assessment of quite a lot of my speeches throughout 2025. Boggs prompt that many within the insurance coverage trade must double down on coaching as a result of it’s crucial for the insurance coverage product to perform correctly. I agree.
On the similar time, in reflection, I could have been too harsh in my criticism of the role-playing elements present in coaching. Property insurance coverage adjusters and all of us must discover ways to cope with all forms of folks. As I said on this put up, it might be naive to suppose that everyone goes to play by the foundations of excellent religion or act professionally.
Thought for the Day
“Prejudice, not reality, is the mom of ignorance.”
—William Hazlitt