And What your senior staff could be doing instead
Training a new claims adjuster is an investment. There is the obvious cost: wages, benefits, technology, training materials and the time it takes for a new employee to become productive. But there is another cost that can be harder to see on a budget report: the time your experienced employees spend training new hires.
In-house training is an important part of building organizational knowledge, culture and consistency. Experienced adjusters and managers have insights that cannot be replicated in a textbook or online course. They understand how your organization handles claims, communicates with policyholders, uses its systems and applies its processes.
That knowledge absolutely should be shared. The real question is whether your most experienced employees need to spend their time teaching foundational licensing coursework or if by partnering with an accredited education provider everyone benefits.
For insurance organizations hiring multiple adjusters, separating those two responsibilities can create a more efficient approach to onboarding: let an accredited education partner handle standardized licensing education while internal experts focus on the knowledge that makes your organization unique.
The Real Cost of Internal Adjuster Training
Consider what happens when a new adjuster joins your organization.
A senior adjuster or supervisor may spend time explaining insurance terminology, reviewing coverage concepts, walking through different types of policies, discussing claims fundamentals and preparing the employee for licensing requirements.
Most likely the new employee has questions and will need clarification. A trainer reviews an assignment. A supervisor observes progress. Someone checks whether required training is complete. Another employee may need to step in when the primary trainer is unavailable.
Every one of these activities are valuable components of a strong onboarding program, but each one also comes at an opportunity cost. Every hour an experienced claims professional spends delivering foundational training is an hour that person isn’t spending on claims, coaching their existing team, handling complex files, improving processes, supporting customers or addressing the issues that require their expertise.
The more employees an organization hires, the more significant that opportunity cost can become.
What Could Your Senior Staff Be Doing Instead?
Your best trainers are often your best trainers for a reason. They have years or decades of practical experience. They understand complicated claims. They know your systems and processes. They can identify problems before they become larger issues. They understand your organization’s culture and expectations.
Those skills are especially valuable when they’re applied to the parts of onboarding that can’t be outsourced. Instead of spending hours covering foundational insurance concepts, your senior staff can focus their onboarding time on areas such as:
• Your organization’s claims philosophy and service expectations
• Internal systems and workflows
• Organization-specific procedures
• Escalation processes
• Complex or unusual claims scenarios
• Customer communication expectations
• Team collaboration and culture
• Quality standards and performance expectations
• Real-world examples drawn from your organization’s experience
This distinction can make a big difference for everyone involved.
An online licensing course cannot teach a new employee everything about working for your organization. Your internal team shouldn’t try to recreate the entire licensing curriculum either of an accredited education provider.
The two approaches should work together to enhance the other. Ultimately, Standardized Education + Institutional Knowledge = Better trained employees.
An accredited course provides a structured foundation for the knowledge required for licensing. Your internal team then builds on that foundation with the knowledge that is specific to your organization.
For example, ESC’s Florida-approved 6-20 Accredited Claims Adjuster course provides 40 hours of online, self-paced education covering insurance terminology and concepts, auto insurance, residential and commercial property insurance, commercial general liability, ethics, negotiation and communication skills.
The course provides a new employee a standardized educational foundation before your internal subject-matter experts focus on how those concepts translate into your organization’s day-to-day work.
The result is more intentional training and the protection of institutional knowledge.
When senior employees are responsible for teaching everything from basic insurance concepts to highly specialized organizational processes, their time and knowledge can become stretched across too many responsibilities.
A standardized licensing course handles the foundational material consistently, giving the time necessary for experienced employees to share the knowledge that exists only within your organization.
That might include the way your company approaches a difficult claim, how a particular customer situation is handled, why a process exists or what a new employee should know that isn’t found in a training manual.
Those conversations are where institutional knowledge becomes organizational knowledge.
What Does Time-To-Productivity Really Look Like?
Getting an employee licensed is only one milestone in onboarding. The larger goal is to help that employee become productive and confident in the role. When licensing education, company-specific training and job responsibilities are all competing for the same onboarding hours, it can be difficult for an employee to determine where they should spend their time.
Self-paced licensing education can help separate those activities.
With ESC’s online Accredited Claims Adjuster course, employees can begin their licensing education as part of the onboarding process and complete the coursework around their schedules. Because the course is online and self-paced, organizations don’t have to wait for a particular classroom session before getting employees started.
For eligible students who successfully complete the approved course and pass ESC’s final exam, the additional state licensing examination is not required before proceeding to the Florida licensing process.
The exact onboarding sequence will vary by organization, but separating foundational licensing education from internal training can give employers greater flexibility in how they structure the experience.
Learn More During ESC's November Webinar
Want to take a closer look at the time and resource implications of training new adjusters in-house? Join ESC for our next webinar on November 17th at 12:30pm where we will present “Give Your Trainers Their Time Back: The Case for Outsourcing Adjuster Onboarding”.
The session will explore how much staff time can go into training a new adjuster, what experienced trainers could focus on instead, how accredited coursework can complement institutional knowledge, and how organizations can offload licensing education without giving up quality control.
Click here to register for our November 17th webinar. Join us to explore a more strategic approach to adjuster onboarding.