Lack of cats lead to dramatic drop in demand for independent adjusters

The quiet 2006 hurricane season in the United States has lead to a plummeting demand for independent adjusters, reports A.M. Best.December’s nonfarm payroll report released by The Bureau of Labor Statistics showed a 6.9% decrease in claims adjusting jobs in the U.S., capping a 2006 fourth quarter that saw a 12.6% decline in all such positions.Experts at A.M. Best attribute the dramatic drop to the lack of catastrophic hurricanes throughout 2006, and to the fact that claims for the 2004 and 2005 hurricane seasons have, for the most part, been resolved.Mark Richardson, president of The National Association of Independent Insurance Adjusters, said that typically employment trends in the insurance industry is predictable, but the need for claims adjusters temporarily spiked dramatically after Katrina and Wilma and peaked last April.”Wilma was the last large event that created an artificial need to fill the claims adjuster ranks and we had sporadic spikes throughout 2006,” Richardson said in a statement. “As the hurricane claims ran off, so did the jobs and the ‘storm troopers’ were let go.”A.M. Best predicts that downsizing could become a larger trend. Referring to a BLS report, many insurance carriers are downsizing claims staff to contain costs and larger companies are relying more and more on call centre customer service representatives to collect details on claims.