Following the devastating 2025 Los Angeles wildfires, claims professionals throughout the nation are as soon as once more on the media and precise frontlines of a disaster that extends far past burned constructions and blackened landscapes. The bodily harm is immense, however the emotional toll on survivors runs deeper and lasts longer than most understand. A current must-read article by John E. Putnam, printed by the Worldwide Danger Administration Institute (IRMI), Understanding the Resilience and Restoration of Wildfire Survivors, cuts to the center of this problem. Putnam gives a well timed, important name to motion for all of us within the claims trade. It’s time we absolutely acknowledge the human facet of disaster response. I’ve beforehand famous the work of John Putnam in Wildfire Devastation—What Subsequent? and Unseen Smoke and Visible Ash Risks from Wildfires.
Putnam’s newest is not only a commentary. As a substitute, it’s a blueprint for a name to motion to claims professionals and their management to totally present up when catastrophe strikes. Drawing from his intensive expertise in claims and disaster response, Putnam emphasizes the psychological trauma that policyholders endure after dropping their houses, their communities, and, in some circumstances, their sense of security and identification. Survivors are sometimes navigating a fog of grief, shock, and profound disorientation. In these early moments of loss, the insurance coverage skilled turns into greater than a handler of insurance policies. We, that means everyone within the claims restoration enterprise, turn into what Putnam calls “second responders,” tasked with not solely initiating monetary restoration but additionally, crucially, supporting emotional restoration.
The emotional and psychological influence of wildfire loss is now well-documented in each trade and tutorial literature. Analysis following main occasions such because the California Camp Fireplace, the Marshall Fireplace in Colorado, and Hurricane Katrina has constantly proven that emotional misery could be compounded by the claims course of itself—particularly when communication is poor, delays are frequent, or survivors really feel handled like a quantity relatively than an individual. My analysis discovered quite a few scholarly articles discovering that survivors with unresolved insurance coverage disputes had been extra predictive of ongoing despair and anxiousness than the preliminary catastrophe occasion. 1 One examine emerged after Hurricane Sandy, the place minority and lower-income policyholders confronted disproportionately excessive obstacles in receiving well timed and honest insurance coverage payouts. 2 The lesson is obvious and virtually predictable. How we deal with a declare can both assist individuals heal or deepen the trauma.
Putnam urges professionals at each degree of claims organizations to method wildfire survivors with compassion, readability, and consistency. Empathy will not be a delicate ability on this context. It’s a essential element of efficient claims dealing with. Survivors must be heard and understood, not rushed via impersonal checklists or slowed down in complicated coverage jargon. Offering certainty and emotional steadiness within the early phases of a declare can assist survivors start to course of their grief and regain a way of management. These aren’t simply theoretical beliefs. As a substitute, they’re actionable rules that may make an actual distinction in somebody’s restoration timeline.
In simple language about what claims management ought to do, Putnam states:
Incorporate extra psychological coaching into their coaching to higher navigate and talk with clients when catastrophic occasions strike.
Evaluate present claims dealing with procedures to find out whether or not they make sense for large-scale declare occasions and search to simplify them as a lot as doable.
Consider the organizational construction of declare responses. Get the declare handlers as near the survivors as doable and allow them to know who’s doing what, when, and the place to contact them. Begin by setting requirements for responding to buyer inquiries.
Take into account adopting extra group approaches to adjusting claims. Within the wildfire recoveries I witnessed, this observe was by no means initiated by the insurance coverage firms however by the survivors themselves. Primarily based on my observations, such group endeavors can help in leveraging a speedier restoration and higher declare outcomes.
Take into account re-engaging and coaching front-line brokers within the restoration course of and incentivizing this help past their customary fee.
Undertake a extra rigorous after-action overview of every catastrophic occasion, together with firm personnel and clients, to determine what labored and what enchancment alternatives needs to be included into future occasions. The purpose needs to be to make steady enhancements, recognizing that the training curve continues to be steep.
After all, none of this may occur until claims administration anticipates and correctly manages the workload. Insurance coverage firms ought to anticipate surge calls for after catastrophes and have surge staffing or mutual assist agreements to deal with claims quantity. Extreme delays in inspections or payouts typically stem from adjuster overload. Policyholders mustn’t have a number of adjusters on the file requiring them to relive the loss by explaining what occurred a number of occasions to new adjusters reassigned to deal with the declare. By correct planning (pre-certifying and coaching sufficient unbiased adjusters, utilizing know-how for quicker estimates, and so forth.), insurers can forestall backlogs and substitutions that depart survivors in limbo and pissed off.
In Los Angeles, the place complete neighborhoods have been lowered to ash, and hundreds are actually displaced, these classes couldn’t be extra pressing. Each desk adjuster, discipline examiner, supervisor, public adjuster, legal professional, and government chief within the claims area has a job to play. Whether or not you’re directing a disaster response group, dealing with first discover of loss, or managing policyholder communications, your affect extends into the emotional well-being of the individuals you serve. How we prepare our groups, how we design our workflows, and the way we set expectations internally should all mirror an understanding of trauma-informed restoration.
Putnam’s article needs to be required studying throughout the trade—not only for its knowledge, however for its humanity. It reminds us that claims professionals, whereas typically shielded behind techniques and procedures, are able to deeply impacting lives in probably the most significant means. We can assist rebuild greater than houses. We can assist rebuild hope.
Because the Los Angeles area begins what will likely be a protracted highway to restoration, allow us to not lose sight of the human component in each declare. The survivors we serve aren’t simply searching for reimbursement—they’re searching for somebody to fulfill them with compassion of their darkest hour. If we will do this and take to coronary heart the sort of empathetic, proactive method that Putnam describes, then we aren’t simply doing our jobs, however are doing one thing really restorative for policyholders who’re struggling extra than simply monetary grief. Let that be the usual we set shifting ahead.
I’ll share extra findings and will likely be talking about this essential subject on the Spring 2025 Rocky Mountain Affiliation of Public Insurance coverage Adjusters (RMAPIA) Convention on Might 8-9 in Westminster, Colorado. Here’s a hyperlink for that registration.
Thought For The Day
“It’s not sufficient to be compassionate—you will need to act.”
— Dalai Lama
1 John W. McKenzie, et al., Insurance coverage Points as Secondary Stressors Following Flooding in Rural Australia—A Combined Strategies Research, Int J Environ Res Public Well being, 2022 Might 24;19(11).
2 Brooks, S.Okay., Rogers, M.B., Wessely, S. et al., Psychosocial impacts of post-disaster compensation processes: narrative systematic overview, BMC Psychol 12, 539 (2024), citing Proof-Pushed Method for Assessing Social Vulnerability and Equality Throughout Excessive Climatic Occasions, Barankin Ram A., Portman Michelle E., et al., Frontiers in Water, Vol 2 (2020).
