Tips to Get the Most from Your Workers' Comp Adjuster

Hey there, Michael Stack here with Amaxx. So Happy Mother’s Day to all the mothers that are out there. Hopefully you had a lovely celebration over this past weekend celebrating Mother’s Day. We certainly did for my wife, the mother of my four children. We did coffee and pancakes in bed and taken out to a really nice lunch. We had a really lovely day, and hopefully it was the same for you or your mother as well.

But it got me thinking about this sort of this day of demonstration of gratitude for mothers and how really for the amount of work that they do, one day is just not enough. It pales in comparison to demonstrating that gratitude. It needs to be delivered on a regular basis.

Gratitude for Your Workers’ Comp Adjuster

And it got me thinking about this other group, sort of this other role within the work comp industry that’s the same way that doesn’t get even a day at all, and that’s your adjusters. For the amount of work that your adjusters do on a day in, day out basis, the importance of their role within the work comp industry, the amount of gratitude that they get is very, very low. There are no pancakes delivered to them in bed, there’s no taking them out to lunch to have a lovely day.

So two things I want to talk about and focus on getting the most out of these adjuster relationships in today’s video. First one is demonstrating gratitude. How to demonstrate gratitude and the second thing is about how to set these up. How to set up these adjuster relationships.

So very simple, when I talk about gratitude you’re asking your adjuster for a thousand different things every day. Send me this form, send me this recorded statement, I need this, I need this, did you do the investigation, did you the three-point contact, what was this, blah, blah, blah, and it’s coming out in rapid fire all day long via phone, email and now often times text messages. So all these different places that they’re getting demands to respond to regularly.

Say Please & Thank You

Say please, say thank you to your adjuster. May I please have that investigation report? Can you please send me that witness statement? Whatever it is that you’re asking your adjuster, and when they send it to you, say thank you. Say thank you. This is a lost art within our world today. Don’t just apply this to adjusters, apply it to your regular daily life.

We have gotten to be so bold in the way that we interact with people that this has been forgotten. Very simple, very necessary, and it’s going to demonstrate a little bit more of that gratitude for your adjusters. And oh, by the way, maybe take them to lunch every once in a while too. They always like that.

Second thing is I want to talk about your set up within your account handling instructions. So when you set this up when you’re with your TPA when you’re with your carrier, if you’ve been with them for a long time it’s worth revisiting definitely at least on an annual basis. But a lot of time we like to talk about your account instructions as a living document, something that you can alter or change as necessary throughout the course of your claims handling relationship.

Set-Up In Workers’ Comp Account Handling Instructions

So let’s talk about the set up. Couple of things that I want you to look for in your account instructions when you’re initially setting it up or if you’ve been with them for a while to potentially modify.

Dedicated vs Designated Adjuster

So you can have a dedicated versus a designated adjuster. Now this is about how to set this up as far as who is serving you and what it costs. So who is serving you and what it costs. So dedicated versus designated, I want you to look at their case loads and I want you to look at their experience.

So what type of adjuster, who is that individual who is going to be assigned to your case? Again, in your instructions as you’re setting this up or as you’re potentially modifying it on an annual basis.

A dedicated adjuster is one that only works directly for you. So you work with Jane Smith, Jane’s your go to girl. She’s there handling all of your cases, or Jane and John if you’ve got more than one. Designated means that Jane or John works only for you, but they also work for XYZ Company as well.

You can develop a relationship. We talk about having your adjuster so much as being this key part of your team, demonstrating them gratitude, bringing them along, really having them as a main cog in your wheel. Setting up these relationships is a great way to do this. You could spend more money on a designated or dedicated adjuster. It’s going to cost you more out of the gates, but it can save you a huge amount.

Adjuster Case Loads

Same thing as we’re looking at these case loads. So adjusters with lower case loads do a better job. Adjusters with lower case loads do a better job. You don’t need a lot of research to figure that one out. It’s just common sense. If you’re handling 50 cases versus 500 cases, you’re going to do a better job on the 50 then you are going to do trying to handle the 500.

So one little quick tip here, this is something that you can define within your instructions. Also, do they have an admin support? So does your adjuster have administrative support? They can have a higher case load and do an equally good of a job if they have an admin support helping them to process a lot of that paperwork.

So something to think about and look at and ask your carrier, ask your TPA if this is an option and then look at those outcomes of how you can really best set that up.

Adjuster Experience Level

Then your experience level, do they have five years, do they have ten plus years of experience? You can negotiate this in your contract. You can negotiate I want my adjusters to have ten years plus experience, or I want them to have ten years plus experiences on these certain types of cases, the lost time cases, the catastrophic cases, whatever it is. You can define that.

Another thing you might want to do is if you look at this and they say, “Sure we can that but it’s going to cost you action.” You kind of choke up on that amount. You could say, “We want a mix step. We want ten years plus experience to be working with some of the newbie adjusters on those medical only files so that they have that supervision, they can deliver those outcomes.”

So all different things to look at and think about as you’re setting up these adjuster relationships. Once you do, then show them that gratitude. Bring them that coffee in bed. Take them to lunch. Show them that gratitude for the work that they’re doing. When you do, they’re going to deliver much better outcomes.

Again, my name is Michael Stack. I’m the CEO of Amaxx, and remember your work today in worker’s compensation can have a dramatic impact on your company’s bottom line. But it will have a dramatic impact on someone’s life.

So be great.

Author Michael Stack, CEO Amaxx LLC. He is an expert in workers’ compensation cost containment systems and helps employers reduce their workers’ comp costs by 20% to 50%. He works as a consultant to large and mid-market clients, is a co-author of Your Ultimate Guide To Mastering Workers Comp Costs, a comprehensive step-by-step manual of cost containment strategies based on hands-on field experience, and is founder & lead trainer of Amaxx Workers’ Comp Training Center.

Contact: [email protected].

Workers’ Comp Roundup Blog: https://blog.reduceyourworkerscomp.com/

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