Knowledge is leverage. The more you know, the more you have adjusting power. The real trick in adjusting is to get a good result as quickly as possible, with as little trouble as possible. It is the continued fate of unknowing, unprepared policyholders to deal ineffectively. Their lack of ability, I am sure, is due in part to attitude. However, lack of information and understanding are the real culprits. It is difficult to imagine doing something in an area of which you know little or nothing, no matter how simple the task. This scenario has repeated itself down through the ages. So long as a man imagines that he cannot do this or that, so long is he determined not to do it; and consequently so long is it impossible to him that he should do it. –BENEDICT SPINOZA
To adjust is to negotiate. An adjuster is a negotiator. Think about that for a moment. This simple fact seems the most difficult for policyholders to realize. The dictionary defines the word adjust: To settle or bring to a satisfactory state, so parties are agreed in the result: to adjust our differences; to bring to agreement, to determine the amount to be paid, as in settling an insurance claim.
Many people think only the person representing the insurance company is considered an adjuster. And historically, the policyholder has been considered–for lack of a better word–the adjustee, or the one receiving the adjustment. If you can't imagine yourself as an adjuster, it is probably because of the word itself. When adjusting is foreign to your background, education and experience, it only follows that you would have difficulty assuming that role. See full article.
