The Deployables: How to Become an Indispensable Adjuster

On Highway 81, somewhere near Woodstock, Virginia, I was headed home. It was late but my journey from Philadelphia and a hundred or so damned denials due to ice damming to my home in Grand Prairie, Texas had only just begun. To my left lay the Shenandoah Valley and to my right rose the Monongahela Forest and the Appalachians. Above, the sky was cloudless and the stars brilliant. My headlights cut the darkness before me into cones.

My mood was captured in the next song on my playlist. It was John Denver.

Take me home, country roads…To the place I belong, West Virginia, Mountain Momma…Take me home, country roads

I was close enough to West Virginia to see her evergreen and mysterious mountain beauty, but still a long, long way from home. I did a little cry-singing as I hit repeat on the song at least three times. I was headed home.

A storm is a strange experience.

When you are in the middle of it, working 14 to 18-hour days, seven days a week, living out of a suitcase, sleeping in your truck or some hotel-in-name-only where the bed makes the floor look tempting, eating baloney sandwiches and cookies made especially for you by Keebler Elves in a treehouse factory, it feels like this is how the world works.

You are in the fog of war. Emails are flying. Nerves are fraying. Spam is frying on the extended-stay stovetop. Mandatory calls disrupt your day. The written rules of engagement, which you have committed to memory, are rewritten on the fly. New day, new directive. Good luck!

Why do you think they call us adjusters? That’s what we do. We adjust. And then we adjust again.

But then you get the call or the email that says your work here is done. Pack up and go home. And in that instant, the world changes from the frantic haze of deployment to the comparative peaceful existence outside the storm. The clenched fist and jaw relax. The stress subsides like the receding tide after the hurricane’s surge. You may hear a bird sing or notice a tree that has not fallen on a house. You may navigate roads not littered with debris or blocked from passage. The sky may be a brilliant blue and if there is a cloud, it is fluffy and harmless.

This is the strangeness of the storm: when you are in it, it is like this is how the world has always been, and when it is over, it is as if it never happened—except for the added zeroes to your bank account and the possible subpoena for deposition or lingering questions by supplement claims adjusters.

From this and other storms, I have ridden like a cowboy for the sunset in one pickup truck or another, a ladder, a laptop, and a suitcase in tow, headed home, taking with me the scars of battle, the stories of loss and life, and the lessons learned.

But let me back up…

I spent the 4 ½ years before I became an adjuster as a middle school teacher, which is to say I vacillated between warden of an insane asylum, referee of a WWE cage match, grief counselor, and educator. Like most teachers, I supplemented my income. I worked part-time as an insurance underwriting inspector. I was not an adjuster—but, without knowing it at the time, I was training for what would come next.

Back then, I bought this big spiral-bound thing called Mapsco. It was the latest technology and the most comprehensive mapping tool you could find. I remember what a satisfying feeling it was each year, when the new version was released, to grab the latest edition of Mapsco.

Katrina hit, and I became an unlikely adjuster. That is when I was introduced to the miracle of Microsoft Streets and Trips! My navigational world was rocked! In New Orleans, it didn’t matter to me if the street sign was there or not. I had Streets to tell me where I was.

Not only that, I had a cell phone. It wasn’t smart but neither was I. To a guy who grew up making prank calls on rotary phones, this was a big deal. I remember when Dad had a phone installed on the kitchen wall near the fridge with an extra-long cord, so Mom could make dinner and walk anywhere she wanted in the kitchen or even to the living room and talk on the phone. Untangling the cord was great fun for a kid, too. I entered the claims business untethered,  cordless, and ready to roam wherever Microsoft Streets might lead. But watch out for those roaming charges, of course.

I have been in this business for 20 years and counting now, and I can tell you, all it has done is change—and stay the same.

The winds of change have blown steadily across the bow of the adjuster ship.

In Texas, we have a saying: “If you don’t like the weather, just wait a minute.” You could say the same about the rules and the rules of engagement for the adjuster. They change with the wind. I have seen protocols and directives change a half-dozen times on a single storm.

“It’s this way. Do it this way!”

The next day: “Disregard the former directive!”

If you are easily annoyed or put off your game by change, you are probably in the wrong seat today. Change is a constant in the claims business…

And you ain’t seen nothing yet!

The changes coming now are happening at breakneck speed. Artificial Intelligence is here and it brings with it changes we might be able to anticipate and some we won’t see coming.

Let’s consider some facts about the current speed of change:

1. The Speed of Technological Adoption

Let’s compare how long it took past technologies to reach 100 million users versus the tools hitting the claims floor today.

• Telephone : 75 years
• Mobile Phone: 16 years
• Instagram: 2.5 years
• ChatGPT: 2 months

The window to learn a new system has shrunk from years to weeks. The “Deployable” adjuster is the one who can do like a United States Marine: “Adapt and overcome” in the fog of war and at breakneck speed.

2. Exponential Data Growth

The “rules of engagement” are changing because the data available to insurance companies is exploding.

• The Fact: According to IBM and various data science studies, roughly 90% of the data in the world today has been created in the last two years alone.
• The Application: For an adjuster, this means moving from just “looking at a roof” to managing drone imagery, satellite data, 3D floor plan scans, and AI-assisted estimating.

3. AI Impact on Claims Processing

I mentioned AI bringing changes we can’t see coming. Here is a statistic that highlights the shift from “human-only” to “human-augmented” adjusting:

• The Shift: A report by LexisNexis Risk Solutions found that over 70% of insurers are now using or testing AI for claims processing.
• The “Stay the Same” Reality: While AI can process a photo of a dented fender in seconds, it cannot navigate a frustrated policyholder through the trauma of a house fire. You still matter but only if you can balance technology and empathetic humanity.

4. The “Half-Life” of Skills

In the 20 years I’ve been in the business, the “shelf life” of a technical skill has plummeted.

The half-life of a learned skill is the period of time it takes for half of the information or value in a specific skill set to become obsolete or superseded by new developments.

• The Data: The World Economic Forum suggests that the half-life of a learned skill is now about five years.
• The Message: If you stopped learning five years ago, 50% of what you know about the tools of the trade is likely obsolete. If you’re put off by change, you’re in the wrong seat.

AI Agentics is here. The adjuster will have to navigate working with human and AI “colleagues.”

The very things that will make us more efficient will also make us more accountable. The likelihood of a weak estimate flying through unmolested, even in the chaos of a hurricane, will plummet. Precision in chaos will become the standard, and which of us will be the standard bearers?

What will never change: the essentials of being indispensable.

At Adjust U, I tell aspiring students all the time, “If you have it in you, we will get it out of you. But if you don’t have it in you, we cannot put it there.”

This is my way of introducing the IT factor. For years, it has been used in sports. An athlete may have superior skills or maybe they are only slightly above average, but if they have the IT factor, look out.

Michael Jordan—his IT was competitive will. No one competed more furiously. Tom Brady—Unshakable composure. That Super Bowl comeback against the Falcons. Just watch it and let it speak for itself. Tiger Woods—Mental Intimidation. He had the eye of the Tiger. He had an aura.

Thankfully, you don’t have to be a superstar to make your mark as a claims adjuster and work your way into the indispensable category. You just have to have IT!

So, what is IT?

Unassailable Character

That is, Integrity. Do right because it is right. Don’t measure your behavior by likely outcomes or who’s watching or what it might gain or cost. Do right and let the chips fall. I promise they will ultimately fall in your favor.

“Intelligence plus character—that is the goal of true education.”

Martin Luther King Jr. wrote this in the “The Purpose of Education,” a 1947 article for Morehouse College’s student newspaper.

Knowledge

Knowledge is power. Ignorance is vulnerability. When you know that you know what you are talking about, you will exude confidence.

Understanding

My three-year-old grandson “knows” that two plus two is four because his mom told him so. He doesn’t understand what he knows yet. He can’t break it down for you.

My father used to say, “I don’t understand everything I know about that.”

I don’t either, Dad, but I won’t stop until I do.

Wisdom

• Knowledge is having the right information. For the adjuster, for example, knowing the policy.
• Understanding is the ability to explain and defend what you know. For the adjuster, knowing why the policy says what it does.
• Wisdom is knowing when to speak, how to speak, and when to shut up. A know-it-all without wisdom is an annoyance and is bound for interpersonal disaster. No one likes a know-it-all—unless that know-it-all is humble and wise. (Note: AI has tons of knowledge, but wisdom is still a human thing.)

On a warm summer’s evenin’
on a train bound for nowhere
I met up with the gambler,
we were both too tired to sleep
So we took turns a starin’
out the window at the darkness
‘Til boredom overtook us and he began to speak
He said, “Son, I’ve made a life,
out of readin’ people’s faces
And knowin’ what their cards were
by the way they held their eyes
So if you don’t mind my sayin’,
I can see you’re out of aces For a taste of your whiskey
I’ll give you some advice”

You got to know when to hold ’em,
know when to fold ’em
Know when to walk away
and know when to run
You never count your money
when you’re sittin’ at the table
There’ll be time enough for countin’
when the dealing’s done
–Kenny Rogers, The Gambler

In this business, the cards are always changing. AI is dealing, the rules are shifting, and another storm is always coming. But if you have IT—the character, the knowledge, the understanding, and the wisdom—you’ll never have to worry about the hand you’re dealt. You’ll be the one they call first. You’ll be the one they can’t do without. You will be Indispensable. Now, let’s get to work.