What Is The Job Of An Auto Insurance Field Adjuster?
The job of an auto insurance field adjuster varies from day to day. This job is a perfect choice for someone who wants to review evidence and make tough decisions. It’s a complex job that is made up of many parts.
The first is speaking to people who have auto insurance with the company that employs the adjuster to determine coverage. The adjuster wants to find out the story of a car accident from each person involved. The adjuster then will check with the police report for a more official version based on what the police offers who responded to scene saw and believed happened. The purpose of a police report is simply to determine who violated a traffic law and seems to have caused a crash. A field adjuster may find that both people held some responsibility for a crash, for instance, while the police typically fault one person or the other. Perhaps no one was speeding, but the field adjuster determines that speed still could have been a factor, or that not braking soon enough was a factor. The police report will include information, such as the length of any skid marks on the road, that will help the auto insurance company’s representatives determine the actual fault.
Field adjusters don’t just sit in their offices looking at reports, however. They go out ‘into the field’ to check out the site of the accident. Field workers will go through each version of the accident and recreate the events. Then they will look at the scene and determine which story seems the most plausible. This part of the job requires specific training to help the adjuster understand crime scene re-enactment. The adjuster needs to understand what happens to cars when they are hit from certain angles and how specific factors may affect the accident. This part of the job requires confidence in one’s judgment.
The final part of the auto insurance field adjuster’s job is to look at the cars involved in the crash. The representative needs to determine if the insurance company will reimburse the insured party for a portion of the car, or if they will total the vehicle and send a check for the value to the policyholder. The adjuster also may decide to go after the other party’s insurance company, and in this case, a good estimate of damage is required as well. Good adjusters will know how much various cars are worth and how to determine whether the cost of repairing the car is worth more than the value of the car itself. All of these factors matter when determining the ruling of an auto insurance company.
