During the past decade Insurers have employed and trained personnel to perform as loss adjusters to:

Minimise the cost of adjusting fees

Obtain tighter control of policy interpretation

Better reinstatement, replacement costs

Improve the quality of customer service

The need to improve service has been a dominant factor, linked with market forces and customer expectations have, in many cases created rises in the costs of administration.

If a company employs internal adjusters with the following average costs and performance:

Taking into account

General employment costs (hr etc.)

Support and managerial staff

Training

Office and personal equipment

Vehicle

The average adjustment costs approximately $273.00 per claim this does not take into account any extra costs incurred by overtime payments above the normal salary.

Understandably the argument for In-house adjusters is that salary costs are known and companies have complete control but to what standard and are hidden costs being ignored. Customer care and service are often misunderstood as a reason to make payments outside of policy cover. There appears in some cases a misconception that this type of approach secures customers loyalty and proves the in-house adjustment/claims process is unbiased and fair.