Income Protection For Loss Adjusters

This is the thing that makes cover sizing different for adjusters than for most professionals.

A major storm, freeze or flood generates an enormous volume of claims at once, and the industry handles it by drafting in capacity and working long days. For self-employed adjusters, a large share of annual income can come from a handful of those events.

So an absence in February after a storm costs several times what the same six weeks would cost in a quiet summer. That argues for a shorter deferred period than an annual average suggests, and for insuring a defensible annual figure from accounts rather than a monthly average that does not reflect how the money actually arrives.

An adjuster arrives after the event, which means arriving at a building nobody has yet certified as safe.

Fire damage weakens structure and leaves smoke residue. Flooding brings contamination and then mould. Storm damage means compromised roofs and loose material. Older damaged properties can have disturbed asbestos-containing materials. The adjuster's job is to go in and look.

That is worth describing on an application rather than accepting a clerical classification, because it is genuine exposure and it is where the sudden injuries happen. Any respiratory history is relevant too, whatever caused it.

There is a cumulative cost to this work that has nothing to do with buildings, and it is the commonest reason adjusters are off for a long time.

You meet people on the worst week of their lives, repeatedly, and some of the time the answer you have to give them is not the one they want. During a surge you do it at volume, with a caseload that will not clear and policyholders ringing. That combination produces burnout, anxiety and depression at a rate the job title does not suggest.

If any of it has led to treatment or time off, declare it properly. Our page on depression and anxiety covers what we would ask. It is far better underwritten than discovered at claim stage.

Employed adjusters usually have death in service through the firm or insurer, often a decent multiple, and may not know the figure.

Self-employed and consultant adjusters have nothing, which matters more because the role involves a great deal of driving and that is the risk most likely to produce a sudden claim.

The gap worth covering is the mortgage plus the years your household would need beyond whatever actually exists today.

The events that end this career early are cardiac, neurological or a serious road traffic injury, all of which can leave somebody alive and unable to do site work.

A desk-only claims role usually exists and pays less, which is the permanent step down income protection manages least well once suitable alternative work is judged available.

A lump sum covers the change, and pays on diagnosis rather than after a deferred period. Adjusting experience moves into claims management, technical and complex claims review, training and consultancy.