“You just know” is not a process.
Contributed by Chris Stanley, Founder of IA Path
Can claims adjuster training replace years of experience? It can teach the judgment veterans rely on, and faster than many hiring managers think.
The objection I hear most is familiar: “This job is about nuance. You need a gut for it.” I agree. But what is a gut call?
A gut call is pattern recognition happening below the surface. The brain weighs data, inputs, and context in seconds, then lands on a decision before we can explain it.
That isn’t magic. Psychologists Daniel Kahneman and Gary Klein concluded that reliable intuition depends on a predictable environment and the opportunity to learn its regularities. Experience alone doesn’t guarantee an accurate gut call.
If gut is learned, it can be taught. The Fossil Workforce learned it over years in the seat. We don’t have years anymore. A quarter of claim adjusters are expected to retire by the end of 2027.
When my father-in-law taught me to write auto damage estimates, I shadowed him for six months. During that time, he couldn’t explain how he knew how many hours to write for damage to a panel. He had seen the pattern thousands of times.
Eventually, he showed me the Fist Rule: cover the damaged area with your fist, and count how many fists it takes. That’s how many hours to write. A veteran will point out that estimating is more complicated than that. Of course it is. When I began teaching other people, I added another rule: “Creases Cause Increases.” A crease, whether it follows a body line or comes from the damage, makes a panel harder to repair. If there’s a crease, double your number.
That helped new appraisers turn a five-hour estimate for a 12-hour dent into a 10-hour estimate. Was it as good as my father-in-law or the technician? No. Was it close? Yes.
If gut decisions are subconscious, organizations should make the thinking behind them conscious and teachable.
We’ve been so spoiled by the Fossil Workforce that we never built out our thinking as an industry. We haven’t documented how we want people to think or make decisions. We just tell them to make good ones.
“You just know” isn’t a process, and it isn’t as consistent as we think. A noise audit at one insurer found a median 43% difference between two adjusters’ payout estimates for identical claims.
Gut without process isn’t culture. It’s a melting pot of quick reactions. That doesn’t work for a new hire, and it doesn’t work for AI either.
A Renewable Workforce replaces the experience companies once hired with a system that produces it. Fossil talent is finite. Once it retires, it’s gone. Renewable talent can be developed on demand. It takes four parts:
In IA Path’s experience, a new person can contribute in as little as one to four weeks, depending on the role, then keep sharpening their skills through a year of mentorship. The same approach can help current employees move into roles they haven’t held before.
At IA Path, we’ve helped people move into auto collision and claims roles from backgrounds in nursing, homeschooling, law enforcement, and restaurant work. Some were recent high school graduates. They didn’t arrive with five years of experience. They arrived with a process, a mentor, and a partner willing to give them a seat.
Stop waiting for someone who “just knows.” Start building people who know why. Fossil talent is found. Renewable talent is made.
Missed Part 1? Read why the adjuster talent pool is shrinking and who could replace it.