The Case for Courtesy in Insurance

"Life is not so short but that there is always time enough for courtesy." Ralph Waldo Emerson

Insurance runs on relationships and on written words. Policies, endorsements, claim notes, and email threads are how most of our work gets done, and most of it now happens through screens. That setting changes how we treat each other, often without our noticing.

In a recent column for The Atlantic, Arthur C. Brooks makes the case that politeness is declining, especially online, and that the decline costs us more than we assume. His argument is simple: when you become less polite, you become less happy and more angry. Courtesy is not only a favor to the other person. It is a practice that protects your own well-being.

What the research says

Brooks cites several findings. Being on the receiving end of rudeness lowers well-being. So does merely witnessing it. Readers of sarcastic writing and uncivil comment sections report lower happiness, even when they agree with the snarky author.

The more surprising finding concerns the person being polite. A 2021 study found that courtesy toward others raises happiness and lowers anger. Giving in to the urge to snap feels like relief, but Brooks compares it to scratching a poison-ivy rash. It makes things worse. Politeness also appears to carry over. In one experiment, people who felt a stronger urge to thank a helper robot behaved more prosocially in the next task. How we treat even a nonhuman interface shapes how we treat people afterward.

Why this matters in our industry

Our work generates friction by design. A broker pushes for coverage and an underwriter holds a line. A claims professional denies part of a loss. A reinsurer questions a cedent's data. These conversations are adversarial in structure, and they are conducted mostly in writing, where tone is easy to lose and sharpness is easy to add.

Consider the familiar moments. A terse reply to a submission that arrived incomplete. A pointed reminder copied to six people. A sarcastic remark about a carrier's appetite in a group chat. Each one is small, and each one is a choice. Brooks' point is that these choices also accumulate inside the person making them.

The long-term nature of insurance raises the stakes. Contracts renew, claims reopen, and treaty relationships last for decades. A reputation for courtesy is a durable asset, and a reputation for snark is a durable liability.

Three practices

Brooks offers three rules. Each translates directly to our work.

1. Make courtesy a habit, even when no human is involved. Brooks describes his late father, who would have said please and thank you to an AI assistant. The point is not that the tool cares. The point is that the habit shapes you. As claims triage, submission intake, and policy drafting increasingly involve AI tools, the way we speak to them is part of the same discipline.

2. Renounce snark, whether you are using it or consuming it. Mockery often passes for sophistication in professional circles. Brooks stops reading when an author throws an impolite barb. We can apply the same standard to our own emails and internal channels, and to the commentary we choose to read.

3. Answer rudeness with courtesy. When a counterparty is curt or a claimant is hostile, a measured and respectful reply protects your standing and your mood. Brooks notes that it gets easier with practice, and that he has never regretted declining to retaliate.

A closing thought

Brooks ends by calling politeness "today's punk rock," because it runs against the spirit of the moment. For insurance professionals, it also happens to be good practice. The people across the table from us are managing their own pressures, and the written record we leave behind outlasts the mood we were in when we wrote it.

This article is inspired by Arthur C. Brooks' column "Resist the Snark and Be Happy" in The Atlantic, part of his How to Build a Life series. It is part of an ongoing Happiness series applying his work to the insurance profession.