Industry Becomes More Creative in Recruiting Claims Professionals

As the insurance industry faces the need to fill an estimated 400,000 positions by 2020, some are turning to an unusual strategy: recruiting Starbucks workers to become claims professionals. It’s a dramatic switch from years past, when claims examiners often came from law enforcement, investigative or legal backgrounds, said Barry Bloom, managing principal of the BDB Group, a risk-management consulting firm in San Carlos, California. But with workers’ comp shifting focus to an advocacy-based claims model, in which the injured worker is treated as a customer, the approach make...