Let’s be brutally honest: the rulebook feels like it’s being rewritten daily. Between headlines screaming about climate-driven “100-year floods” happening every other season, supply chain fractures from global conflicts, and the lingering tremors of a pandemic, the world feels uniquely fragile. Risk is no longer an abstract concept in an actuarial table; it’s a palpable, burning reality. And in the eye of this storm, the insurance industry isn’t just adjusting claims—it’s scrambling to adjust itself.
This is the chaotic, opportunity-rich landscape I stumbled into. I had no license, no pedigree, and no direct experience. What I did have was a front-row seat to the zeitgeist of disruption and a desperate need to pivot into a career that felt both stable and essential. Here’s how I turned an understanding of modern crises into my first insurance adjuster job.
For years, I worked in logistics coordination. My days were a ballet of shipping manifests, port schedules, and just-in-time inventory. Then, the Suez Canal blockage happened. Overnight, my screen turned red with delays. Shortly after, a freak hailstorm in a key manufacturing region wiped out a client’s inventory. I wasn’t just managing logistics; I was becoming an amateur crisis manager, documenting losses, communicating with frantic stakeholders, and piecing together narratives of what went wrong for upper management.
One afternoon, after a marathon call about wildfire smoke damaging goods in a warehouse hundreds of miles from the actual fire, it hit me. The person on the other end of our insurance claim was asking questions I already knew the answers to: What was the chain of custody? What were the ambient conditions logged? Can you prove the pre-loss condition? I realized my value wasn’t in moving things, but in understanding and documenting breakage in an interconnected world. The insurance adjuster, I realized, was the archaeologist of modern disaster. And I’d been doing the fieldwork without the title.
I stopped thinking about my resume as a list of jobs and started framing it as a portfolio of relevant skills for a world in crisis.
Knowing I could do the job was one thing. Getting someone to pay me to do it without the official credential was another. I adopted a strategy of targeted infiltration.
First, I ignored the “Must have X license” on every job posting. I focused on the real pain points. I started following insurance company recruiters and veteran adjusters on LinkedIn. I didn’t ask for a job. I engaged with their content. When a VP posted about the challenges of assessing business interruption claims post-cyberattack, I wrote a thoughtful comment drawing from my experience with supply chain disruption. It started a conversation.
I researched the biggest independent adjusting (IA) firms and the direct repair programs (DRPs) of major carriers. Instead of applying for “adjuster” roles, I looked for support roles: Claims Service Assistant, File Coordinator, Catastrophe (CAT) Team Support Specialist. These are the engine rooms of the claims world, especially during a busy CAT season fueled by severe weather. They are hectic, demanding, and often have lower formal barriers to entry.
I got an interview for a “Catastrophe Response Coordinator” role with a large IA firm. The hiring manager, Sarah, looked exhausted. A major hurricane had just made landfall.
Her question: “This role is chaos. You’ll be scheduling hundreds of inspections for adjusters who are overwhelmed, talking to panicked policyholders, and data-entry into our system. Why should we hire you with no insurance background?”
My answer wasn’t about insurance. It was about the modern world. “I understand chaos,” I said. “My background is in global logistics during a time when a container ship can block a canal, a pandemic can shut down ports, and a political conflict can redraw shipping maps overnight. My job was to track the fragile threads in a networked world and document exactly where and why they snapped. That’s what you need right now. The adjusters in the field are determining what was lost and how much it costs. My skill is in managing the chaotic flow of information about that loss—the timeline, the dependencies, the documentation chain. I’m not just scheduling an inspection; I’m ensuring the adjuster has the digital file prepped with all the prior correspondence and photos so they can focus on the scope. In a CAT situation, that efficiency is everything.”
I saw her posture change. I had spoken not of insurance codes, but of resilience and process in the face of systemic failure. I had framed my outsider perspective as a strength, not a weakness.
I got the job. The first week, I was thrown into the hurricane response. My “training” was a whirlwind of acronyms—Xactimate, RCV, ACV, ALE. But the core of the work was familiar: triage. Which claims were total losses? Which had safety hazards? Which policyholders were in shelters? I was the first calm, organized voice many people heard.
I learned the license wasn’t the magic key to understanding; it was a regulatory permission slip to settle and bind. I couldn’t sign off on estimates or make coverage determinations. But I could do almost everything else: conduct initial interviews, document reported damage, schedule inspectors, order reports, prepare estimates for a licensed adjuster’s review, and manage communication. I was a force multiplier for the licensed professionals drowning in assignments.
Paradoxically, not having a license forced me to be a better learner. I had no preconceived notions. I asked “dumb” questions that sometimes revealed inefficient legacy processes. My familiarity with new tech meant I was the one showing veteran adjusters shortcuts in the new virtual inspection software. Because I came from a world of global disruption, I was naturally thinking about cascading failures—how water damage from a burst pipe could lead to mold, which could lead to a business’s website going down due to server damage, compounding the loss. This holistic, modern view of risk was my unique value proposition.
Within four months, with the company’s support and while working full-time, I completed my online pre-licensing course and passed my state exam. The license became a formality, a box to check. The real credential I had earned was in the trenches—proving I could navigate the chaotic, human, and technologically evolving reality of modern claims.
The world’s volatility isn’t slowing down. The industry needs people who understand that a claim file isn’t just about a damaged structure; it’s about a disrupted life, a broken supply chain, a climate pattern gone awry. If you can demonstrate that you understand the anatomy of a crisis—its documentation, its communication, and its human impact—you’re already halfway to being an adjuster. The license is just the final piece of paper in a file you’ve already proven you know how to build.
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Author: Car insurance officer
Source: Car insurance officer
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