July 07, 2016

Carrier Adjuster Licensing Best Practices – Pt.1:
Are you managing adjuster licensing properly?

By: Sydney Beaudreault

Similar to producer licensing, some carriers choose to have their adjusters manage their own licensing or others have a designated person or team to manage adjuster credentials. However, with the complexities of adjuster licensing, we're finding that more and more carriers are taking on the task to ensure that they're not risking the hefty fines and reputation damage of non-compliance. After all, the carrier is the one who receives the brunt of the reprimands if the information isn't correct.

Due to these intricacies and risks, we've recently seen a boom in carriers seeking ways to more efficiently manage their adjuster licenses. However, unlike other Vertafore carrier solutions for producer licensing such as Sircon Producer Manager, Producer Express, or Compliance Express, our approach is a bit different for adjusters.

What makes adjuster licensing more difficult than producer licensing?

First of all, we know that states have different, specific rules and regs for licensing and compliance, whether it's adjusters, registered reps, or producers. In addition, carriers typically also have their own requirements for independent vs. staff adjusters, and their producers as well.

However, state by state adjuster licensing can get a little more complex.

If your adjuster resides in a state that doesn't require a license, but they're handling claims in a state that does, you have to designate a state to be their home state. How does that work? On top of that, adjusters must then take that state's required exams and courses, experience, etc.

Here are a few questions that you may be asking yourself when going through the steps of adjuster licensing:

• If the adjuster's resident state doesn't require a license, how do you select a designated home state?
• Which state is best to select for that line of authority? Does the state even acknowledge designated home state credentials?
• Is a resident or non-resident exam required?
• What are the course and reporting requirements that I should direct that adjuster to complete?
• Are there nonresident adjuster continuing education requirements?
• Or, what do you do in the cases of a catastrophic event? How do you quickly get adjuster licensed for catastrophic events?

Can you correctly answer all of these questions for all of your adjusters? Did you even know that these are questions you should be asking?

If not, don't panic. Over the course of the next few weeks, our experts in the Sircon Licensing and Registration Services department are going to share some of their secrets for managing adjuster licensing to help you answer these questions.

Here, we will help you understand resident vs. non-resident licensing, designated home state requirements, education and continuing education tasks, and even emergency licensing for CAT losses.

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