Skip to content


3 Suggestions To Beat The Summer Slow Down In Claims (If You Do Slow Down)

It’s nice to spend time on the beach, but use the summer slow down to make some improvements

Let’s face it – no matter how busy your organization is, come August often times things begin to slow down. It seems everyone is on vacation, and while there is less coming in, there is still much to do. Now is the perfect time to clean up messes and get set for the fall push.

1. Managers & Supervisors

The summer is a great time to work on performance and training issues with your claims staff. With courts slowing down, fewer crises to deal with and less phone calls to take, now is a good time to work with claims handlers to get stronger. Even if your performance reviews are not due for several months, spend some of the extra time you may have to look for learning opportunities. Help claims handlers clear some “dead wood”, and mentor them to reach new goals for the future.  With the extra time there will be fewer interruptions and spending some of that extra time encouraging a handler to look for new ways to excel will benefit everyone.

2. Claims handlers

Wouldn’t it be nice to clear all those tasked items and clean your desk up. It’s been a busy year and things have been piling up. Emails, reports, bills,  and closings are just a few of items that can so easily stack up on a desk that need to be dealt with.  Pick a few items to clear from your long list of tasks and try and get to a clean slate. Here are a few more suggestions:

  • Clear the email folder and organize that in box so the email cascade can be more manageable
  • Look at your pending for older files that can use a little attention, or even better, be closed. Sometimes those older files just need a little push to get them to to the next level. Use any slow down time to reduce that file count.
  • Get through your snail mail. Yes people still send mail the old fashion way and if you spend a few hours a week cleaning and filing away that stack of papers on the the corner of the desk you will be better off before the next push.
  • Meet with your manager and look for opportunities to learn and improve your skills.

3. Claims Executives

Time to break out the strategic plan.  When was the last time you looked into the future? Don’t wait for Lilly pads to take over the lake (see my posting You Can’t Wait Till The Last Minute To Improve You Operation – Planning Starts Now!) take a look at future issues now. Explore your technology needs and look for opportunities to improve your operation. Focus on some key areas to target for lowering costs such as in areas of subrogation and salvage. There are opportunities there to re-tool your operation and get it ready for future growth.

Tell us how you best use slower times to improve your operation!

Posted in Best Practices, SPOT on Issues.

Tagged with , , , , , , .


2 Responses

Stay in touch with the conversation, subscribe to the RSS feed for comments on this post.

  1. Dan Williams says

    Good advice, as an agent representing a number of carriers it’s easy to see who listens to this type of advice and those who choose to ignore it.

Continuing the Discussion

  1. “Summer’s Here And I’m For That” With 2 Ideas To Improve Your Claims Operations – The Claims SPOT linked to this post on July 11, 2011

    […] be a great time to look inward and focus on refining your organization.  Last year I wrote about 3 Suggestions To Beat The Summer Slow Down In Claims.  In that article I suggested ways for Claim Handlers, Managers and Claims Executives to […]



Some HTML is OK

or, reply to this post via trackback.

*