Today’s blog tells the story of a long-forgotten workers’ compensation experiment that occurred back in 2003. It was a time when there was a significant shortage of worker’s compensation adjusters. Coincidentally, in 2003 our state economy was in a recession with an unusual number of recently laid off and out of work college graduates receiving Unemployment Insurance (UI) benefits from the Employment Development Department (EDD). It was at this time EDD decided to conduct a $250,000 experiment to offer college graduates receiving UI benefits the opportunity to become work comp claims adjusters.
The plan was to select 16 UI recipients and return them to school full time for 8 weeks to learn to the trade. Afterwards, a job fair would be held where insurance companies and TPAs would be invited to interview graduates for adjuster positions. Administrators would be able to hire fully trained adjusters. The graduates would embark on a career path with an array of future opportunities. The response from unemployed college graduates was overwhelmingly positive. Over 100 candidates applied for the 16 available positions. EDD could not have been more pleased with the results of this first phase of the program.
The next phase was for the development a curriculum, syllabus, and educational plan for an 8-week training course, as well as to find a suitable location to hold classes and to hire an appropriate instructor. EDD partnered with the Insurance Educational Associate (IEA) to develop the necessary training material and to arrange for an instructor. The 16 students all reported to class at the appointed time and remarkably had perfect attendance throughout the full 8-week program. Enthusiasm and confidence went through the roof when during the first week of class when a student was independently approached by an insurance company and offered a claims adjuster position to begin immediately upon completion of the program.
Graduation day was filled with excitement. Commencement exercises were held in the morning, followed a luncheon and a job fair that afternoon. With great fanfare several dozen insurance companies and TPA’s had been invited to send an HR representative to interview graduates for immediate hire; however, inexplicably that afternoon when the job fair opened, only two insurance company representatives appeared, and they stayed for a total of only 45 minutes. Most of the graduates were never interviewed and none were hired. The job fair was nothing short of a disaster.
It was at this time EDD realized that the claims industry preferred to promote from within and train their own people rather than hire outsiders. To this very day the industry continues to promote and fill vacancies from their own clerical pool where future adjusters are taught to handle claims “the company way.” Not surprisingly, the EDD experiment was never repeated.
With that said, we at Friedman + Bartoumian recognize that claims administrators still prefer to train and promote their own employees. We are here to help fulfill your education needs. Feel free to call upon us for assistance.
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