Welcome to The Communications Bringing Claims Professionals
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 Diana Barnum |
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"real" job. In discussing the morass of financial woes of today centering on the home loan industry, Diana said “I couldn’t believe the things that deregulation allowed in regard to making a home loan. We had to dot every I and cross every T and if we had tried some of the ‘creative’ financing that caused this mess, we would have been fired immediately.” Once in Sacramento, a college friend of Diana’s worked at State Farm Insurance and approached Diana about applying as a claims adjuster. Diana was initially intrigued with the steady income and benefits and, once accepted into the training program, found many more advantages to working for the industry giant. She was assigned immediately to the property unit in Rancho Cordova for training and graduated after only three months of the program. She accepted a ‘temporary’ position in Stockton and commuted for the six months of the temporary assignment before it was extended to a year. By then she was married and pregnant with her daughter, Mariah, and still doing the commute from Loomis to Stockton each day. Diana was handling vandalism claims, BI and house fires within the first year of employment and then came the Loma Prieta Earthquake, which she found challenging as a new adjuster. State Farm adjusters were still required to be in the office each day and Diana found it difficult to do the daily drive, and was stymied at the lack of openings in the Sacramento offices of State Farm for her. She went to work for USAA as an inside adjuster for three years while yearning for the field work that she loved. She applied again to State Farm. They had an opening in Auburn that she was happy to accept. Diana was able to step right back into the work, knowing the systems, the culture and the company expectations. She has a great deal of respect for State Farm’s training system “Their level of training is so high and ongoing for the adjusters that I can recognize a State Farm trained adjuster by the files that they keep,” Diana stated. “The adjusters who work to get their desk cleared by the end of the day seem to be the most successful Independent Adjusters,” Diana noted. “I learned to stay focused and ignore the household,” she went on, “and trained the family as well as myself to the regime”. Because of the outside appointments and time on the phone, I didn’t feel isolated. I also liked to attend the Sacramento Claims Association meetings whenever possible because I was learning new things, staying in touch and breaking up my day.” Diana went on, “I’m always open to new ways of doing things - any process that will expedite doing my job and serve my policyholders will get my attention. Some of the innovations have come from vendors, and that’s fine with me.” She went to work at AAA after five years as an independent adjuster and has nothing but good things to say about that company. “AAA has the best people and an awesome claims system,” she confides. “It was the best I’d ever used. Their Direct Repair Network (DRN) was new to me and worked really well. There was an opportunity at Allied, however, that was too good to pass up.,” she explained. “I’m confident that I’ll be able to meet the challenges at Allied. The company is exploring new options and methods to streamline the claims system, and Debi Walling is a wonderful manager.” Diana answered the question of what makes a successful claims handler thusly: “One has to be adaptable,” she said, “and willing to learn new systems. But it is most important to like the job. “I love meeting the homeowners. Even the most challenging ones can be interesting. I like the structure estimating so, while liability adjusting is okay, I really love the property claims.” Her children are the center of her world. Mariah and Alexander will both be in high school in the coming year. Alexander has received his junior brown belt in karate and is now working towards his Adult blue belt. And until Mariah goes off to college to study to be a math teacher (yes, she is considering Chico State where her mom went to school), Diana’s life will continue to be a whirl of work and attending the soccer games and karate matches of her kids. They also volunteer as a family at Bayside Church’s program for special needs children. It’s a big help that Mariah has started driving and she can take over some of the taxi duties that Diana had to fit in previously.
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