INTEL FROM THE KRU
Comfortable but going nowhere
There’s a specific kind of stuck that I hear about regularly.
It isn’t the layoff. It isn’t the job you hate. It’s the one where the money is fine, the benefits are good, the work is manageable, and you look up one day and realize you’ve been in the exact same seat for three years with no idea what comes next.
That was a big part of the part conversation on Claims Recruiter Office Hours this past week. So here’s the deeper version.
What the market is actually doing
AM Best reported 2025 results this month, covered by Insurance Journal, and the industry just posted its best underwriting year in about a decade with a combined ratio of 93.
Combined ratio is the quick scorecard on whether insurers made money on the policies themselves. Under 100 means they took in more premium than they paid out in claims and expenses. Over 100 means they lost money. So a 93 means the industry kept about 7 cents of every premium dollar before investment income.
The headline hides an uneven story. Personal lines carried it. Personal auto and homeowners drove the results. Commercial auto finished in the red again, and the liability lines stayed under pressure as litigation costs climbed. AM Best noted that on commercial auto, liability losses “keep mounting.”
That lines up with what I’m seeing in my searches. Homeowners and property adjuster hiring feels like it’s trending down, a lot of it driven by catastrophic weather activity or the lack of it. Meanwhile the lines getting hit hardest, commercial auto and general liability, are where the demand is. Social inflation is a big piece of that.
If property feels slow to you right now, it isn’t you. It’s the market. And it’s worth knowing where the work actually moved.
Two ways up
When people ask how to move up in claims, they are many different paths. Here are two that I see consistently.
The first is the one everyone pictures. Individual contributor into supervisor, then manager, then director. You stop being measured on your files and start being measured on other people’s.
The second is becoming a subject matter expert. You go deep instead of wide. You become the person everyone calls on complex GL, on a specific coverage question, on the line nobody else at the shop understands. No direct reports, plenty of authority.
Both are up. The mistake is assuming only the first one counts, then chasing a management title you don’t actually want and being miserable in it. A great adjuster is not automatically a great manager. Those are different jobs with different skills, and figuring out which one fits you is the real work.
Your title might be lying about your level
Here’s a theme I see on resumes. The title and the actual responsibility don’t match.
Somebody’s a “VP of Business Development” who’s really an individual contributor carrying their own book. Somebody’s a “Manager” who’s running fifteen people and building process from scratch. Same word, completely different jobs.
This cuts both ways. If you’re under-titled, your resume is quietly underselling you. If you’re over-titled, you’re going to get screened for roles you can’t actually step into yet, and it shows fast in an interview.
So describe what you actually did. Who you reported to, how many people, how many files, what you owned versus what you executed. That’s what tells someone your real level. The title on its own says almost nothing.
And if you’re a hiring manager reading this, same warning in reverse. Hiring off the title can be one of the fastest ways to end up with a level mismatch on your team.
Beyond the Desk
Summer is in full swing, and it’s reminding me why the Pacific Northwest is so great. I spent some time in Olympic National Park over the weekend and got to experience it in all its beauty. Ocean Beach, rainforest, and alpine lake all in the same day. Whatever your version of that is, I hope you’re getting some of it in.
Before you go
I’m actively working roles in commercial auto, general liability, product liability, and other specialty lines, and I’m looking in California right now in particular. If that’s you, or you know someone great, reply to this email.
Until next week,
🤘Josh 🤘