Episode 34: Training for the Toughest Days at NCIS Loss Adjustment Schools

Tom Zacharias (0:06)

Hello again, and welcome back to Keep America Growing, a podcast about the US crop insurance system that helps farmers and ranchers manage risk and recover when disaster strikes. I'm your host, Tom Zacharias, president of National Crop Insurance Services. When the worst happens, farmers need answers quickly, whether it's hail, drought, flooding, hurricanes, or another disaster. They depend on trained loss adjustment professionals to accurately assess the damage and help move the claims process forward.

What many people don't realize is that becoming a crop insurance loss adjuster requires far more than simply walking into a field after a storm.

Every year, adjusters from across the country come together to sharpen their skills, learn the latest research, and stay current on new crops, farming practices, and insurance procedures. Today, we're going to go behind the scenes at one of the crop insurance industry's most important investments, the National Crop Insurance Services Loss Adjustment Schools. Joining us today is Dr. James Houx, the Director of Agricultural Research and Technology at NCIS. He's better known to us as Jimmy around the office, and he's been deeply involved with these schools in the training of crop insurance loss adjustment professionals during his tenure at NCIS. Jimmy, thanks for joining us, and let's start with the basics. Most people assume that an adjuster simply estimates damage after a storm. How is crop insurance loss adjustment more specialized than many people may realize?

James Houx (1:54)

Well, Tom, the idea that the loss adjustment is a simple estimation is certainly a great misnomer. You know, today, the crop insurance adjusters, they enter the field with training on procedures that have been behind over the past 75 years or so, and in some cases for older procedures, nearly 100 years. Adjusters use loss tables for stand loss, defoliation, stem cutoffs, and other damages. And these loss tables are the culmination of research that began in the 1920s and continues today.

As well, farmers are encouraged to enter the field with the adjuster to see the loss adjustment process and how the procedures are used. The farmers are also encouraged to participate in damage counts to ensure that they know what is occurring and how the adjuster determines the loss. From that standpoint, the adjustments are transparent, methodical, and standardized, and are based on university-led research that has captured the response of crops to weather-related damages.

Tom Zacharias (2:50)

Okay, so talk to us about the schools themselves.

What are they? How long have these schools been around? And what role do they play in maintaining the integrity of the crop insurance program?

James Houx (3:02)

Well, Tom, the NCIS Regional State Committees conduct loss adjustment schools annually across the United States. And this year, NCIS has already conducted 12 schools from Washington State to Illinois down to Arkansas and back up to Minnesota and North Dakota. And there's still the Altus Oklahoma School coming up in a couple of weeks. These schools have taught procedures on 13 crops on both the crop hail and multi-paral lines of insurance. And so far this year, 872 crop insurance adjusters have attended the crop adjustment schools. And we have conducted these schools for an awful long time. I have files that show loss adjustment schools have been in regular current since the 1950s. However, in digging deeper, I did discover what I think is perhaps the first loss adjustment school being conducted at Iowa A&M College, which we mostly know now today as Iowa State University. And that followed the completion of the first corn research projects in the 1930s. At that time, the crop insurance industry requested the researcher, Professor JC. Eldridge, to develop materials for and conduct a corn loss adjustment school. An extension publication was also developed and printed in 1935

So, from that standpoint, the crop insurance companies have gathered to conduct training for nearly 100 years. And while we at NCIS facilitate the schools, the loss instruction procedures are taught by experienced crop insurance adjusters. These folks have seen it all and have the knowledge needed to guide thoughtful discussion. And the NCIS school form that creates an opportunity for the crop insurance companies to assemble and teach new adjusters, new procedures and revisions and updates.

Teaching adjusters to follow the current adjustment procedures is one of the many spokes in the wheel to maintain the integrity of the crop insurance program.

Tom Zacharias (4:50)

Wow, Iowa A&M College, now Iowa State University. What a shout out for the Cyclones. Boom, boom, boom.

Walk us through what a typical school looks like. What's going on at these schools?

James Houx (5:02)

No, most NCIS loss adjustment schools are conducted in cooperation with local land grant universities that have the capability to plant demonstration plots of the crops for use at the schools. And most schools have both a classroom instruction as well as a field instruction portion. The classroom typically provides in-depth instruction of the crop loss instructions for crops that are covered in the school, including such things as how to fill out forms and the loss survey sheets and the calculations behind the loss adjustments. Guest speakers are standard at most schools as well. These could be university professors that teach adjusters about local crop production and agronomic practices, current year crop production challenges, and NCIS agronomic research conducted locally. Other speakers have included state climatologists, plant pathologists and entomologists, remote sensing experts, grain inspectors, and grading experts. These guests add another dimension to the schools by transferring agricultural knowledge to adjusters that may not have the opportunity to be exposed to these other information sources that are not necessarily part of loss adjustment procedures, but are certainly related to the perils and crop damage what loss adjusters see in the field.