Keeping Up Traditions

While the company has changed with the times, they still follow many of the promises and traditions implemented by Stanley Kernaghan, founder of Kernaghan Adjusters, when the company opened May 1, 1953 — quality service, excellent product and relationship building.

It has clearly served the company well for more than five decades. “We are entering our double nickel year,” Patti Kernaghan president and CEO of Kernaghan Adjusters, says, “which is quite a feat in the independent adjusting field, and in any small business in Canada, really, I suppose.”

Stanley Kernaghan grew up on a farm in southwestern Manitoba, before heading off to serve as a fighter pilot in World War II, for which he was decorated with the Distinguished Flying Medal (D.F.M) and Air Force Cross (A.F.C.). Upon returning to Canada, S. Kernaghan began working in the insurance sector, first with W.O. Jones & Co. and then with General Accident Assurance Company, before deciding to start up his own business. With that, S. J. Kernaghan Adjusters Ltd. was born.

In conjunction with Ron Newcomb, the two men grew the firm, all without losing one employee in the first 18 years of business. “That’s the kind of care that he took,” P. Kernaghan says of her father. “They did quite a phenomenal job.”

The company was founded in Winnipeg, but in the early ’70s, S. Kernaghan moved the office to Vancouver. “Auto insurance was certainly a big part of what they did… in Manitoba and the NDP government came in and chose to bring government auto and my father chose to leave,” P. Kernaghan says, “and he also felt that it was a great place… Vancouver had more opportunities for his five children.”

The insurance business was not S. Kernaghan’s only endeavour. Being an entrepreneur, he started a security guard firm (which is now run by his son), a printing company (run by one daughter), a travel wholesaler of hotel rooms (run by another daughter), in addition to having at some point or another owned seven travel agencies, a marine surveying company and an investigation firm.

“[He was] an amazing person and I miss him every day,” P. Kernaghan says.

S. Kernaghan’s goal with Kernaghan Adjusters was to provide both service and an excellent product; he strove to offer superior adjusting service. And while his daughter continues to strive towards that goal, she chuckles that, “it’s a bit of a moving target!”

“That’s what we are constantly striving for… to provide great service, and that is changing by virtue of the market changing and the people within the firm changing,” she says. “So, we are constantly looking for a better way of delivering our product and providing that superior adjusting.”

While Kernaghan Adjusters maintains multi-line claims service as a major focus of the company, there are a few new options in play: warranty business and class action suits.

P. Kernaghan notes that the firm is now connected electronically–both internally between branches and externally with its clients–which has made running a cross-country business easier than in her father’s days. “In the old days you would send things by mail, it would take a week to get there, so by then the issue is dead,” P. Kernaghan reflected. “But now you can solve things much faster. I mean that’s for everyone, but particularly important for us.” She goes on to comment about how even the cheaper cost of long distance makes things easier for business in terms of keeping in touch with staff and clients.

And for Kernaghan Adjusters communication is key. It is a large part of the foundation that the company is built upon. “Our strategies are really to have the team work together,” P. Kernaghan says. “We regularly meet electronically, by conference call, with all of our branch and regional managers to look for ways to better our service to our clients.”

There are roughly 60 people that work across the country at Kernaghan Adjusters, so relatively speaking it is a small company. This, according to P. Kernaghan, presents something of a unique challenge for the company in terms of communication among staff. They meet as a company every two years, however, “it’s hard to hold people as a team when you don’t see them every day,” P. Kernaghan notes. E-mails, conference calls, web conferencing, etc. have made keeping in touch as a whole easier.

In addition, Kernaghan Adjusters has also increased its accessibility to clients through developments in technology. The company created a web-based system in the late ’90s and it is constantly being updated. In fact, it’s in its second version which allows clients to view their files in the system, “so that’s very exciting,” P. Kerhnaghan says. “[It has] made us more accessible to our clients and they’re very excited about being able to view their claims on our system.” This has afforded the opportunity to bring in more business and grow the company.

P. Kernaghan notes that communication was just as important to her father and the foundation of the company as it is to her. Relationship building was the biggest “tradition” he followed, both within the company and externally with clients. “It’s [about] staying in contact with people and when a client has a request, because we’re a smaller company we’re very flexible. We step up to the plate and make sure that we’re delivering on their requests quickly… we’re tailoring our service to their needs.”

However, it’s not just about the client for P. Kernaghan, who realizes the importance of her staff. So, she ensures that her employees know they are valuable, with birthday cards and service pins that will impact them personally. “The employees are the company; it’s clich that whole thing about how important your employees are, but it is so critical,” she says. “We have to be sensitive to the needs of our employees.”

Perhaps there is an added focus on employee happiness, because the company is so small, “more of a boutique,” really. The company is larger now than it was 10 years ago, it has been larger at other times. There is, however, no plan on the part of Kernaghan to become an extremely large firm. While the business is in a growth pattern, it is more focused on risk managed (self-insured) clients and developing close relationships, “which is something that has pulled through from day one for the company,” P. Kernaghan says. She added that she wants to see the company grow in an organic way, meaning she is not looking at necessarily purchasing firms, but rather hiring more people. “Which in and of itself presents a difficulty because there is a real shortage of skilled adjusters in the marketplace today,” P. Kerhaghan laments.

When looking to the future, P. Kernaghan notes the company is going to be doing more catastrophe work, in addition to more class action work and working more with the self-insured. “Our bread and butter is working with insurance companies,” she adds.

Last year, the company hosted a claims managers conference where they came up with a set of core values: service excellence, integrity, professionalism, accountability and innovation. “We are very much into focusing on our core values and delivering to our clients on the basis of those core values,” P. Kernaghan says.

In terms of the insurance market, P. Kernaghan notes we need to work more collectively and in a more collegial manner between all parties involved. “I think it’s very important that the insurance industry work together in the claims arena and sometimes that’s not always the case,” she says, adding that she has some great clients that she works with, “and it’s important to me and for our staff that we build those strong relationships with our clients so we get through the claims process in a… happy manner. ” She continues, “We have to work together and find solutions to the claims at hand. And I think that’s an issue with the industry that we need to work on.”

P. Kernaghan notes, however, that the main thing is to remember to ensure one has balance in their lives. “On the claims side we’re always dealing with adversaria
l situations and we just have to be able to step back and say that we have to have fun, too,” she says. “[It’s] important to build relationships with clients [so] that you can get to know them and then have fun and [then] you can solve problems instead of grinding.”