The Independent Of The North

Covering a territory of three million square kilometers, the five adjusters working at Arctic West Adjusters Ltd. have an entirely different definition of ‘it’s just around the corner.’

Reporting to branch offices of insurance companies from British Columbia to Quebec, adjusters at Arctic West handle claims throughout the Northwest Territories, Yukon and Nunavut territories. It is an airplane ride to everywhere, as the only area, outside of Yellowknife where the office is located, that an adjuster would drive to is Behchoko, an aboriginal community about 110 kilometers down the road. Even Hay River, where an adjuster would go weekly, is a 200-kilometer flight across Great Slave Lake.

A typical trip to an easy-to-reach location would include: On Monday, fly out of Yellowknife at 10 a. m., arrive in Iqaluit on Baffin Island at 4 p. m. — there are no direct flights, plus a two hour time difference. Tuesday through Thursday the adjuster would handle a few claims and then Friday is another travel day back to Yellowknife. A more remote location, such as Pond Inlet on the shores of north Baffin Island, would require two travel days each way, leaving usually only one day for investigation and assessment of losses.

“We are not talking about travelling into communities with services, we’re talking about travelling into communities with a population base of 900 to 1,500 people that has no other resources available,” Greg Merrithew, owner of Arctic West Adjusters, says. “We don’t have disaster restoration technicians in these communities; there is no such thing in the North. So we will fly into a place where the contractor has never done a water escape claim before — and we only have the one contractor.”

Cost-effective adjusting

Because there is no competitive contractor, the adjuster from Arctic West will assess the loss and determine the scope of work, before sitting down with the contractor to help him/her develop quotations on the repairs because it is such an unusual event for the contractor. “It’s either that, or we have to fly a (specialized) technician in from either Yellowknife or Edmonton or Ottawa,” Merrithew says. “It’s just not cost-effective.”

Other times, such as in an automobile claim, the insured will have to perform the repairs themselves because there isn’t a body shop in the area. If there are major repairs that need to be done to the body of a vehicle, parts are ordered in from outside, and an auto body specialist will do some of the work in their hometown before flying out to the community and shipping the parts to finish up the work there. Merrithew tells of a claim in Arviat, Nunavut where a water truck rolled over into the snow, damaging the cab. The only way to cost effectively repair the vehicle was to remove the entire cab and replace it. He met with an auto body technician in Yellowknife, ordered a new cab from Louisville, Ky, had it shipped to Yellowknife where it was painted and put on a pallet and filled with all the extra parts the technician would need to install it to the truck, before it was shrink-wrapped and loaded on a plane and flown, along with the technician, to Rankin Inlet. From there, it was loaded onto a sled, hauled by a Bombardier snowmobile for 170 kilometers down the Hudson Bay to a local garage in Arviat. A frame was built in the local garage to lift the damaged cab off the water truck and replace it with the new cab.

This is standard fare in the North, where everything must be flown in or hauled along the sea ice. Some communities only have sea access once a year by sea lift, which comes in September, and if the items required are not on that year’s ship — which is often filled six to eight months before it leaves the port in Montreal — then it’s another year until a house can be rebuilt or a vital piece of equipment replaced. Adjusters at Arctic West quickly learn who to call about freeing up some space on the ship to ensure that someone’s house can be rebuilt or a new fire truck can be shipped to a remote community.

Alternative thinking

Developing relationships is a huge aspect of working in the North, Merrithew says.

Another large challenge is trying to control the costs on behalf of the client, he adds. Adjusters at Arctic West take the time to determine what the most cost-effective way to handle a claim is, while also having to keep in mind that a community cannot be without a fire truck for nine months or a hospital for even a few weeks and a family cannot bunk up with another family for six months because there is no other housing available and their home was lost in a fire. Due to the varying differences in community structure and access, every preliminary report created by Arctic West includes data on the community, a map of the community in relation to the entire territory, infrastructure available in the community, road access availability and contractor availability, so that the insurance company is able to foresee what type of situation the adjuster is faced with and the reason for the increased cost. Merrithew sites an example of a loss at a hospital in Cambridge Bay, Nunavut, which cost roughly $1.6 million. In Edmonton that same claim would have run only $400,000. The majority of the increased cost is related to labour and expediting in the North, he notes.

All lines adjusting

But it is not only geography that makes Arctic West stand apart from other firms, it’s the fact that all adjusters at the company must be great general adjusters in all lines — there are no specialties in the North. “Insurance companies can’t handle claims here like they would typically handle in the South,” Merrithew notes. “As a result of that, we get a variety of work, everything from auto to liability to property to municipal liability to government liability. We just hit everything up here and you’ll find typically in the South that there are firms that specialize in certain areas . . . up here we don’t have that luxury because we have a limited population spread over a large vast geographical area.”

Continuing education

And not only are adjusters well-versed in all lines at Arctic West, but they have also learned how to turn around a claim quite quickly. With increases in technology, such as sending files as PDFs via email rather than relying on regular post or telex machines, client expectations for a quicker turn-around time have also increased, notes Merrithew. To mitigate any errors that may occur as a result of the increased time pressures, Merrithew has implemented measures such as file audits and an increased focus on continuing education. “We put on continuing education courses here with my staff internally,” he notes. “I, as well, send my staff out at significant expense (to learn more) . . . we continue on the education, we do continue the file audits. And there is a cost that we have to bear as a result of that, but the only way you can [ensure service is top-notch] is by literally gritting your teeth, paying the bucks and making sure everybody’s on board with the educational process.”

Staff retention

Providing continuous education and training for his staff is not only beneficial to the client, but to the adjuster and Arctic West as well. “The only asset of any value that I have as a business owner is my staff,” he said. “And if I don’t continually have my staff engaged both in education and in learning everything they can both in their fields and in the fields that we get in, you are going to lose them.”

Merrithew, who has been an owner of the company along with his wife Liz Wyman since 1988, admits it has taken a while to learn what it takes to keep people on staff up in the North. He realizes now that the key is ensuring the quality of the relationship between the employer and the employee. It is a challenging lifestyle to live and work in the North, Merrithew says. Many people come up to live for the experience before quickly moving South again. B
y offering more educational opportunities, and more flexibility in work-life balance, Merrithew has been able to retain staff for longer periods of time.

“I’ve been doing it for 29 years,” he chuckles. “They follow the lead of the old dog.” But whether any of the staff will take the reigns of the company after Merrithew is still up in the air. He notes that in four to five years he will have to come up with an exit strategy, but at this time there is no set plan and the door is open for any staff to step forward or for someone else to take over the reigns down the road.

In the meantime, the small adjusting firm is focused on top-notch claims service and fostering the independent spirit. The ability to continuously improve is aided by the company’s membership within the Canadian Independent Adjusters’ Association (CIAA). “We all have common challenges and there are solutions out there,” he says. “We get to trade off on these solutions when we meet as an organization and that, for me personally, is a huge benefit.”