Can Canada keep claims adjusters from quitting?

As labour markets shift, the clock may be ticking on claims professional roles, says a recent report.

Claims adjusters, examiners and investigators ranked 12th for the fastest declining jobs by 2030, and 15th for the largest decline in absolute numbers employed within the same time period, according to the World Economic Forum’s The Future of Jobs Report 2025. That means far more claims roles will be cut than created.

Those findings aren’t disputed by the Canadian P&C insurance industry. But claims don’t stop just because jobs decline. For adjuster leaders, the goal remains to keep adjuster supply commensurate with claims demand, experts tell Canadian Underwriter.

“There has absolutely been a noticeable decline in the number of experienced adjusters,” says Paul Gilbody, president at ClaimsPro. “It’s beyond argument the replacement rate [for] the number of people leaving or retiring isn’t really keeping pace with the number of people joining.”

Between 2023 and 2026, approximately 1,830 claims professionals are forecast to retire nationwide, according to the Insurance Institute of Canada’s latest demographic research. Attrition rates for claims employees in commercial lines will be higher than those in personal lines.

That’s creating acute competition for skilled adjusters. “We see salary demands or commission rates much higher than they used to be. We see people being poached by, or moving, to brokers or insurance companies,” says Gilbody. “Everyone’s fighting over a very small number of people.”

Retirements and stagnating recruitment pools undoubtedly factor into the decline in claims professionals, but on a global scale, digital advancements are among the drivers making certain job functions obsolete, World Economic Forum’s report says.

And adjusting agencies see opportunities in advancing claims technology, especially as experienced adjusters retire or move to competitors.

“It’s almost complementary, where we’ve got this labour shortage, or a challenge of recruiting people into the industry and training them up, and we also have technology automating some tasks,” says Greg Smith, president of Crawford & Company (Canada). “We think [technology] is part of the solution to the core problem.”

AI’s fresh eyes

Using artificial intelligence (AI) means some routine tasks in an adjuster’s workload can be automated to free them up for more client-facing interactions, says Smith. “That’s creating a little bit of a relief valve for us in terms of the staffing we need to do.”

Plus, new technologies can help claims professionals analyze vast amounts of data and extract insights from complex policy documents. With a shortage of experienced adjusters, AI can act as a second set of eyes for adjusters or help train new ones.

For example, Crawford uses an estimate review tool to assist adjusters in their first pass at an estimate and a coverage review tool to help them inquire about individual policy coverages. 

Of course, these technologies require sufficient human oversight.

“We use one tool that provides complete 3D imaging of the scene of a loss,” says Smith. “So, just as you could look at a real estate listing and walk through the house that’s for sale, going room-to-room, looking around, and pivoting your camera, we can capture that kind of imagery at the scene of a fire or flood loss.

“Suddenly, that expert with decades of experience can, right from their computer, walk through that scene of the loss with the adjuster who was at the scene with them and have a conversation around what they saw and what they observed,” he says. “It’s a training tool unlike any other we’ve been able to deploy.”

New recruits

However, technology is not a magic bullet. Only recruitment and retention of staff can solve the long-term talent problem.

Gilbody says his firm’s seen recent recruitment successes at colleges and universities. “We’ve just recruited a whole bunch of people fresh out of college and from other career paths, and we’re training them up to be adjusters. That’s something we’re [continuing to review and monitor]…because I think that’s really important.”

Those successes establish the foundation for long-term solutions such as formal succession planning. That means pairing rookie employees with seasoned adjusters who share similar career paths, specialties or expertise, or who work within a common geographic area, says Gilbody.

“Then, just making sure that people have capacity to help and support — so if you’re an adjuster who’s taking on a big energy loss, as an example, and you haven’t necessarily done a lot of them before, who’s [coaching you] to make sure the work is getting done to the required standard? Who’s there quarterbacking you, so that when the client gets the report, the file is done to the right [standard]?

From there, it’s all about getting those newer people to the level of the people who are retiring.

“That is predicated on having a sufficient number of people in the first place to do that,” says Gilbody. “So, it then comes back to a recruitment story, and how we’re recruiting people into the industry.”

This article is excerpted from one that appeared in the April-May 2025 print edition of Canadian Underwriter.