Ep. 6: Your Best Adjuster Might Be the One You Need to Check On Most
Chelsy Bell Carpenter
Oct 19, 2026, 5:53:55 PM
Ep. 6: Your Best Adjuster Might Be the One You Need to Check On Most
9:30
Your Best Adjuster Might Be the One You Need to Check On Most
By Chelsy Bell Carpenter, VP of Business Development, Ampion Group.
Episode 6
Every claims team has one.
The person everyone trusts.
The adjuster who can handle the complicated file.
The one who rarely misses a deadline.
The person you give the difficult customer to because you know they can manage the conversation.
The person you ask to mentor someone new.
Help with a project.
Take another assignment.
Jump into a meeting.
Why?
Because they always figure it out.
There is just one problem.
Sometimes the person you worry about the least is the person carrying the most.
After more than fifteen years in this industry—and after experiencing burnout in my own career—I have learned that high performance can hide a tremendous amount of strain.
And middle managers play a critical role in recognizing it before performance begins to collapse.
High Performance Can Mask Low Capacity
We often associate burnout with visible struggle.
Missed deadlines.
Poor performance.
Absenteeism. Disengagement.
But those signs can appear very late.
Many high performers continue delivering long after their internal capacity has begun deteriorating.
They compensate.
They work longer.
They take work home.
They wake up earlier.
They skip breaks.
They tell themselves they just need to make it through this week.
And because the work is still getting done, everyone around them assumes they are fine.
The organization sees output.
The employee experiences depletion.
That gap can continue for months or even years.
The Competence Tax
There is an unspoken phenomenon in many workplaces that I call the competence tax.
The more capable you demonstrate yourself to be, the more people give you.
Another file.
Another escalation.
Another committee.
Another person to train.
Another "quick favor."
Individually, none of those requests looks unreasonable.
Collectively, they become unsustainable. This is especially common in claims because strong adjusters are incredibly valuable.
When leaders have a difficult assignment, they naturally think of the people they trust most.
But if we are not careful, reliability becomes rewarded with overload.
Eventually, the very employee we were trying to depend on becomes exhausted, disengaged, or leaves.
That is not a performance issue.
It is often a capacity issue that went unnoticed.
Built to Last Principle: Sustainable Performance Is the Goal
Built to Last is not about lowering standards.
It is about creating performance that can be repeated.
That distinction matters.
Anyone can sprint for a season.
Claims professionals prove this repeatedly during catastrophes, staffing shortages, large-loss events, and unusual surges.
But a career is not a catastrophe response.
If the operating model requires someone to function in emergency mode indefinitely, the model is not sustainable.
High performers need challenge.
They want responsibility.
They often enjoy being the person others trust.
The leadership opportunity is not to stop giving them meaningful work.
It is to understand the difference between development and depletion.
One grows the person.
The other consumes them. Managers Must Look Beyond Production
Metrics are important.
But they do not tell the entire story.
A high performer can have excellent numbers while showing early signs of burnout.
You may notice:
more irritability,
less patience,
difficulty delegating,
increased perfectionism,
working excessive hours,
constant availability,
less creativity,
withdrawal from the team,
or an increasing inability to disconnect.
Sometimes the employee will tell you directly that they are overwhelmed.
Often they will not.
Especially if being "the reliable one" has become part of their identity.
That is why effective one-on-one conversations matter.
Instead of only asking:
"How are your numbers?"
Try asking:
"What is consuming the most mental energy right now?"
"Which claims are following you home?"
"Where do you feel like you are carrying something alone?"
"What would make your workload feel more manageable?"
"Where are you spending time because you do not know who else can help?"
Those questions reveal information metrics cannot.
Stop Rewarding Capability With More Weight
One of the most important questions a manager can ask before assigning more work is:
Am I giving this to them because it is the right developmental opportunity—or simply because I know they will get it done?
There is a difference.
The high performer should not automatically become the catch-all solution for every operational gap.
Sometimes leadership means distributing opportunity more intentionally.
Developing other team members.
Cross-training.
Building bench strength.
Bringing in outside expertise.
And resisting the temptation to solve every problem by handing it to the strongest person on the team.
That strategy may work today.
It weakens the organization tomorrow.
Complex Claims Carry a Different Kind of Weight
Not all files require the same amount of energy.
A complicated or contentious claim can create enormous cognitive load. The adjuster may be reviewing technical reports, preparing for difficult conversations, navigating internal stakeholders, responding to customer concerns, and trying to anticipate where the dispute may go next.
That file can occupy mental bandwidth far beyond the time physically spent working it.
Managers should understand this when evaluating workload.
Twenty claims are not always twenty equal units of work.
The complexity, emotional intensity, and uncertainty surrounding the files matter.
This is another reason knowing when to bring in expertise is so important.
Sometimes an outside expert does more than solve a technical problem.
They remove cognitive burden from the adjuster.
They provide clarity.
They create a next step.
They give the adjuster confidence that the decision is supported.
That matters for the claim and for the person carrying it.
Collaboration Is a Burnout Strategy
High performers are often reluctant to ask for help because they are accustomed to being the help.
That is why managers must actively normalize collaboration.
Not:
"Let me know if you can't handle it."
But:
"Who else should be involved?"
Not:
"Do you need me to take this over?"
But: "What resource would make you stronger on this file?"
That language matters.
It protects the adjuster's competence while expanding their support.
The message becomes:
You are capable.
And capable people still use resources.
That is a much healthier model of professional confidence.
Build Bench Strength, Not Superheroes
Organizations love superheroes.
The person who can step in and save the day.
But superhero-dependent organizations are fragile.
What happens when that person takes vacation?
Gets promoted?
Leaves?
Burns out?
Strong claims organizations build systems, not heroes.
They develop multiple people.
They share knowledge.
They create escalation paths.
They document expertise.
They build relationships with external resources before they are urgently needed.
And they create a culture where no single employee has to be indispensable for the operation to succeed.
Ironically, this often makes high performers even more effective. When they are not constantly rescuing the system, they have more capacity to think strategically, mentor intentionally, and tackle the work that actually requires their level of expertise.
The Leadership Responsibility
Middle managers sit in a uniquely influential position.
You often know your employees better than executive leadership does.
You see the inventory.
You hear the customer escalations.
You understand the personalities.
You know who always says yes.
You know who volunteers.
You know who keeps working after everyone else logs off.
That visibility is a responsibility.
Sometimes support looks like encouragement.
Sometimes it looks like accountability.
Sometimes it looks like saying no on behalf of an employee who will not say it themselves.
Sometimes it means moving work.
Sometimes it means bringing in another expert so the adjuster can stop carrying an issue they were never meant to solve alone.
That is not lowering the bar.
It is protecting the people you need to keep clearing it.
A Question for Claims Leaders
Look at the person on your team you trust the most.
Then ask yourself:
When was the last time I checked on their capacity instead of their performance? High performance does not equal unlimited capacity.
Reliability does not mean someone should carry everything.
And the goal of leadership should not be to see how much your best people can tolerate.
It should be to create an environment where talented people can continue doing excellent work without sacrificing themselves to sustain it.
That is what it means to build a career, a team, and an organization that lasts.
And when part of protecting that capacity means bringing specialized expertise into a difficult claim, having the right partner already available matters.
That is one reason I am proud to now be part of Ampion and the work being done to support claims professionals through complex disputes.
Sometimes the best way to support your strongest adjuster is simply to remind them:
You do not have to carry this one alone.