Almost nothing about a catastrophe response is truly decided during the catastrophe. The licensing, the equipment, the guidelines, the communication plan, and the way people will be cared for over weeks away from home are all decided — or left undecided — before the first claim comes in. Pre-season is where the response is won.
- Decide in advance what will be hard to decide in the moment.
- Confirm licensing, paperwork, and estimating-platform readiness before deployment.
- Brief carrier guidelines and the documentation standard before volume hits.
- Prepare communication templates and escalation paths now.
- Plan rest, rotation, and check-ins as seriously as equipment.
For the adjuster
- Licensing. Confirm your licenses are current and understand how emergency or deployment licensing works in the states you may be sent to.
- Paperwork. Make sure your firm and carrier files are current so you can be activated without delay.
- Estimating platform. Update it and practice on it before you need speed. Deployment is a poor time to learn a new version.
- Equipment. Inspect your ladder, harness, measuring tools, moisture meter, camera, batteries, and power backups. Replace what is worn.
- Logistics. A go-bag, lodging plans and backups, and a realistic budget for the time before reimbursement arrives.
- Home front. A plan for bills, family, pets, and obligations during weeks away.
- Rest. Decide now how you will protect sleep and time off. You will not decide it well at hour fourteen of day twenty.
For the claims leader and the firm
- Roster readiness. Confirm who is available, licensed, and current — and who is new and needs more support.
- Guidelines briefed, not just sent. A briefing with questions beats a document nobody opened.
- One documentation standard. Agree on what a complete file looks like before volume makes everyone improvise.
- Communication templates. First contact, status updates, delays, and difficult news — written in advance, in plain language.
- Escalation paths. Who decides what, and how fast. Unclear authority is one of the most common sources of delay in a surge.
- Check-in cadence. Regular contact with deployed adjusters, about workload and about how they are holding up.
- Rotation and wellbeing. Plan relief before people need it, not after they quit.
Decide in advance
The most useful pre-season exercise is simple: list the decisions that will be hardest to make under pressure, and make them now. What will we tell policyholders about timelines? Who speaks for the team? What happens when a file needs a decision outside normal authority? What did last season teach us that we have not yet changed?
Every crisis has a before. The organizations that handle catastrophe well are usually the ones that used it.
Run a pre-mortem
Before the season, gather the team and imagine it went badly. Ask what most likely caused it — then fix those things while there is still time. A pre-mortem surfaces the risks people already sense but have not said out loud, which is exactly the information a leader needs before the storm.
Questions
How do CAT adjusters prepare for storm season?
Confirm licenses and deployment paperwork, update and practice the estimating platform, inspect and replace equipment, plan logistics and finances for weeks away, arrange the home front, and decide in advance how to protect rest during deployment.
What should IA firms and claims leaders do before catastrophe deployment?
Confirm roster readiness, brief carrier guidelines, agree on one documentation standard, prepare communication templates, clarify escalation authority, set a check-in cadence with deployed adjusters, and plan rotation and wellbeing support.
What is a pre-mortem in catastrophe planning?
A pre-mortem asks a team to imagine the season went badly and identify the most likely causes, so those risks can be addressed before the season begins.
Leading Before the Storm
How to recognize risk, build readiness, and act before crisis forces your hand. Book one of the Storm Line.
