Take notes like it's gonna be read aloud in court

Mike LaFond is Assistant Vice President of Claims at Pekin Insurance. In the 5th episode of the Amazing Claims Conversations with Scott Francis, he talks about the industry the way someone does when they genuinely enjoy the work: the people you meet, the different skill sets, the connections that open doors you didn't know existed.

When the conversation turns to nuclear verdicts and rising settlement costs, Mike has two answers. One is at the file level. One is structural.

At the file level, the answer is clean claim handling.

Log notes that are accurate. Communication with the insured that is clear and consistent. The discipline to track every action and every decision. The standard Mike describes: take notes like they'll be read aloud in court. That's not a hypothetical. He's been deposed because a log note said one thing and the actions in the field said another.

Clean handling limits the traps: policy-limit demands, time-limit demands, and documentation failures that turn a manageable file into a litigation problem. If the file is handled well, a lot of those situations stay tamped down before they escalate.

At the corporate level, the answer is reinsurance.

Mike describes the bind carriers face with nuclear verdict exposure: a case with genuine liability questions, settlement talks going nowhere, but the potential for a large verdict makes the risk hard to take on. Carriers settle to protect their financials, even when the case might be worth trying.

Reinsurance changes that calculation. By transferring the catastrophic exposure above a certain threshold to a reinsurer, a carrier can take a case to trial without the balance sheet at stake. Mike gives a specific example: a commercial auto case. The insured was going 40 in a 35. The plaintiff pulled out from a stop sign. Video evidence, clear as it gets. The jury pool put the case at $15 million. Liability was 50/50. Without reinsurance, a carrier has to settle. With reinsurance behind it, the carrier has the freedom to try.

You manage the risk at the desk, or at the top. The carriers doing both have more options than the ones relying on just one.

The rattlesnake file.

Mike shares a story from early in his career in Corpus Christi, South Texas. A claim file with a photograph of a headless 10-foot rattlesnake in the bed of an F-250. A man stepping into his truck, opening a gate, who thought he'd hit a cactus. He hadn't. The insured was a boot company. The boots were advertised as snakebite-proof, from the ankle up. The bite was on top of the foot.

It's the kind of story you only hear if you work in claims. That's part of what he loves about it.

The next generation.

The episode was filmed at the Rise Leadership Summit. Mike talks about the program that is genuinely investing in younger professionals coming into the industry. As a senior leader watching the next generation step up, he calls it remarkable. The industry will be better for it.

Outside of claims, Mike water-skis with his daughter. One of the few sports, he says, where he competes alongside her instead of watching from the sideline.

About Claims Conversations

Claims Conversations is an interview series hosted by amaise General Manager Scott Francis. Each episode is a 10-minute, on-the-record conversation with a VP, Director, or Head of Claims about one specific thing that is working in their shop.

Previous episodes

EP. 01 — Dale Diamond, VP of Claims, NAMIC Insurance: "How mid-sized carriers punch above their weight on severity."

EP. 02 — Mark Konerman, Director of Claims: "Resolving complex injury files before they escalate."

EP. 03 — Michelle Raue, Founder & Advisor, Raue Strategic Advisory: "Use AI to take manual work off and let adjusters actually talk to people."

EP. 04 — Awais Farooq, Chief Claims Officer, Venbrook: "A good claim is a closed claim."

Be a guest

If your team has changed something that moved severity, cycle time, or BI outcomes in the last 12 months, email scott.francis@amaise.com.