Up for the Challenge

Patrick O’Hara’s 40-year career in insurance could perhaps be attributed to one heck of a sales job – one delivered by, and ultimately targeted at, the man himself.

Working out of high school as a disc jockey in British Columbia, Alberta-born and raised O’Hara filled the 9 pm to midnight slot, six days a week.

One night he had to write, record and read a sponsor’s commercial spot for a trainee adjuster.

“It sounded like a pretty challenging and entertaining occupation and/or career. So be doggoned, I decided I would apply for it,” says O’Hara, who is now claims manager for Millennium Insurance in Alberta and current president of the Canadian Insurance Claims Managers Association (CICMA).

O’Hara was offered the job and accepted. Beyond tackling a new challenge, there were two other very attractive features of the job: regular 8 am to 5 pm hours and more than double his salary in radio.

Sold.

There is nothing wrong with being entertained, O’Hara suggests, an approach he seems to maintain to this day. “I would probably say the day I no longer have fun coming to work is the day that I’m going to retire,” he says.

O’Hara’s first job was as an inside telephone adjuster, which he stayed at for six months, representing the first of many interesting positions he would assume over the next four decades in the business. “In the first 14 years in the insurance industry,” says O’Hara, he and his wife moved nine times.

In shops big and small – everything from independent adjusting firms to insurance companies – O’Hara has handled auto, multi-peril and specialty claims, working from British Columbia to Manitoba as an inside telephone adjuster, a field adjuster, an independent adjuster, a senior supervisor, a branch claims manager, a partner and a special loss adjuster.

The list of companies for which O’Hara has worked is also long. It includes Insurance Corporation of British Columbia (ICBC), CIS Limited, Wawanesa Insurance, Underwriters Adjustment Bureau, Royal Sun Alliance and Millennium Insurance.

BUILDING EXPERIENCE

That commercial spot proved a stroke of luck for O’Hara. It was certainly luckier than the subject of his first-ever claim, which, nonetheless, offered proof positive that adjusting could be an interesting career choice, indeed.

Working at the ICBC, O’Hara was sitting at his desk when he was called to reception to deal with a walk-in. There, he encountered a man with “a perfect horseshoe in his face,” he recalls. The man’s vehicle had collided with a moose, leaving a hoof print on his face that necessitated 112 stitches, he says.

“Welcome to the insurance industry,” he says, laughing.

O’Hara had a great time in B.C., and a great mentor at ICBC with his then superior. “What I liked about him is if you didn’t do it right the first time, you were going right back out that same afternoon or morning when you came back in. If something was missing in a statement, he would say, ‘This isn’t here, this isn’t here; go back and get it.'”

But when the opportunity arose to return to Alberta, handling multi-peril-type claims and having a regular road run, O’Hara took it.

Over the next 20 years, he criss crossed Western Canada, assuming increasingly responsible jobs and building his ever-widening claims experience – everything from auto to tornado to a $4.5 million specialty claim.

“I had some unbelievable tight claims to do,” he says of his experience with specialty claims. “I quite enjoyed it because the claims were not many, but they were very detailed and very big,” he says. “So you learn again. It’s just building that experience level,” he notes.

Then 16 years ago, O’Hara settled at Edmonton-area Millennium Insurance. “They were looking for a person who understood insurance, not just claims, but underwriting and everything else,” he says. His varied experience fit the bill and he was hired as a claims manager, a position he maintains to this day, although he has “had a hand in all nine departments.”

“It’s been really entertaining and a lot of fun,” O’Hara says of his time at Millennium Insurance, adding that his employer allows him the time he needs to continue his involvement in CICMA and work towards the goals members are striving to achieve.

O’Hara’s first taste of CICMA was in the early 1990s when he was in Winnipeg, in fact serving as president of CICMA’s Manitoba chapter in 1992. He has been involved at the national level for about a decade.

EXPANDING EDUCATION

Experience offers its own education, and education is something O’Hara hopes to continue to promote while CICMA president.

“Education is still primary; it always will be,” he says, adding that CICMA’s goal is to “continue to get education front and centre with our industry.”

But it is not just about educating the industry; efforts also need to focus on the public. “People today are not that insurance knowledgeable,” O’Hara says. That said, is it a matter that Joe public does not “understand the wordings, or what is there or what isn’t covered, or are we not giving enough information when we’re selling a policy about available coverage?” he asks.

“We, as an industry, might be our biggest problem because we don’t communicate enough to the general public,” he comments. “I think now, especially with social media, if you don’t communicate to people and tell them what’s up or what’s not, why aren’t we?”

Another important education initiative, O’Hara says, is the Canadian Inter-Company Arbitration Agreement, intended to provide an informal alternative to litigation when there are subrogation claims between insurance companies.

“I sat as the national arbitration person for two years and I was amazed how many people didn’t understand the agreement,” he says, emphasizing the need to ensure everyone becomes better-informed.

Also key to meeting CICMA’s central goal of promoting and enhancing the image and welfare of the general insurance industry in matters pertaining to settling claims will be attracting more younger people to the profession.

At its national meeting last September, O’Hara – then vice president – had representatives introduce themselves and say how they got into the insurance business. “Out of the 14 people around the table, not one of us had indicated that we had thought about insurance as a career, or had planned to become something in the insurance industry,” he says.

“The challenge I gave to all our national delegates, during the course of the next year, contact your local high school, get a hold of the guidance counsellor and ask them if you can do a presentation on insurance as a career,” he says. Every national delegate “has taken that same challenge back to the local chapter,” he says.

An injection of new blood would certainly help with keeping the adjusting sector healthy while it tackles existing and emerging claims.

“The big one I think we’re all facing is cyber,” O’Hara says. “Everyone is going to be subjected to it at one level or another,” he suggests, meaning that CICMA must continue to work with the Canadian Independent Adjusters’ Association, Insurance Bureau of Canada and anyone who offers any information about insurance. “As senior management, we have to make sure our staffs are educated and informed as changes occur,” O’Hara says.

“It’s a challenge every day, but it’s what it’s all about,” he says of working in claims.

Still, being challenged can be fun. “The day it no longer becomes fun is the day that I’m done,” O’Hara says.