Somewhere along the way, we may have lost sight of what matters most: handling the claim.

The insurance claims industry has never been short on complexity. Between policy language, coverage questions, regulatory requirements, documentation, litigation, customer expectations, and the sheer logistics of getting people back to normal after a loss, there is plenty to keep claims professionals busy.

But have we added another layer of complexity that doesn’t necessarily make us better at what we do?

Consider a fairly common scenario.

A sales team is working to secure a new client. To win the business, they agree to a lower hourly rate, a faster turnaround time, or a set of performance expectations that make the proposal attractive. The client is happy. The business is secured. Everyone celebrates.

Then operations gets involved.

Now someone has to figure out how to deliver the promised service at a reduced rate, meet an aggressive turnaround time, maintain quality, manage staffing, and somehow keep the economics of the assignment sustainable.

And that’s where things get interesting.

The question isn’t whether sales should be competitive or whether clients should expect accountability. Both are perfectly reasonable. The question is whether the expectations we establish are actually aligned with the realities of handling a claim.

When the Numbers Become the Objective

Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) are supposed to help us measure performance. They can identify bottlenecks, highlight opportunities for improvement, and give clients visibility into how their claims are being handled.

But what happens when the measurement becomes more important than the outcome?

If an adjuster is measured primarily on the number of claims closed, does that encourage efficiency or risk sacrificing the time needed to properly investigate a complex loss?

If turnaround time becomes the primary measure of success, are we rewarding quality work or simply rewarding speed?

If an operation is evaluated on utilization and billable hours, does that create an incentive to work smarter, or does it sometimes discourage the very efficiencies that clients are asking for?

Metrics are valuable when they tell us something meaningful. They become problematic when employees start managing the numbers instead of managing the work.

A claim closed quickly isn’t necessarily a claim handled well. A low-cost assignment isn’t necessarily an efficient assignment. And a report delivered within a contractual timeframe doesn’t automatically mean the client received the best possible work product.

The Disconnect Between Sales and Operations

One of the biggest challenges in the claims business is the relationship between what gets promised and what can realistically be delivered.

Sales teams are tasked with growing relationships, winning new business, and differentiating their organizations from competitors. Operations teams are tasked with delivering on those promises.

Those objectives should complement one another. Unfortunately, they don’t always align.

A lower hourly rate might make sense if the assignment involves predictable work, manageable travel, and straightforward documentation. That same rate might become problematic when the assignment involves a complex commercial loss, multiple stakeholders, extensive investigation, or significant reporting requirements.

Likewise, a five-day turnaround might be entirely reasonable for one assignment and completely unrealistic for another.

The problem isn’t necessarily that someone made a bad promise. It’s that the promise may have been made without fully understanding what it takes to execute.

When sales, operations, and the client aren’t aligned from the beginning, the burden eventually falls on the people doing the work.

And those people are often the adjusters, examiners, project managers, and support staff who have the least control over the expectations that were established.

Are We Measuring the Wrong Things?

Perhaps it’s time to reconsider some of the ways we define success in the claims industry.

Instead of focusing exclusively on how quickly a claim is assigned, inspected, or closed, should we be looking more closely at the overall quality and effectiveness of the process?

Consider a few questions:

• Are we measuring claim quality alongside turnaround time?
• Are we accounting for the complexity of an assignment when evaluating performance?
• Are our KPIs encouraging collaboration or creating unnecessary administrative work?
• Are client reporting requirements actually improving claim outcomes?
• Are we rewarding efficiency, or simply rewarding people for doing more with less?
• Are the expectations established during the sales process realistic for the teams responsible for execution?

These aren’t arguments against accountability. Quite the opposite. Accountability matters, particularly in an industry where the financial and personal consequences of a poorly handled claim can be significant.

But accountability should measure what actually matters.

Speed isn’t the whole story (KPIs and turnaround)

• J.D. Power’s 2026 property claims study ranks the dimensions of satisfaction in order of importance. Fairness of the settlement and level of trust come first, ahead of the time it took to settle. That supports your point that a fast close isn’t the same as a well-handled claim. jdpower
• The counterpoint: the same study found overall satisfaction rose 20 points to 702, with average repair time down to 29.6 days and time to final payment down to 40.7 days. Speed does matter to customers. The stronger framing is that speed is necessary but not sufficient. insurancebusinessmag
• Claims leakage is a real cost of rushing. EY’s claims quality assessments put leakage at roughly 7% to 14% of carriers’ total spend. One industry analysis notes that when adjusters are incentivized to prioritize speed over diligence, quality suffers through inaccurate scoping, inconsistent coverage interpretation, and incomplete investigation, which increases leakage and rework. eyvalorant

Pricing and promises vs. operational reality (sales vs. operations)

• A March 2026 procurement analysis warns that excessive fee pressure may unintentionally incentivize speed over accuracy, undermining fairness and defensibility. It also says over-negotiation could disengage skilled adjusters and degrade claim quality. This is probably your most direct support for the sales-versus-ops section. valorantvalorant
• On rising complexity, claimants are generally better informed and quicker to seek legal representation, driving up litigation rates and settlement costs. That supports your point that a flat rate or five-day turnaround doesn’t fit every assignment. verisk

The people absorbing the gap (capacity and burnout)

• Sedgwick’s 2026 Loss Adjusting Insights Report says nearly 25% of claims adjusters are expected to retire by the end of 2027. riskandinsurance
• Vertafore reports new adjuster licenses dropped 16% in 2025 and are expected to keep declining through 2026. verticaliq
• Deloitte’s interviews with 17 P&C chief claims officers found average adjuster attrition around 20%, and significantly higher among early-career adjusters. carriermanagement
• Glassdoor’s analysis found employment in the claims adjusting industry fell about 21% year over year through May 2026. insurancebusinessmag
• CUNY School of Public Health research estimates burnout costs employers $4,000 to $21,000 per employee per year in lost productivity and turnover. claimsjournal
• On workload, one source notes no human can be expected to master that level of complexity while also handling 50+ claims. That one is from a vendor blog, so treat it as illustrative rather than authoritative. coverager

The Client Isn’t Always Asking for More

Here’s another piece of the conversation worth considering.

Sometimes, we create expectations that clients didn’t necessarily ask us to create.

In an effort to be competitive, service providers may introduce additional reporting, more frequent status updates, increasingly detailed dashboards, and increasingly aggressive turnaround commitments.

Over time, those commitments can become the standard, even when they aren’t delivering meaningful additional value.

Does every claim need another report? Does every assignment require another layer of management oversight? Does every client relationship need a new performance metric?

Sometimes, the best service a claims organization can provide is simply doing the job well, communicating effectively, and delivering a quality work product.

There is a difference between providing value and creating activity that looks like value.

Finding a Better Balance

The answer isn’t to eliminate KPIs, reduce client expectations, or discourage sales teams from being competitive.

It’s to get everyone working toward the same objective.

Sales needs to understand operational realities. Operations needs to understand client expectations. Clients need transparency into what different assignments actually require. And the people handling claims need the resources, time, and support necessary to do their jobs properly.

Perhaps we should spend less time measuring how many things we can accomplish and more time evaluating whether the things we’re doing are actually improving the claims process.

The claims industry is already complicated enough. We don’t need to make it harder by creating competing objectives within our own organizations.

At the end of the day, the goal should be pretty simple: handle the claim efficiently, do quality work, communicate with the client, and deliver on what was promised.

Maybe it’s time to ask ourselves whether we’re building better claims organizations or just building more complicated ones.

Are KPIs, client expectations, and sales promises making the claims industry more complicated than it needs to be? Where do you see the biggest disconnect between what gets promised and what actually happens in the field? Comment below.