Following the devastating 2025 Los Angeles wildfires, claims professionals across the country are once again on the media and actual frontlines of a crisis that extends far beyond burned structures and blackened landscapes. The physical damage is immense, but the emotional toll on survivors runs deeper and lasts longer than most realize. A recent must-read article by John E. Putnam, published by the International Risk Management Institute (IRMI), Understanding the Resilience and Recovery of Wildfire Survivors, cuts to the heart of this issue. Putnam offers a timely, vital call to action for all of us in the claims industry. It’s time we fully recognize the human side of catastrophe response. I have previously noted the work of John Putnam in Wildfire Devastation—What Next? and Unseen Smoke and Visual Ash Dangers from Wildfires.
Putnam’s latest is not just a commentary. Instead, it’s a blueprint for a call to action to claims professionals and their leadership to fully show up when disaster strikes. Drawing from his extensive experience in claims and catastrophe response, Putnam emphasizes the psychological trauma that policyholders endure after losing their homes, their communities, and, in some cases, their sense of safety and identity. Survivors are often navigating a fog of grief, shock, and profound disorientation. In these early moments of loss, the insurance professional becomes more than a handler of policies. We, meaning everybody in the claims recovery business, become what Putnam calls “second responders,” tasked with not only initiating financial recovery but also, crucially, supporting emotional recovery.
The emotional and psychological impact of wildfire loss is now well-documented in both industry and academic literature. Research following major events such as the California Camp Fire, the Marshall Fire in Colorado, and Hurricane Katrina has consistently shown that emotional distress can be compounded by the claims process itself—especially when communication is poor, delays are frequent, or survivors feel treated like a number rather than a person. My research found numerous scholarly articles finding that survivors with unresolved insurance disputes were more predictive of ongoing depression and anxiety than the initial disaster event. 1 One study emerged after Hurricane Sandy, where minority and lower-income policyholders faced disproportionately high barriers in receiving timely and fair insurance payouts. 2 The lesson is clear and almost predictable. How we handle a claim can either help people heal or deepen the trauma.
Putnam urges professionals at every level of claims organizations to approach wildfire survivors with compassion, clarity, and consistency. Empathy is not a soft skill in this context. It’s a critical component of effective claims handling. Survivors need to be heard and understood, not rushed through impersonal checklists or bogged down in confusing policy jargon. Providing certainty and emotional steadiness in the early phases of a claim can help survivors begin to process their grief and regain a sense of control. These aren’t just theoretical ideals. Instead, they are actionable principles that can make a real difference in someone’s recovery timeline.
In straightforward language about what claims leadership should do, Putnam states:
Incorporate more psychological training into their training to better navigate and communicate with customers when catastrophic events strike.
Review existing claims handling procedures to determine whether they make sense for large-scale claim events and seek to simplify them as much as possible.
Evaluate the organizational structure of claim responses. Get the claim handlers as close to the survivors as possible and let them know who is doing what, when, and where to contact them. Start by setting standards for responding to customer inquiries.
Consider adopting more group approaches to adjusting claims. In the wildfire recoveries I witnessed, this practice was never initiated by the insurance companies but by the survivors themselves. Based on my observations, such group endeavors can assist in leveraging a speedier recovery and better claim outcomes.
Consider re-engaging and training front-line agents in the recovery process and incentivizing this assistance beyond their standard commission.
Adopt a more rigorous after-action review of each catastrophic event, including company personnel and customers, to identify what worked and what improvement opportunities should be incorporated into future events. The goal should be to make continuous improvements, recognizing that the learning curve continues to be steep.
Of course, none of this can happen unless claims management anticipates and properly manages the workload. Insurance companies should anticipate surge demands after catastrophes and have surge staffing or mutual aid agreements to handle claims volume. Excessive delays in inspections or payouts often stem from adjuster overload. Policyholders should not have multiple adjusters on the file requiring them to relive the loss by explaining what happened multiple times to new adjusters reassigned to handle the claim. By proper planning (pre-certifying and training enough independent adjusters, using technology for faster estimates, etc.), insurers can prevent backlogs and substitutions that leave survivors in limbo and frustrated.
In Los Angeles, where entire neighborhoods have been reduced to ash, and thousands are now displaced, these lessons couldn’t be more urgent. Every desk adjuster, field examiner, supervisor, public adjuster, attorney, and executive leader in the claims space has a role to play. Whether you’re directing a catastrophe response team, handling first notice of loss, or managing policyholder communications, your influence extends into the emotional well-being of the people you serve. How we train our teams, how we design our workflows, and how we set expectations internally must all reflect an understanding of trauma-informed recovery.
Putnam’s article should be required reading across the industry—not just for its wisdom, but for its humanity. It reminds us that claims professionals, while often shielded behind systems and procedures, are capable of deeply impacting lives in the most meaningful way. We can help rebuild more than homes. We can help rebuild hope.
As the Los Angeles region begins what will be a long road to recovery, let us not lose sight of the human element in every claim. The survivors we serve aren’t just looking for reimbursement—they’re looking for someone to meet them with compassion in their darkest hour. If we can do that and take to heart the kind of empathetic, proactive approach that Putnam describes, then we are not just doing our jobs, but are doing something truly restorative for policyholders who are suffering more than just financial grief. Let that be the standard we set moving forward.
I will share more findings and will be speaking about this important topic at the Spring 2025 Rocky Mountain Association of Public Insurance Adjusters (RMAPIA) Conference on May 8-9 in Westminster, Colorado. Here is a link for that registration.
Thought For The Day
“It’s not enough to be compassionate—you must act.”
— Dalai Lama
1 John W. McKenzie, et al., Insurance Issues as Secondary Stressors Following Flooding in Rural Australia—A Mixed Methods Study, Int J Environ Res Public Health, 2022 May 24;19(11).
2 Brooks, S.K., Rogers, M.B., Wessely, S. et al., Psychosocial impacts of post-disaster compensation processes: narrative systematic review, BMC Psychol 12, 539 (2024), citing Evidence-Driven Approach for Assessing Social Vulnerability and Equality During Extreme Climatic Events, Barankin Ram A., Portman Michelle E., et al., Frontiers in Water, Vol 2 (2020).
#Emotional #Recovery #Wildfire #Loss