Quick Answer: Will AI Replace Adjusters?
AI will replace certain adjusting tasks, but it is unlikely to replace insurance adjusters in the foreseeable future.
Claims handling is highly regulated, and current AI cannot take legal or professional responsibility for investigating a loss, interpreting coverage, or making and defending the final claim decision.
The adjusters best prepared for the future will combine strong claims knowledge with the ability to use AI effectively. AI can suggest. The adjuster must decide.
How Will AI Change Adjusting Jobs?
Whether you are considering becoming an insurance adjuster or have handled claims for years, it is understandable to wonder what artificial intelligence means for your career.
You may already be seeing AI tools create reports, evaluate photographs, compare repair estimates, and produce answers in seconds. When a computer can complete a task that once took an adjuster 2 hours, the concern feels reasonable:
Will AI replace insurance adjusters?
Jim Cresse, a National General Adjuster with more than 35 years of experience and 9 AI-related certifications, has spent significant time testing AI tools and considering how they could affect the profession. This article is based on an interview with Cresse and reflects his experience handling claims and experimenting with AI in adjusting workflows. His conclusion is that adjusters cannot ignore the technology: the work will change, and adjusters will need to change with it.
| Based on what Cresse is seeing in the field, AI is already helping adjusters handle some parts of a claim faster. But he has not seen signs that insurance companies are planning to replace human adjusters. Instead, he believes the role will shift. Adjusters may spend more time checking AI-generated work, investigating suspicious evidence, and making decisions that still require human judgment. |
At AdjusterPro, we have helped new adjusters enter the industry for decades. We know firsthand how important it is to learn and adapt as technology changes. While we have a stake in the profession, our goal here is to give you an honest assessment of how AI is changing it, and how you can stay ahead of the game.
In this article, we will examine which adjusting tasks AI can support, which responsibilities still require a person, and how current and aspiring adjusters can prepare for the changes ahead.
Table of Contents
- Will AI Replace Insurance Adjusters?
- Which Tasks Can AI Assist With?
- What Parts of Adjusting Still Require a Person?
- Will AI Create New Work for Adjusters?
- How Can Adjusters Prepare for AI?
- New Tools, Same Pattern
Will AI Eliminate Insurance Adjusting Jobs?
AI will change insurance adjusting, but that is different from eliminating the profession.
Cresse compares AI to the arrival of computer-based estimating programs. Before those programs became common, contractors and adjusters often prepared estimates by hand. Spreadsheets came next, followed by specialized estimating software.
These tools changed how adjusters worked, but they did not remove the need for people who understood property damage, construction, pricing, insurance policies, and claims handling. Instead, they helped adjusters work faster and made parts of the process more consistent.
Cresse believes AI will follow a similar pattern. Adjusters may spend less time creating every calculation, comparison, or report from scratch. They may spend more time reviewing AI-generated work, checking it for errors, and deciding whether it belongs in the claim file.
Insurance Claims Are Part of a Regulated Process
Replacing adjusters would require more than better technology. Insurance claims are handled within a system of laws, regulations, policy requirements, and company responsibilities.
Before AI could make final claim decisions on its own, regulators, courts, lawmakers, and insurance companies would need to answer important questions. When should a machine be allowed to approve or deny a claim? Who is responsible when it makes the wrong decision? How can that decision be questioned or appealed?
For now, a person must still apply the policy and take responsibility for the decision.
Which Adjusting Tasks Can AI Help With?
AI is most useful for tasks that involve organizing, comparing, drafting, or reviewing information.
Based on his own testing, Cresse has found that AI can help adjusters create early estimates, compare documents, improve claim reports, identify missing details, and suggest possible next steps.
Creating a Starting Point for Claim Reserves
Cresse tested AI by giving two tools information from a photo report and asking them to create repair estimates.
Neither result matched the estimate he had already prepared. One was about 15% lower, while the other was about 15% higher. However, both tools produced a basic estimate in roughly 20 to 30 minutes.
While an AI-generated estimate should not be used as the final repair estimate or settlement amount, it can give the adjuster a quick starting point for estimating what the claim may cost and how much money the insurer should set aside to pay it.
This may be especially helpful for a newer adjuster who has not yet developed a strong sense of what a loss is likely to cost.
Comparing Competing Estimates
AI can also help compare a contractor’s estimate with an estimate prepared for the insurance carrier.
Instead of moving back and forth between two long documents, an adjuster could use AI to identify items that appear in one estimate but not the other.
For example, the tool might point out differences in drywall replacement, labor costs, material quantities, or repair methods. This gives the adjuster a clear place to begin the review.
Reviewing Claim Reports
AI can help improve the wording and organization of a claim report.
It may suggest clearer headings, rewrite confusing sentences, or point out information that appears to be missing. This can help the adjuster prepare a report that is easier for supervisors, carriers, insureds, and attorneys to understand.
In each case, AI can provide a faster starting point, but the adjuster must verify the result.
What Parts of Adjusting Still Require a Person?
AI can process information, but adjusting also requires judgment, responsibility, and communication.
Applying Judgment to the Full Claim
AI can review the information it receives, but it cannot know what evidence is missing unless someone recognizes the gap.
An adjuster must inspect the loss, compare the damage with the reported cause, review the policy, and decide whether the facts support the claim. The adjuster may also need to gather more photos, records, statements, or expert opinions before reaching a conclusion.
This requires more than finding patterns in documents. It requires understanding how the evidence fits together.
Making and Defending the Claim Decision
An adjuster’s job is not simply to mark a claim “covered” or “not covered.”
The adjuster must explain how the decision was reached, document the evidence, respond to questions or disagreements, and consider new information when it becomes available. The adjuster may also need to negotiate with the insured, contractors, attorneys, or other parties.
AI may suggest an answer, but it cannot take responsibility for the final decision on behalf of the insurer.
Communicating Through Serious Losses
Some claims involve much more than damaged property or repair costs. A person may be dealing with a destroyed home, a serious injury, a disability, disfigurement, or the death of a loved one.
In those situations, the adjuster must do more than provide information. The adjuster must listen, recognize confusion or distress, explain difficult decisions clearly, and adjust the conversation based on the person’s needs.
AI can help draft a message, but skillful human communication is still essential when the loss is personal, emotional, or life-changing.
Could AI Create New Types of Work for Adjusters?
When the internet became widely adopted, it eliminated some tasks but also created entirely new kinds of work. AI will most likely have a similar effect on insurance adjusting.
For example, AI can make routine claims work faster, but it can also make false evidence easier to create. Cresse reports that he has already seen an increase in claims involving suspicious or potentially manipulated images.
He described an auto claim involving two photographs that appeared to show the same vehicle in nearly the same position. One showed the vehicle without damage. The other appeared to show significant damage.
The similarities between the photographs raised concerns. Both also appeared to have been taken at the claimant’s home rather than at the reported accident location. A physical inspection confirmed that the vehicle did not have the damage shown in the submitted image.
Cases like this may become a larger part of an adjuster’s job. As AI-generated evidence becomes more convincing, adjusters may need to become especially skilled at:
- Spotting subtle signs that photos, documents, or timelines have been manipulated
- Testing a claimant’s account with more precise follow-up questions
- Comparing digital evidence with physical conditions, records, and independent sources
- Recognizing when an in-person inspection is necessary to establish what actually happened
In that sense, AI may not reduce the need for adjusters so much as shift their value away from routine processing and toward verification, investigation, and judgment. Adjusters may increasingly need to determine not only the extent of a loss, but whether the evidence itself can be trusted.
How Can Adjusters Prepare for an AI-Influenced Industry?
The best response is neither panic nor avoidance; just adapt and know how to use your resources.
Cresse believes adjusters who know how to use AI well could have an advantage as the industry changes. That does not mean trying to learn every tool available.
Instead, adjusters should focus on three areas:
- Use AI for specific claims tasks. Learn how it can help compare documents, organize information, review estimates, and improve reports.
- Learn how to check AI-generated work. Review the facts, calculations, assumptions, missing information, and conclusions before using anything in a claim file.
- Strengthen the skills AI cannot replace. Investigation, coverage reasoning, interviewing, negotiation, and difficult conversations will become even more valuable.
The goal is not to let AI handle the claim. It is to understand where the technology saves time, where it can be wrong, and when professional judgment must take over.
This is more actionable and avoids repeating the same list of general adjusting skills.
What Past Changes Tell Us About AI and Adjusting
Insurance adjusting has changed many times.
Handwritten estimates gave way to spreadsheets. Spreadsheets gave way to specialized estimating programs such as Xactimate. Digital cameras, mobile apps, drones, and virtual inspections changed how adjusters collect and review evidence.
AI is the next chapter in that history.
After more than 35 years in the field, Cresse sees AI changing claims work quickly. But he does not see it removing the need for the person who investigates the facts, applies the policy, communicates with the people involved, and takes responsibility for the decision.
The career remains solid, but the expectations are changing. The adjusters most likely to succeed will understand claims deeply, use AI confidently, and know when human judgment must take over.
Put simply, the tools change, but the pattern repeats. The adjusters who learn to adapt are the ones who move forward.
If you are interested in becoming an adjuster, begin by building the foundation the profession still requires. Prepare for your state licensing exam and develop a strong understanding of claims handling.
If you are already licensed, continue building your knowledge through certifications, continuing education, and hands-on experience. While doing so, begin testing a small number of AI tools and learning where they can support your work.
Explore AdjusterPro’s licensing, certification, and career development resources to prepare for today’s opportunities and the changes shaping the profession tomorrow.
