Ewart Hodge
School of Social , Political and Global Studies
Exploring the multiplicity of opportunistic insurance fraud through the lived experiences of loss adjusters
The private insurance industry is one of the most pervasive and powerful institutions in our society , yet it is given scant attention by social scientists ( Ericson and Doyle , 2004 ). Studies directly involving employees of insurance institutions are even rarer ( Morley , Ball , and Ormerod , 2006 ), notably that of loss adjusters ; those external claims experts tasked with the handling of their insurer clients ’ claims . This poster represents a recently conducted pilot study exploring how employing a postintentional phenomenological methodology ( Vagle , 2018 ) with the theoretical lens of governmentality ( Foucault , 2009 , 2014 ) can aid in understanding the lived experiences of adjusters in their handling of fraudulent claims , specifically property adjusters . The pilot study involved three property adjusters writing a short anecdote in the form of a Lived Experience Description ( van Manen , 1990 , 2016 ), as well as taking part in unstructured interviews , which were subsequently analysed using a post-intentional phenomenological process . Preliminary findings reveal that combining post-intentional phenomenology and governmentality produced insight into how fraud takes shape in the lived experiences of property adjusters . This research illuminates the perspectives of loss adjusters within the principal-agent relationship with insurers , and how these perspectives impact counter-fraud initiatives .
Postgraduate Conference 2021 Page 26