Kernaghan employees ‘adjusting’ to island life
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Narrator: When Kernaghan Adjusters decided to open another branch on Vancouver Island, BC back in February 2011, they called on (literally) a couple of experienced adjusters, Brad Murray and Debbie Halstead.
Debbie Halstead: We are a couple, an adjusting couple. Wherever one of us goes, the other one of us goes. A lot of people think, ‘Are they crazy living together and working together?’ But we’ve been doing it a long time and it seems to work for us. Brad has his own specialized line of work and it doesn’t really cross that much. We like to bounce ideas off of each other, for sure, because he’s done it all and I stay out of logging, forestry and hydro electric dams.
Narrator: By working and living together it must be hard to not bring the work home . . .
Debbie Halstead: It is, but like I say his work is so different. I wouldn’t pretend to know what a Rotec bearing is, or if it’s shot or not. But it’s helpful for me because Brad grew up doing the same kinds of generalized claims that I do so it works very well. I try to specialize more in liability type losses and I think in that way I can sometimes help him when he runs into that kind of work in his files.
Narrator: Though Brad and Debbie, who moved from Kelowna, vacationed on Vancouver Island for many years, they soon learned that working on the island presents some unique challenges.
Brad Murray: The majority of my work, probably ninety-percent, relates to forestry construction equipment, doing the appraisals and the adjustments on them. One of the accounts that has really grown for me is the Truck Logger’s Association and I’m the control adjuster for them. It keeps me very busy on the island from the top to the bottom and over to the Sechelt/Sunshine Coast area. Like I said ninety-percent is specific to the appraisals and the adjustments on construction and logging equipment losses.
Debbie Halstead: The travel on the island is fine, but it’s when you have to go off island; because I do Powell River, I do the islands up and down, so I guess it’s the ferry travel. You just kind of learn to multi-task while you wait for the ferries and travel on the ferries. So that’s kind of a unique situation for me. And at times I’ve found myself on float planes going to some remote locations to these islands, so it is interesting. It is challenging.
Narrator: Despite the travel Debbie and Brad know it was the right move for them.
Debbie Halstead: We felt it was a really good move for us joining a mid-sized firm. They are flexible. A little less bureaucracy than what we are used to because we do come from a larger, national adjusting company. We found that their web based system, which they call KEA View, is a fantastic claims system. But before we made the move to Kernaghan we had to make sure all these things were in place because we wanted to make sure we could continue to provide professional service to our clients as well as meeting our needs and what we were used to work-wise. And we wanted to be happy in what we were doing.
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