There's a perception problem that quietly undermines quality assurance programs across the insurance industry. Adjusters and underwriters know they're being assessed. What they often don't know — or don't fully believe — is that the assessment is fair.
I've heard variations of this concern from experienced professionals at organizations of every size: "The quality form feels like a moving target." "Different reviewers score the same file differently." "I got dinged for something that wasn't in any training I received." "The standards feel arbitrary."
When this perception takes hold, it doesn't just undermine the QA program. It undermines the broader performance culture. Quality stops feeling like a tool for growth and starts feeling like a mechanism for criticism.
The most effective antidote I've seen to this problem is straightforward, though it requires deliberate effort to implement: link every quality assessment criterion directly to a documented best practice.
The Problem with Assessments That Exist in Isolation
Most quality assessment forms are built in isolation from the rest of the performance infrastructure. The QA team develops criteria, loads them into a review form, and starts scoring. The training team separately develops eLearning content. The knowledge management team separately maintains reference guides and job aids. These three bodies of work — quality standards, training content, and knowledge resources — often have meaningful overlap in content but almost no structural connection.
For the adjuster or underwriter being assessed, this disconnection is felt acutely. They're being evaluated against a standard they may have encountered once, briefly, in a training module that didn't explicitly reference the QA form. When they fall short on an attribute, they may not know where to turn to understand what better performance actually looks like.
Linking quality assessments directly to best practices closes this gap. Connected quality assurance tools that allow you to attach reference materials directly to assessment criteria make this linking systematic and scalable — rather than dependent on individual supervisor effort.
What "Linking to Best Practices" Actually Means
Let me be specific, because "best practices" is a term that can mean almost anything in professional contexts.
In the context of claims and underwriting QA, linking an assessment criterion to a best practice means that for each quality attribute being evaluated, there is:
- A clear, written description of what full credit performance looks like — with specific examples where possible.
- A reference to the guideline, policy, regulatory requirement, or internal standard that underpins the criterion.
- Access to a training resource or knowledge base article that explains how to perform against this standard — not just what the standard is.
- Ideally, an example of excellent work that demonstrates the standard in action.
When these elements are in place, the assessment criterion stops being abstract. It becomes something the adjuster or underwriter can study, practice, and master — before the next review, not after they've already been scored.
"When an adjuster can look at every quality criterion and find the best practice that explains it, the assessment stops feeling like a trap and starts feeling like a roadmap."
Objectivity: The Foundation of Trust in QA
When quality assessments are directly tied to documented best practices — and those practices are accessible to everyone being assessed — something important shifts: the assessment becomes objectively verifiable.
The adjuster doesn't have to take their supervisor's word for whether their coverage analysis was complete. They can look at the documented standard, compare their work against it, and understand precisely what met the standard and what didn't. The reviewer making the assessment can point to the same document.
This shared reference point is the foundation of trust in any quality program. It eliminates the perception that scores are subjective or personality-driven. It gives the adjuster grounds to ask informed questions — "Can you help me understand specifically which part of the coverage analysis documentation didn't meet the standard?" — rather than simply accepting a score they don't understand.
The documentation also matters for consistency across reviewers. When the best practice is explicit and accessible, calibration between reviewers becomes much easier. The question isn't "what do you think constitutes complete coverage analysis?" It's "does this file meet the documented standard?"
Predictability Enables Preparation
Here's a benefit of best-practice-linked assessments that's worth naming directly: when the standards are documented and accessible, adjusters and underwriters can prepare to meet them.
This sounds obvious, but it's surprisingly rare in practice. Most QA programs assess what happened. Best-practice-linked programs also inform what should happen — in advance, every day, on every file.
When an adjuster knows that reserve adequacy documentation is a core QA attribute — and they've read the best practice that describes exactly what a well-documented reserve decision looks like — they can apply that standard proactively on every file. They're not waiting to be reviewed and coached. They're performing against a known standard from the moment they open the file.
Ensuring that best practices are consistently accessible — available to adjusters and underwriters at the moment they need them — requires a thoughtful knowledge management approach. When relevant best practices surface naturally within an adjuster's workflow, the distance between "knowing the standard" and "applying the standard" shrinks considerably.
When Assessments Feel Motivating Rather Than Arbitrary
I've worked with organizations where quality reviews are dreaded. Adjusters and underwriters tense up when they see a review scheduled. They brace for criticism they can't predict or adequately prepare for.
I've also worked with organizations where quality reviews feel like a fair accounting of the work — an opportunity to demonstrate mastery of standards the employee knows well and has been supported in meeting.
The difference, in almost every case, comes down to the connection between the assessment and the best practice. When an adjuster has studied the best practice, practiced the behavior, and applied the standard consistently — and the review confirms they're meeting the standard — the quality score becomes validating. It's evidence of professional excellence, not an arbitrary judgment.
For VP-level claims and underwriting leaders, this matters beyond employee satisfaction. When your best adjusters and underwriters feel that quality standards are fair, objective, and tied to things that genuinely matter for the work — they stay. In a market where experienced claims professionals are genuinely difficult to hire and retain, that's not a soft benefit.
The Learning Loop: Assessment → Best Practice → Development
Linking assessments to best practices also creates a natural learning loop that accelerates development at every level of experience.
When a quality review identifies a gap in an adjuster's performance — and the reviewer can point immediately to the best practice that governs that attribute — the path to improvement is clear. The adjuster knows exactly what to study. The supervisor knows exactly what to coach. And if the gap reflects a skill deficit rather than a knowledge gap, the connection to a targeted learning management resource is straightforward.
Dynamic Coaching tools that allow supervisors to reference specific QA attributes and the best practices tied to them within the coaching workflow create exactly this kind of structured, effective development conversation — at scale, across large teams of adjusters or underwriters.
Practical Steps for Linking Your QA Assessments to Best Practices
If your current QA program doesn't have explicit best practice linkages, here's a practical approach to building them:
1. Audit your current quality form against your existing standards library.
For each quality attribute on your form, identify whether there's a corresponding documented standard, guideline, or best practice. Many organizations discover the linkage exists informally — reviewers know what good looks like — but it isn't documented or accessible to employees.
2. Close the documentation gaps.
For attributes that lack documented best practices, work with your best performers and subject matter experts to write them. Focus on behavioral specificity — not "document reserves thoroughly" but "document the specific factors considered in the reserve decision, including comparable claim history, medical records reviewed, and coverage analysis applied."
3. Make best practices accessible at the point of need.
Best practices embedded in your knowledge management system and linked directly to QA criteria ensure that when an adjuster or underwriter wants to review a standard before their next file, they can find it immediately. The same reference should be available to the reviewer during the quality assessment.
4. Communicate the connection explicitly during onboarding and training.
New adjusters and underwriters should understand from day one that every quality criterion they'll be assessed against is tied to a documented best practice — and that those best practices are accessible resources, not secrets. Use your communications hub to regularly surface and reinforce key best practices, especially when standards are updated or refined.
5. Update best practices when standards change — before assessing against them.
This seems obvious but is frequently overlooked. When coverage guidelines change, underwriting appetite shifts, or regulatory requirements evolve, the best practices tied to affected QA criteria need to be updated and communicated before those criteria appear on quality reviews. Assessing employees against standards they haven't been informed of is the fastest way to destroy trust in your quality program.
Ready to build a quality program that your claims and underwriting teams actually trust and work toward? Explore how C2Perform's quality assurance tools connect assessments to knowledge resources, coaching workflows, and learning assignments — creating the closed loop that drives real, sustained performance improvement.
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