Once a man is aware of the essential non-identity of all objects and the artificiality of categories, he has acquired the fundamental attitudes for proper adjusting. The insistence upon differences, upon individual treatment, upon lack of dogmatism characterizes the adjustment process and may go

far to explain why good lawyers often make poor adjusters. If a category or rule were recognized for what it is, a kind of crutch used to ease computing effort, no harm would come from its use. When, on the other hand, it is used as a norm or yardstick, it becomes the source of all manner of difficulty.

Similarly, an adjuster with a two-valued orientation is foredoomed to failure. In perhaps no other activity is a supple, sympathetic mind that has accepted the fact of human variation so vital. A man who feels that assureds are either "good" or "bad," that they will either cooperate so fully that he need only hand them a blank proof of loss or will be out to cheat the company so crudely that the fraud penalty of the policy should be invoked, has no further usefulness in his field. He may conclude a succession of loose, sloppy adjustments that bring the company into contempt and invite the morally weak to thoughts of arson; or he amy behave so boorishly toward the company's customers that their exasperated reaction will eliminate him.

An adjuster rarely meets an assured honest enough to be given his head in naming a loss figure; but more rarely still does he find a genuine criminal, an arsonist or forger who has rigged an elaborate scheme to swindle the company. Both types do occur, but at great intervals. Almost all of the adjuster's dealing will be with the "homme moyen honnete," the man who is perfectly willing to overstate his values a little, who would like to have new for old, who would like to think that an insurance policy is a replacement and service agreement. These are the adjuster's shades of gray: he must learn to distinguish each shade, recognize it, and deal with it in an appropriate fashion. If he does not or cannot learn he will forever be defeating himself.

One of the most dangerous pitfalls for the adjuster is intensional orientation, whether it be his own or that of the assured. He will encounter a continual stream of infantile intensional orientations: he cannot afford to be other than extensionally oriented himself if he wishes to deal with these adequately. The adjuster who is convinced that "all rich Negroes are crooks" is utterly unable to find common ground with a well-to-do Negro who happens to believe that "all insurance companies are crooked." Both can save a good deal of time by going home and trying again with someone else at the other end of the table. If the adjuster is, however, fairly well oriented, he can show the assured by the most pragmatic of all demonstrations that all insurance companies are not crooked; that is, by making a fair settlement with him.

INGOLF H. E. OTTO "INSURANCE Loss ADJUSTING: A STUDY IN SEMANTIC ORIENTATION"