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A Little Background...

After a little over three years as a volunteer Panelist for Arbitration Forums, Inc., I recently resigned (if that is what a volunteer can do). I gave one excuse that I was tired after hearing over 1000 cases, and needed a rest. That the work consisted of 4 hours a month with breakfast and lunch provided means that I am inherently a weakling or that there is more to it.
As I kayak 10 miles every Sunday, there is more to it.

The other reason I supplied was that I was discouraged at my failure to change, even as a two-time Arbitrator of the Year, the way Arbitration looked at my specialty, material damage.

When I first encountered Arbitration in the claims setting it was as a material damage analyst. I was reviewing and adjusting adverse carrier's demands estimates and rental. As not all carriers agreed with my adjustments I often found myself on the Respondent end of an arb filing. Now, this was getting interesting! I had to defend my estimate and rental and whatever other cuts I made to convince a Panelist that the adverse carrier had failed utterly to mitigate the damage, and was hopelessly ignorant of material damage.
I soon found out the Panelist was also hopelessly ignorant of material damage in most cases. I won often, but I lost just as often, sometimes winning and losing on the same kind of case as the chances of ever getting the same Panelist are very small.

I joined Arbitration after a while to see what this was all about, and because I hate lawyers. That is one of the prime reasons for arbitration, to avoid costly, wasteful litigation. I have a strong belief in the concept of arbitration. I have problems with it's execution.

As a Panelist I found most cases to be disputes over liability: who had the red light, who changed lanes first, who turned left in front of who, as so on. The pure property damage and material damage cases were sheer pleasure as my liability experiance was limited, to say the least. I began trading complicated, ie: three vehicles! cases for material damage cases from other Panelists. This could happen because Arbitration Forums allows any Panelist to hear any case at a certain level: there is no requirement that vehicle damage estimate disputes be heard by a trained material damage person.
Most of my fellow Panelists were BI and liability supervisors with no knowledge and little interest in vehicle damage. This is why my cases were won and lost so randomly...
to be continued....feel free to comment..
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