Alan left University in 1995 with a Degree in Naval Architecture and Maritime Law and then embarked on a near-30-year career as a loss adjuster for energy claims. During this time, he found himself working within both the onshore and offshore sectors across six continents, dealing with all the perils and risks that the energy sector has to offer and handling claims up to the value of $1B.
In Sept. 2024, while working as chief executive of energy consultancy Renewable Energy Loss Adjusters (RELA), Alan joined forces with Crawford, bringing with him key specialist Martin Dobson, who served as RELA’s technical director and now heads technical, pre-risk and UK; Dr Ceyla Asker, Ph.D., an adjuster and materials specialist; and Donald McNelly, an adjuster and engineer based in the U.S.
With this team now part of Crawford Global Technical Services, Alan sees this move as having huge potential: “Being under the Crawford roof means that my team now has direct access to all of our other specialty services and teams across the globe – specifically our experts in marine, liability, inspection services, loss adjusting, forensic accountants, engineering, construction, environmental services and legal/recovery. But it also means that Crawford can now leverage the very particular set of skills that sits in my team.”
Alan is looking to move the renewables business forward using what he describes as a hub-and-spoke model. “I want to position my team as a centre of technical excellence for renewable energy expertise, sitting at the middle of the hub with all Crawford’s services and experts forming the spokes reaching out to and from existing and prospective clients.”
Alan has set himself the ambitious target for his team to position Crawford as the world’s premier renewable energy loss adjusting resource by 2030 – but he knows that this can only be achieved with more of the right people in place, to meet client demand as the business grows towards that goal.
“The London market for renewable energy is around six times larger than the rest of the world, so the opportunities are there to meet that target. But there’s a serious shortage of experienced loss adjuster talent right now across the whole insurance industry,”
adds Alan.
“So we plan to look carefully at recruitment. I’m keen to engage people with real-world technical or engineering expertise in the renewables sector, with a view to then working with them to overlay that experience with insurance and loss adjusting training. I also plan to work closely with the team at Crawford Academy to attract emerging talent at graduate level, again looking for technical and engineering capabilities that can be developed into loss adjusting.”
