Crawford in Australia has a new head of Specialty Loss Adjusting, Matt Donnelly.
With over 30 years of experience, Donnelly is currently head of Global Technical Services (GTS) Australia, the loss adjusting division focused on large and complex property losses.
This change will see Donnelly expand his remit to lead the entire Specialty Loss Adjusting portfolio which, in addition to GTS, includes commercial and liability related claims, construction, energy and marine sector claims, as well as Crawford Forensic Accounting Services.
Donnelly initially worked as an adjuster for Crawford for over 12 and a half years between 2004 and 2016 including serving as operations manager for GTS. He then spent seven years in general manager roles for two buildings companies primarily servicing the insurance industry. Donnelly rejoined the business in September last year to lead the Victoria and Tasmania GTS teams, but was quickly promoted to the national head of GTS role in May.
In his new role, Donnelly will report to Australia President Jonathan Hubbard who noted him to be a motivating, high performing and efficient people leader.
“We have internal targets when it comes to promoting from within, but of course we will only ever appoint from our own ranks where the candidate is the best person for the position; I’m totally confident Matt will be superb in this role.
“We continue to work hard on ensuring Crawford is home to a diverse and competent talent pool. This is important so clients have certainty over service even when there might be people movements internally or otherwise. And, it’s also critical for talent retention … I want our people to know we are invested in their careers,” Hubbard said.
“I am looking forward to welcoming Matt to the Executive Leadership table as we continue taking our Specialty Loss Adjusting business from strength to strength,”
Hubbard noted.
Donnelly said he plans to spend an increasing amount of time listening to clients’ challenges:
“Really understanding their challenges is how we are going to be able to do our best work. To me, it’s not about us as a service provider coming along and telling clients what they need, it’s more about how we can work together constructively to develop claims strategies that are going to solve their pain points.”
Donnelly commented that team development was also high on his agenda: “Right now, we have an ideal balance of young talent and highly experienced adjusters who complement each other; l want to maintain this across all our specialty service lines into the future.”
Donnelly will step up into the new position from 1 November, taking over from Craig McLeod who is pivoting into a newly created role of head of Quality & People Development for Crawford’s Loss Adjusting businesses.
Meantime, Crawford Australia recently welcomed Simon Chenery as executive adjuster within Global Technical Services based in Brisbane, who boasts 34 years of loss adjusting experience. And, Rizwan Malik has also joined Crawford’s Marine team in recent weeks as senior marine surveyor/loss adjuster based in Melbourne.
