Mike Koch has had an extensive career in the adjusting industry with nearly 40 years of experience. He started his career in 1982 as an independent adjuster and officially joined Crawford in 1995. Mike has led numerous Canadian and International CAT deployments. His first CAT experience was the 1985 Tornados that struck Barrie/Grand Valley.
“Working for Crawford has become a huge component of my life, I have traveled to a great number of work locations and met and worked with a lot of great people”
Mike has quite a few stories to share of his many island hurricane deployments where airports were only partially working and food and water were hard to find.
“I sat through 2 hurricanes in the Bahamas. Irene a CAT 1 and Jean a CAT 3 that struck the island about 15 days after Francis. We took shelter in a hotel. There was 4 of us with some supplies. The storm lasted about 12 hours. Water was leaking into our unit and we were praying the windows wouldn’t blow out. Fortunately, they never did!”, Mike said.
Since becoming licensed in 1986, Mike has worked all kinds of front line claims: property, auto, liability, agricultural, industrial, municipal liability, cargo & marine, and became CAT manager in 2009 and is currently a GTS Senior General Adjuster.
During the course of his career, Mike has interviewed policyholders in jail, has testified in both Civil & Criminal Court on related files and has participated in Appraisal – Alternative Dispute Resolution Process, and has participated in Examinations for Discovery on several files.
“I have literally worked with hundreds of different adjusters and met many interesting people along the way. I have helped restore a lot of lives and businesses”, he said
Mike has certainly embodied the Crawford values given his dedication to property CAT claims in Canada, US and Caribbean over the years. As recognition for his CAT work, Mike was awarded the prestigious global Crawford “Power Performer 2017”
“The days are long on these deployments anywhere from 10 -16 hours – work, eat, sleep, work, eat, sleep – repeat for the first 21-30 days!”
He managed to fit in a bit of fun on Sundays, “our day off after the first 21-30 days of no days off!” he said.
Mike enjoys the fact that that he has traveled to many different work locations and met a lot of good people and continues to learn a great deal from working for such a large company.
“What I like about working for Crawford is all the opportunities that become available to those that work hard. They include the ability to learn, be trained, work with an abundance of different people, and international deployments”, he said.
