Pros
After joining CSAA, I can honestly say that I have never felt more respected and cared for as an employee. The supervisors and leaders here are unlike any other. I'm not sure if it's something in the water or just an amazing leadership training program, but the leaders here are so personable, likeable, and always on your side. Not only that, but they truly care about your growth as a professional and they actively seek out ways to help you grow your skills and reach your career goals. There is a ton of upward mobility in this company, even if you don't go for a promotion or a pay raise, you will absolutely still develop as a professional and as a person if you are managed by one of these amazing, talented leaders. The confidence they instill in you is so important. Your career goals are not just boring, year-end paperwork to fill out; they are a baseline for your growth and success, and your manager will ensure that you gain the skills you need to be the best employee and person. The work-life balance is unmatched here. With a majority-virtual staff, you get to meet people from all walks of life and befriend people from states away. You are only asked to put in your 40 hours per week and then you get to spend time with your family and hobbies. Overtime is sometimes encouraged during high volume/catastrophe periods, as with any claims role, but the pay and overtime options are still extremely fair for the markets that we hire in. I was absolutely floored by the initial offer from the talent acquisition representative, but the representative assured me that my expertise and experience are worth more than I think. They offered me more than $10k more than I was expecting/asking for, with the opportunity for overtime on top of that. You will not find hourly claims work in this industry very often, but this setup truly shows that the company cares about the time you spend and wishes to compensate you fairly, as opposed to other carriers who will pay salary and give an unreasonable workload to manage using however many hours it requires to get your work done. Apart from catastrophic situations, I have never felt overworked here. Of course, catastrophes are all-hands-on-deck situations which require a lot of flexibility and maybe a little bit of overtime, but overall the claim load is exceptionally reasonable and the pay is so very fair. On top of the employment-specific benefits, CSAA also offers full-time employees access to 40 additional hours of paid time off for things like enrichment, development, and volunteering in the community. CSAA offers you a full week's pay every year just so you can get out and become a better professional, a better person, gain new skills, and/or help out your community. These hours are not tied to your PTO allowance. Also, the PTO allowance is very generous and provides greater benefits (more PTO) the longer you've been with the company. For some employees, they have the option of Flexible Time Off (FTO), which is time off from a salaried position, has no time caps per year, and can be requested fairly easily, within reason. Many people balk at FTO because they believe it's a way for companies to get out of paying a PTO allowance at severance, but when the company is incredibly fair and forgiving with FTO requests - even for small, urgent things, like taking your son to the dentist - the work-life balance this fosters is unmatchable for a salaried worker. CSAA has a clear company-wide goal for the next 10+ years. We are all made aware of where the company is going industry-wide, how we fair in comparison with other carriers, our overall company strengths and opportunities, and the company is very transparent about the entire process of how we are progressing competitively in the industry. There is no doubt that both the company and its employees will maintain this upward trajectory. I am also excited to see how CSAA, and other carriers, manage the impending wide-spread use of LLMs/AI to assist in service duties, how this might affect the customer base, and how we are going to get a leg up in the technology side of the insurance industry using AI.
Cons
The work that managers and supervisors do to keep track of service employee's performance is not transparent enough. Service employees should be provided with all information on how they are being scored by quality assurance, and how they are doing as far as overall performance is concerned. Supervisors should review QA results, both positive and negative, with their direct reports frequently (monthly) to ensure compliance with regulations and guidelines. Currently, service employees are not privy enough to the information in QA reports. If we can't see how we're doing with quality, it feels like we're left in the dark and we're not sure if we're performing well or in need of coaching or corrections.
