Catastrophe claims are a capacity problem, but not always in the way we think.
In 2025, natural catastrophes generated $107 billion in insured losses globally, with wildfires, severe convective storms, floods, and other secondary perils accounting for a record 92% of that total, according to
The lesson is not that every year will set another record. It is that claims organizations need to absorb sudden concentrations of work whenever and wherever they arrive.
When that happens, attention naturally turns to the claims platform. Can it handle the intake? Can adjusters access what they need? Can decisions, reserves and payments keep moving?
Those are the right questions. But catastrophe events create another kind of load that is easy to overlook: coordination volume.
Processing capacity and coordination capacity are different things
Insurers have invested heavily in systems that manage the claim itself, and those systems can support sophisticated workflows across intake, adjudication, reserves, payments, documents, services and more. But the full operating process rarely stays inside one system.
Working on products that support complex, multi-party workflows has made one pattern increasingly clear to me: the work gets harder when context has to travel across systems, teams and organizations.
A typical environment might include a core claims platform, document and content systems, email and productivity tools, approval or signature workflows, and external parties. None of those systems is inherently a problem. The challenge is preserving context as work moves between them.
Depending on the claim, that surrounding work may include a proof of loss that needs review, a repair authorization or scope involving an outside party, or a settlement release that requires signature. Each step can introduce practical questions: Who owns it? Which version is current? Who still needs to act? What was approved? What happens next?
A claims system can scale while the workflow around it struggles to keep up
At normal volume, experienced teams are remarkably good at bridging those gaps. Someone sends an email. A reviewer knows which attachment is current. A follow-up goes on a calendar. A colleague remembers who still needs to respond.
That coordination can work well until the volume changes.
The strain shows up in the timeline.
The reverse pattern is also useful context.
This is where leaders can look beyond system uptime or transaction throughput and ask where coordination load accumulates. How many people have to touch the work? How often does someone need to reconstruct context from messages or attachments? Which next steps depend on a person remembering to follow up?
A decision is not always the end of the workflow
Another pattern appears after an approval or signature. We tend to treat those moments as completion points, but operationally they can create new work.
In workflows that require an authorization, release, approval or signature, the completed step may create a deadline, a responsibility, a required document or another action for an internal or external party. If ownership and next steps aren't visible, the process can continue through email, calendars and individual memory even after the decision is complete.
That does not make email, spreadsheets, PDFs, document systems or specialist platforms bad. Each has an important role. The resilience question is whether the people doing the work can see the current context, owner, and next action without rebuilding the story each time.
Audit the coordination layer
Claims leaders do not need another technology category to start examining this problem. A useful first step is to audit where coordination becomes dependent on reconstruction or memory:
- Where does context have to be reconstructed? Look for steps where people must piece together history from messages, attachments, or separate systems.
- Which steps depend on someone remembering? Manual reminders and personal follow-up become harder to sustain as volume rises.
- Where do multiple teams or organizations need to act? Cross-functional and external-party handoffs deserve attention because ownership can change as work moves.
- What remains open after a decision or signature? Identify commitments, deadlines, documentation, and follow-up that continue after the apparent completion point.
The goal is not automation for its own sake, and it is not to replace the claims platform. It is to understand whether the work surrounding the claim can absorb the same surge the core system was built to handle.
Catastrophe readiness is not only about processing capacity. It is about coordination capacity.
Insurers have spent years improving the systems of record that manage claims. The next resilience opportunity is making sure the work that crosses those systems preserves context, ownership and commitments when volume suddenly rises.
