Claims Leader · CPCU · Data-Driven · Technology-Forward · Results Through People
"Strong data builds strong teams. Strong teams build strong outcomes."
I'm a senior claims leader with eighteen years of experience at Farmers Insurance, specializing in large loss, catastrophic injury, and complex coverage litigation. I currently serve as Territory Manager in Complex Claims & Large Loss, leading a team of General Adjusters handling high-exposure claims across New York, Illinois, and Wisconsin.
Over the course of my career, I've developed a reputation for building high-performing teams, leveraging data and technology to drive operational outcomes, and developing adjuster talent at scale. I believe that great claims outcomes and a healthy team culture are not mutually exclusive — and my team's employee experience survey scores consistently ranking above zone, company, division, and industry averages is a reflection of that belief, and evidence that the data-driven approach and the human one don't have to be in conflict.
Beyond my management role, I've contributed to the field at an organizational level — co-designing a Power BI diagnostic tool now deployed throughout Complex Claims, creating and running mentorship programs that expanded zone-wide, and serving as a technical resource and trainer across multiple system migrations. My claims experience spans a wide range of venues and exposure types, from unrepresented soft tissue claims early in my career through represented and litigated files, and ultimately into large loss, catastrophic injury, and complex coverage litigation — giving me a ground-level understanding of the full claims lifecycle that informs how I lead and develop adjusters today.
I hold the CPCU designation — the most prestigious credential in property and casualty insurance — along with the SCLA Gold, AIC-M, and AINS. I'm currently pursuing my MBA at the University of Texas Permian Basin (AACSB Accredited).
I began my career in liability claims in 2008 after graduating cum laude from Illinois State University with a degree in History Education, where I received the Lawrence McBride Award for Outstanding Student Teaching. I live in Lake Zurich, Illinois with my wife and two children.
"The best things in life are the ones you build deliberately."
I grew up in the northwest suburbs of Chicago believing that the best things in life are the ones you build deliberately. I've been testing that theory ever since.
By day I lead a complex claims team at Farmers Insurance. By inclination I'm a photographer, a reader, an occasional writer, and someone who has been playing the same video game since 1993 without getting tired of it — and who takes his kids' birthday invitations perhaps more seriously than necessary.
The photography started as something I noticed rather than something I planned — a corridor in London, a subway platform, a desert sunset. I shoot when something stops me, which means the work accumulates slowly and honestly. I'm drawn to architecture, light, and the kind of quiet that exists in places just before or just after something happens.
I've kept a diary since I was sixteen. I believe in writing things down.
I live in Lake Zurich, Illinois with my wife Lindsay, our daughter Zoey, and our son Leo. The backyard has a pool. The home office doubles as a shrine to Star Wars, science fiction, and the general refusal to fully grow up.
Results-driven claims leader with 18 years of experience at Farmers Insurance, specializing in large loss, catastrophic injury, and complex coverage litigation. Proven record of building high-performing teams, leveraging data and technology to drive operational outcomes, and developing adjuster talent at scale. Currently leads a team handling high-exposure claims across New York, Illinois, and Wisconsin, with a consistent track record of exceeding performance expectations at the manager level. Recognized for translating analytical insight into cultural and operational improvement.
Experience
Farmers Insurance — East Zone
Farmers Insurance — East Zone NLC / Complex Claims
Farmers Insurance — Illinois Claims Office
Farmers Insurance — Illinois Claims Office
Farmers Insurance — Illinois Claims Office
Teacher's Assistant, Glenbard South High School (2008) · Shift Leader → Store Manager, Blockbuster Video (2001–2008)
Education
MBA — University of Texas Permian Basin (AACSB · In Progress, 2027)
BS, History Education — Illinois State University (Cum Laude · Lawrence McBride Award for Outstanding Student Teaching · Award for Outstanding Portfolio)
Designations
Core Competencies
I shoot when something stops me. These are the things that stopped me.
Birthday invitations designed for Zoey and Leo — taken perhaps more seriously than necessary.
I've kept a diary since I was sixteen. I believe in writing things down.
It's about 10:30 on a Tuesday night; I'm holding my iPhone with white knuckles. I drop two imp-demons with the same shotgun blast, having lined the shot up perfectly to hit both at the same time. The lights continuously dim and brighten down the long narrow hallway of the Phobos Lab level of the classic 1993 Doom. I'm lying on the couch in the living room of my home in the suburbs. The lawn has been cut, my five and three year old kids are in bed, and work, despite starting in less than 10 hours, feels eons away. For now, there is just me, my arsenal of weapons, and the demons sent from Hell to invade Mars and its moons.
I've made the same well-placed shot dropping two imps at once countless times over the last 33 years. Like most of my friends, the entirety of my early experience with Doom was based on the free shareware version of the first game. The same 3½ inch disc was copied countless times, installed on our computers, and was passed around like a virus. As I drop another demon and take a sip of my beer, I wonder what ever happened to my old hard copy. It's probably sitting in a landfill somewhere surrounded by AOL discs.
My parents divorced and remarried when I was very young, and I split my time between their houses. I remember being 9 years old sitting in the basement of my mom's townhouse, playing through the Phobos lab for the first time. It was late and the lights were off. Suddenly the rare moment occurred where I wasn't fighting anything, and the only sound was the music of the level. The eerie calm was suddenly interrupted by the sound of an enraged demon screaming in the distance (if you've played Doom, you're picturing the exact sound in your head right now). Then, in addition to the demon, I start hearing the occasional breathing sound of a zombie I forgot to drop somewhere behind me. As a 9-year-old, I literally got so creeped out I had to turn the game off and go upstairs to go to bed.
This time, back in 2026, I don't go to bed. I proceed, although slowly. The controls on the iPhone leave a lot to be desired and I'm playing on the Ultra-Violence difficulty. I do pause for a second to try to figure out if I did something for work earlier in the day I had intended to. I can't remember and shrug it off. I'll get to it tomorrow and my demon genocide must continue.
Walking down these creepy hallways just feels so familiar. I know them as well as I know my real-life office building, maybe even my own house. I've blasted demons on this map for what feels like my entire life across countless devices. Sometimes the thought of where I was or what I was doing on a previous playthrough will pop into my head. In this case, the last time I played through Doom was on a plane over the Atlantic while my wife and I were going on vacation. It was the middle of the night, she was sleeping, and I can never sleep on planes. The time before that was in a hotel room when I was on the road for work. There were many times before that. Times spent alone or with friends, playing Doom or countless other games seriously or just goofing around. Take down a cyber-demon with only a shotgun? Why not try? Take out a Star Destroyer in nothing but a shieldless Tie Interceptor? Sure, let's see if it can be done (turns out no, it can't, at least not by us).
I think the memories and the familiarity is what keeps bringing me back to Doom, Half-Life, Command & Conquer, half a dozen Star Wars games, and countless others. Like many elder millennials, my 20s were crazy due to factors outside of my control. The economy was tanking due to the recession, my parents (both sets) were going through simultaneous divorces, and my life was in tatters for various related reasons. Suicide, family blackmailing other family, and people around me making increasingly poor decisions changed my life in ways that could never be reversed. My childhood homes were gone, and much of my family was no longer in my life. Three of the four people who raised me are now either dead or out of my life, all within a staggeringly short period of time. But not for my wife (then fiancée) and her family, and a few close friends, I'm not sure I would have ended up much better off.
To me, and I'd venture a guess to many others as well, video games are more than just images on a screen we can interact with. The places and levels in our games can feel as real in our memories as real places we've been. Unlike the heartache of knowing I can never return to my childhood homes or my old bedrooms, I can return to the Phobos Lab any time I want if I'm feeling nostalgic. While I might tear into the pink demon chasing after me with a chainsaw, I consider him (her?) a childhood friend. Today, when I walk on to that final raised star-shaped platform in the last level of the first episode of Doom and the two Barons of Hell are dead, I wait to walk on to the teleporter that ends the level. I meander around the level and feel as if I might as well be back in my 9-year-old self's bedroom. It's almost as if today, in 2026, I can close my eyes while I'm walking through the Phobos Lab and reopen them to find myself in the basement of my Mom's townhouse in 1993. Our 486 Windows 3.1 computer is sitting on a brown folding table in front of me, my miniature pinscher–chihuahua mix named Chico is still alive and lying at my feet.
And it's not just Doom I can re-experience, thanks to ports of old games to iOS, Steam, GOG, and emulators. I can return to any point in my life. Easter morning, 1998 I spent my mid-morning getting acquainted with Kattleox Island in Mega-Man Legends on Playstation. I only stopped because my best friend called me wanting to rollerblade around the neighborhood. Something about the way my brain works blurs the two experiences together. When I boot up my MacBook today in 2026 to get reacquainted with Kattleox Island, I'm not only blasting evil robots with my arm cannon, I'm also rollerblading around the neighborhood with my friend. In 2026, when my soldiers land on the beach of the first level of the GDI campaign of the remastered Command and Conquer, I'm also experiencing Christmas day in 1997, enjoying the original version of the game my uncle (now rotting justifiably in jail) gave me. I smell the ham in the oven, hear my grandparents laughing at something someone said, and I feel content.
Music has a similar effect on me. I recently played through the remade version of Final Fantasy VII. Most who played the original game at least once would instantly recognize Jenova's theme. In the remake, the music during the Jenova fight starts as recognizable, but distinctly different from the old version. As the battle progresses, the music changes intermittently until toward the end it devolves into something instantly recognizable as the original theme as one would expect to hear it. The first time playing it I'm sure I had a stupid wide grin on my face, but inside, my breathing sped up and my heart skipped a beat. Suddenly it was 1998, and I was watching my friend play in his parents' basement. We were drinking Mountain Dew, eating Warhead candies and Funyuns.
I don't think anything original I've played since 2000 feels as familiar. With more expendable income, I could afford to expand my game collection. I play through games once, maybe twice in rare circumstances, and move on with a new game (with the notable exception of Half-Life 2). When I was younger, I'd get a new game maybe once every six months if I could afford one with my allowance or through selling older games I didn't play as often. By necessity, I played those games as repetitively as I did simply because I couldn't afford a new game. Cold winters in Chicago left little else to do. In fact, the first episode of the original Doom was the extent of my experience with the game until years after it came out and I finally got the full version as a birthday gift from a friend. It would not be an exaggeration to say I've killed the two Barons of Hell waiting for me on that star shaped platform at the end of the free version of Doom at least 100 times (although I was probably 12 or younger for the first 90 of those).
Life can irreversibly change abruptly. People and places that are familiar can be gone in the blink of an eye. The longest I've lived anywhere since high school has been 5 years. My life has calmed down considerably over the past 7 or 8 years but owing to the success of my wife's and my respective careers, we've moved from apartments to a townhouse to finally our own house, where we hope to stay. All our old places are gone from our lives just as my childhood homes are.
Walking through Phobos Lab, flying my X-Wing through the Death Star trench, or making the ill-advised decision to push the giant gem into the reactor at Black Mesa is my way to reconnect with and even re-experience my past, as if the cataclysmic events that overtook my life in the waning days of my years in college and early adult life never happened. I can never return to many of the physical places of my childhood or early adult life, I can never sit down for a meal with my parents again. Still, the wounds are healing, and scars are fading thanks to my wife and kids. I can't help but feel that the fact I can walk through the Phobos Lab any time I want helps the process of healing move along. It's no different to me than being in my mom's townhouse as a ten-year-old. There may not always be a paycheck, I may not be able to always afford the latest technology, but that's okay. As long as I have a cell phone or even a basic computer, I can play Doom and most of my other classic games.
With the advent of VR technology, I can only wonder how my daughter will remember video games when she's older if she chooses to get into them. Unlike VR and even more modern games, Doom is limited in the sense that the player's actions are limited. The player can walk forwards, back, left, or right, open a door, flip a switch, or shoot a gun. Games utilizing full VR truly immerse the player in a new world. If games have the same impact on her as they did for me, my daughter may well have to think for a moment when she's my age to remember if a place in her memory was even real in the physical sense. I can only hope her 20s are more stable than mine.
Back in 2026, the clock ticks on toward midnight while I'm lying on the couch of my home with my iPhone. I kill the Barons of Hell for the 101st time. It certainly will not be the last time.
— Dj999X
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