Pros
It's a great company. The company has certain incentives set-up to show that the company cares about the well-being of their employees. The benefits are great, and the pay is competitive. It's probably one of the biggest things that turned me on to the company. They also provide a decent amount of time off. My office is a great office. I get along with everyone in my office. Everyone enjoys each other's company. There are some options for job diversity such as being on the catastrophe response team. If you're chosen, you can go to headquarters for 3 weeks and work catastrophe claims. It's 21 days straight, one day at the beginning and end for travel and only one day off in the middle of the rotation there. Other than that, you're working 7:45am-7pm. It's a long hard schedule, but it's an opportunity to make some extra money if you're willing to put your life on hold for almost a month. Locally there are some promotional opportunities like handling injuries and property damage estimates and repairs. Sometimes those positions are sparse.
Cons
The workload can be absurd, and the job gets old fast. Everyday is stressful because you're dealing with people's lives. You've got the parties' demands from the claims you get assigned, and you've got management cracking the whip as they monitor numbers all day long. More tenured reps are able to accomplish work faster (and they seem the handle the pressure easier). Once you've been there 3-4 years you've got it down. For someone who is still in his first two years, I've pretty much had enough of the job. I dread going to work, and when I'm there I feel stuck in the perpetual cycle of doing the same thing over and over again, day in and day out, hearing the same stories and dealing with the same drama. The job doesn't change. It's stress everyday, dealing with people's problems and making big decisions that affect people, and it's the same repeat of the same scenario everyday. The job doesn't change. Further, you're in a cube all day long, stuck to a phone and a computer. This is a soul-killing job for someone who needs more creativity and liberty in the job he or she performs. I've gone out of my way to show interest in promotion and to learn new aspects of the company, and the response I keep getting from management is promises that always fall through. I am not one of those employees looking for an easy job, and who is too lazy to accomplish a job. I stay late most days, and I consistently meet my goals. I've volunteered to do a lot of extra functions to prove myself to management, more than what others have done on my team, and I still get looked over. After over a year and a half, I feel chewed up and spit out and totally unappreciated. I was beaten out of a promotion by a guy who has been here only six months. It takes more than six months to get the job down. But he got the job because he interviewed better than I did, but he never had files reviewed because he was so new to the job. His work was never proven. It was just because he interviewed better. The response the supervisor gave me for not getting the job was total nonsense. He used my words against me to make me sound like I don't have enough customer service experience and that I don't know how to make decisions. Me and the other candidate both shared our interview experience, and from his answers he gave the safest, vaguest answers I've ever heard for an interview. I assumed wrong when I thought they were looking for substance and motivation. That's the problem with this company. They look at everything like a number instead of looking at the reality of how things really are. If it doesn't match up to their computation, it's no good. So robotic. I'm at the point where I don't want to give anything extra for this company because they don't appreciate it. Promotions are few and far between, and they play favorites. When talking to my supervisor about a claim, I have been shut down on the spot like, "I don't want to hear it." But another rep will walk up to her cube not long after me, and she'll listen to him for over five minutes. I would recommend getting this job for a year or two for the experience, and start looking for a job as soon as you get this one unless you're good at stomaching the Kool-Aid and can come to work for the same stressful scenario everyday and always feel like you're behind in your work.