Good company overall, disability claims department falls short
Pros
For an insurance company, I actually think Principal is very progressive/forward thinking. Overall good company culture, work-life balance seems to be a genuine priority. I also met some great people. Despite my issues with the claims department, the people/managers within the department are genuinely good people who make an effort to get to know you. They did implement a “phone buddy” system which essentially was a team to answer your emails and voicemails when you take time off so you didn’t come back swamped, which was pretty nice.
Cons
The life and disability claims department is kind of a mess. Tons of turnover. Whereas I think most of the company is very forward thinking, this department either isn’t, or it just doesn’t receive the needed support/funding from upper management, You’ll be hired in a large class of like 15-20 people (which come in every few months) because there is so much turnover. I think about half of my training class had either quit or been fired at the 6 month mark or so. Training lasts about 8 weeks, and is easy enough and pretty fun/chill actually. After training you’ll have a time where every single claim decision you make must be reviewed by your consultant, which takes about 3 days to do (if you make the right decision that is, if you’re wrong it takes longer), and inevitably leads to you getting calls/emails from angry claimants asking the status of their claim. I thought that once you got out of that “probationary” period it would be better, but in reality it just gets worse, because while you can make most claim decisions on your own which does reduce the time each claims takes, the number of claims you’re expected to make a decision on weekly goes up rapidly and sometimes without warning/reason. It’s just not realistic to focus on the 20+ new claims you’re getting each week, AND the ongoing management of already existing claims (for example when people request an extension of disability leave) all while also having to be a customer service rep for claimants and employers hounding you about the status of claims and why they have to complete XXX paperwork and whatnot.