Wildfire Experience Inspires New Contents Claims InsurTech

When Michael Balarezo emerged from the basement office of his Boulder, Colo., home in December 2021, smoke plumes from the nearby Marshall Fire were visible from his driveway.

Balarezo, his wife and daughter swiftly stowed emergency clothing, sensitive documents and toys into duffel bags and loaded them in the back of their car.

Eighty-mile-per-hour wind gusts whipped debris through the air.

The smoke thickened and limited visibility to distances shorter than half a football field.

“And we say bye to our home,” Balarezo said, “because we think it’s going to go in flames.”

When the flames subsided, the house was one of the lucky survivors in the Balarezos’ neighborhood. Soot and ash flooded into the home through doors believed to be opened by emergency personnel, though. The entire main level and upstairs bedroom needed to be gutted.

Two years after leaving, Balarezo and his family moved back in. It took a lot of time to work with all the parties needed to get everything fixed, he said. A former insurance claims adjuster himself, the process gave Balarezo a new perspective on how much policyholders go through when disaster strikes.

He described the experience as chaotic. Family arguments erupt over how much time repairs are taking, he said. Stress arises when policyholders wonder why the resolution is dragging on and why they haven’t heard from their insurance company. Living in a townhome, Balarezo spoke of issues that can surface when alignment is needed with neighbors on contractors and services.

“It’s almost like working a full-time job on top of the full-time job that you have,” he said of the repair process.

The idea for Adjusto, his new contents claims platform, didn’t hit Balarezo until the very end of this claim. He and his wife told their daughter that they could finally return home. After hearing the news, she began sobbing as all the emotions of the previous two years were released. She was happy it was over and ready to move on.

“That moment, it hit me really hard, personally,” Balarezo said. “She shouldn’t have to suffer through all of this. And it made me realize that she witnessed mom and dad arguing and fighting over the claim. She witnessed mom and dad talking with the insurance company or with the adjusters, trying to figure out how we can move forward and being aggravated.”

All the stress impacted her. And Balarezo didn’t think that was fair.

“That moment is when I thought, ‘I feel like I can do something about this,’” Balarezo said. “Someone should do something about this.”

He felt the time was right to combine his policyholder experience, adjuster know-how and decade of software engineering expertise. Adjusto was formed in April 2024 and was publicly announced in March 2025. The software is currently in beta and is slated for release in July.

Balarezo said Adjusto’s software provides fast, accurate and automated personal property valuation for carriers, MGAs, TPAs and adjusting firms at scale. The AI-powered platform introduces “new ways for adjusters to collaborate with policyholders to resolve claims quickly while building trust,” he said.

Professional Background

Balarezo became an all-lines claims adjuster after college. His future father-in-law worked as head of an auto salvage team, and he tipped Balarezo off to an opening at Oklahoma Farm Bureau Insurance.

Balarezo enjoyed the investigative nature of the job. He liked digging into claims during his three years in the role.

“Also, I enjoyed the fact that I got to help people as part of my day-to-day [duties],” he said.

Balarezo ultimately pursued his dream of becoming a software engineer and moved to Silicon Valley to build automation solutions for companies including Google, Amazon and Disney. Still, he carried the lessons he learned in insurance with him.

Balarezo recalled working extensively to defend auto insurance policyholders in third-party arbitration during his time as a claims adjuster. He’d review police reports, have deep conversations with affected parties and give the process his all until the very end.

Seeing things through is also a core tenet of software engineering.

“Because [in] software engineering, you fail a lot, very quickly,” Balarezo explained. “And you kind of need this resilience to just keep on going. And it ended up proving to be a skill that I learned in adjusting that I was able to put into practice as a software engineer professionally.”

He launched Adjusto and returned to insurance 12 years after leaving Oklahoma Farm Bureau. To his surprise, not much had changed. He spoke with many adjusters and other industry folks to understand the problems they faced, and he learned that some of the processes he was familiar with were exactly the same.

Adjusto

Before forming Adjusto, Balarezo set out to identify real problems that claims professionals face. He took paid time off from his job to attend insurance industry events to understand pain points and make connections. Meanwhile, he also reopened his old phonebook and began reconnecting with contacts from his adjusting days and interviewed neighbors who had struggled to settle claims.

Balarezo and his team found that a lack of transparency is eroding policyholder trust. They noted the frustration that policyholders feel about delays and the expectations they have of how claims should be settled. And the Adjusto team recognized the need for improved data accuracy and valuation in the claims process.

The new AI and automation software is designed to be used by anyone who services contents claims. That includes carriers, MGAs, TPAs, independent adjusters and other contents specialists. Balarezo said the company brings a science-based approach to its solution, which is deeply rooted in data science, machine learning and statistics.

“We like to focus on building solutions that actually are meant to solve the actual problems,” Balarezo said. “I think there’s too many tools in the market that just complete tasks but don’t actually resolve the issues of claims.”

They certainly don’t help adjusters build trust with policyholders, he said, and the quality of the data and responses back to policyholders need a “tremendous amount of improvement.”

He said that overall, the claims process and experience are broken. The Adjusto team believes that the contents claims arena is simultaneously one of the most under-innovated and high-friction areas in insurance.

“We surface critical information faster to the adjuster,” Balarezo said. “We automate what doesn’t require human attention, and we create transparency across the board so that everyone from policyholders to carriers can move forward with clarity and confidence.”

Adjusto aims to turn moments of potential friction into trust-building opportunities for adjusters, which ultimately turns into decreasing churn and increasing loyalty. The platform is designed to be intuitive, friendly and fast, Balarezo said, freeing up space for adjusters to focus on empathizing with policyholders and rebuilding that trust.

“I think that’s the big thing that tooling is missing today,” Balarezo added. “Adjusters largely can’t really trust the output that comes out of it. I’ve had conversations where adjusters literally have to go back and then redo their work because the automation that’s built into it just isn’t accurate. It’s not intelligent.”

Go Deeper

Claims of any size and scale can benefit from the Adjusto software, Balarezo said.

He explained that the Adjusto team thinks of itself as a thought leader, partner and trusted advisor to the company’s clients. They deeply understand enterprise structure and process, he said, and they also understand the needs of smaller companies.

“What that means is for us, we very intentionally built our software in a way to fit directly into an existing tech stack with minimal friction,” Balarezo explained, pointing to Adjusto’s seamless integration and rapid onboarding. He later added that Adjusto is “here to be a partner and help modernize. We’re ready to roll up our sleeves and help lay the groundwork for the future.”

Topics
Catastrophe
Natural Disasters
InsurTech
Wildfire
Claims
Tech