Question

Vasquez-Morrell Assurance specializes in insuring manufacturers. Whenever a policyholder makes a claim, a claims adjuster determines the amount that Vasquez-Morrell is obligated to pay. Vasquez-Morrell is cutting its staff of claims adjusters by 15 percent. To ensure that the company's ability to handle claims promptly is affected as little as possible by the staff cuts, consultants recommend that Vasquez-Morrell lay off those adjusters who now take longest, on average, to complete work on claims assigned to them.
Which of the following, if true, most seriously calls into question the consultants' criterion for selecting the staff to be laid off?

• A. If the time that Vasquez-Morrell takes to settle claims increases significantly, it could lose business to other insurers.
• B. Supervisors at Vasquez-Morrell tend to assign the most complex claims to the most capable adjusters.
• C. At Vasquez-Morrell, no insurance payments are made until a claims adjuster has reached a final determination on the claim.
• D. There are no positions at Vasquez-Morrell to which staff currently employed as claims adjusters could be reassigned.
• E. The premiums that Vasquez-Morrell currently charges are no higher than those charged for similar coverage by competitors.

Hint:

In critical reasoning questions that ask you to weaken an argument or a plan, look for an answer choice that attacks the core assumption. Here, the assumption is that `time taken = inefficiency`. The correct answer provides an alternative reason for the long time taken (`complexity of work = high skill`).

Answer 1

The Correct Option is B

Step 1: Understanding the Argument
The core of the argument is a recommendation from consultants on how to implement staff cuts among claims adjusters.
Premise: Vasquez-Morrell needs to lay off 15% of its claims adjusters.
Goal: To minimize the negative impact on the company's ability to handle claims promptly.
Consultant's Criterion: Lay off the adjusters who take the longest, on average, to complete their claims.
The underlying assumption is that the time taken to complete a claim is a direct and accurate measure of an adjuster's efficiency or performance. An adjuster who takes longer is assumed to be less productive.

Step 2: Analyzing the Task
We need to find an option that weakens or "calls into question" this criterion. This means finding a reason why "taking the longest" is not a good indicator of being a less valuable employee. We are looking for an alternative explanation for why an adjuster might take a long time to process claims, an explanation that suggests they are actually a valuable asset.

Step 3: Evaluating the Options
(A) This option discusses the negative consequences of claims taking longer to settle. This actually strengthens the consultants' goal of maintaining promptness, but it does not question the method (the criterion) for selecting who to lay off. It reinforces the importance of the problem, not challenges the proposed solution's logic.
(B) This option provides a critical piece of information. If supervisors assign the most complex claims to the most capable adjusters, it follows that these capable adjusters will naturally take longer on average to complete their work. Complex claims inherently require more time, investigation, and analysis. Therefore, following the consultants' advice would mean laying off the most skilled and capable adjusters. This directly contradicts the goal of maintaining the company's ability to handle claims effectively and thus seriously calls the criterion into question.
(C) This option describes a standard operational procedure for all claims. It applies equally to all adjusters, whether they are fast or slow, and does not differentiate between them. Therefore, it has no bearing on the validity of the criterion for layoffs.
(D) This option deals with the possibility of reassigning employees, which is irrelevant to the question of who should be laid off in the first place. It talks about what happens after the selection is made, not the validity of the selection criterion itself.
(E) This option compares Vasquez-Morrell's premiums with its competitors. This is a detail about the company's market position and pricing strategy, which is unrelated to its internal process of evaluating and laying off claims adjusters.
Step 4: Final Answer
Option (B) is the correct answer because it exposes a fundamental flaw in the consultants' assumption. It shows that the metric they propose (average time to complete a claim) is likely an indicator of an adjuster's skill and the difficulty of their assignments, not their inefficiency. Laying off employees based on this flawed metric would be detrimental to the company.