Sure Enough Insurance is a large insurance company that has recently

Question

Sure Enough Insurance is a large insurance company that has recently been experiencing financial difficulties. Claims are handled by claims coordinators who determine how much, if at all, Sure Enough must pay a policy holder who has made a claim. The aforementioned financial difficulties are forcing Sure Enough to fire 25% of its claims coordinators. To minimize the potentially harmful effects of these cuts, it is recommended that Sure Enough lay off coordinators whose average time of completing work on their assigned claims is the longest.

Which of the following, if true, most seriously calls into question the argument's conclusion?

A. No insurance payments are made by Sure Enough until a claims coordinator has completed work on the claim.

B. Other departments in Sure Enough Insurance do not have any job vacancies.

C. A significant increase in the amount of time it takes Sure Enough claims coordinators to complete work on claims could result in Sure Enough's loss of business to competitors.

D. Sure Enough's policy is to assign complex and lengthy claims to the most competent coordinators.

E. There is no significant difference between the premiums Sure Enough currently charges and those charged by its competitors.

This is a  CR Butler Question

Check the links to other Butler Projects:
 
  Data Sufficiency Butler  
  Problem Solving Butler  
  Reading Comprehension Butler

dhart · Answer

Argument: SureEnough is facing financials difficulties
Conclusion : To minimize harmful effetcts of financial difficulties , it is recommended that SureEnough must lay off 
25% of claim coordinators , whose avg time of claim settlement is longest.

A. No insurance payments are made by Sure Enough until a claims coordinator has completed work on the claim.

B. Other departments in Sure Enough Insurance do not have any job vacancies.
it does't matter if job vacancies exist in other depts, if the issue is in the claims dept

C. A significant increase in the amount of time it takes Sure Enough claims coordinators to complete work on claims could result in Sure Enough's loss of business to competitors.
increase in turn around time will lead to but that does'nt help the arugemnt conlsuion of lay off due to finacial loss

D. Sure Enough's policy is to assign complex and lengthy claims to the most competent coordinators.
well , if SureEnough is assigning lengthy claims as per competence of coordinators then there should'nt be much increase in response time and , even if there is then is it really a very complex claim or the coordinator worked did'nt take the claims settlement seriously. So laying off the slowest cliam coordinator here can be a bit dicey and hence undermines the arguemnt , can be kept

E. There is no significant difference between the premiums Sure Enough currently charges and those charged by its competitors.
Premiums charged by others Insurers are compettive to Sureenough doesnt help to judge Sure Enough claim corrdinator worl. a bit irrelevant

Vivek1707 · Answer

A. This actually supports the plan: keeping claims moving quickly is important because payments can't happen until the work is finished.
B. Whether other departments have vacancies doesn't tell us which claims coordinators should be fired.
C. This supports the argument. If slow processing can cost customers, removing the slowest coordinators makes more sense.
D. Yup, This changes the whole picture. The slowest coordinators may be slow because they handle the hardest claims and are actually the most competent. Firing them could make things worse.
E. Premium differences have nothing to do with whether the slowest coordinators should be laid off.

Minka99 · Answer

I'm choosing D as the right answer here. The task here is to cast doubt on the claim made in the passage that the insurance company will lay off the coordinators who spend the most time on claims. D perfectly devalues this claim by providing the information that the most lengthy and complex claims are assigned to the most competent coordinators. This means that the firm would effectively fire its most competent staff, causing way more harm than if they did nothing.

counterclash1 · Answer

Correct Answer : D

The plan recommends firing claims coordinators based on a single metric: longest average completion time.
This plan rests on a hidden assumption: Long completion times mean the coordinator is slow, inefficient, or incompetent.
To weaken the argument, we must break this connection by showing that a long completion time is a result of the difficulty of the assignments, not the incompetence of the worker.

Step-by-Step Option Analysis

A (Incorrect): Stating that payments happen after completion confirms basic operational procedures, but doesn't tell us if firing slow coordinators is a good or bad criteria. 
 B (Incorrect): Job availability in other departments is irrelevant to choosing  which  claims coordinators to lay off. 
 C (Incorrect): If slow processing causes a loss of business to competitors, that actually gives a reason to eliminate slow processing, which  supports  (strengthens) the idea of firing slow workers. 
  D (CORRECT): If complex, time-consuming claims are specifically given to the most competent coordinators, then those coordinators will naturally have the longest average completion times. Firing them would mean firing the company's best, most skilled employees, which severely harms the company and destroys the conclusion.  
 E (Incorrect): Premium comparisons with competitors have no bearing on evaluating individual claims coordinator efficiency or layoff decisions.

Bunuel · Answer

OFFICIAL EXPLANATION

Sure Enough Insurance is a large insurance company that has recently been experiencing financial difficulties. Claims are handled by claims coordinators who determine how much, if at all, Sure Enough must pay a policy holder who has made a claim. The aforementioned financial difficulties are forcing Sure Enough to fire 25% of its claims coordinators. To minimize the potentially harmful effects of these cuts, it is recommended that Sure Enough lay off coordinators whose average time of completing work on their assigned claims is the longest.

Which of the following, if true, most seriously calls into question the argument's conclusion?

A. No insurance payments are made by Sure Enough until a claims coordinator has completed work on the claim.

Incorrect.

To solve this Conclusion Weakening question, first break down the argument. The first 3 sentences are premises providing factual data. The last sentence is a recommendation ( it is recommended) so it's the conclusion:

Premise A: Sure Enough Insurance is experiencing financial difficulties
+
Premise B: claims coordinators decide how much to reward a customer
+
Premise C: Sure Enough is about to fire 25% of its claims coordinators
=
Conclusion: it would be best to fire claims coordinators that take the longest to complete claims

Possible assumption: The agents who take longer to work on their claims do so because they are somehow inefficient, and thus are best laid off.

Weakening Data: ?

You are required to find data that weakens the conclusion that the claims coordinators that take the longest to complete claims should be fired. The correct answer could be one that exposes the argument's assumption.

This answer choice neither weakens nor strengthens the argument's conclusion because it makes a statement about the payment process in general and does not refer to the factor of time. Weakening the conclusion requires that you show why the criterion according to which staff will be fired is not the best one and that it could lead to firing the wrong employees.

B. Other departments in Sure Enough Insurance do not have any job vacancies.

Incorrect.

This answer choice neither weakens nor strengthens the argument's conclusion because the argument deals with the issue of which coordinators to fire. No mention is made of transferring employees to other departments.

C. A significant increase in the amount of time it takes Sure Enough claims coordinators to complete work on claims could result in Sure Enough's loss of business to competitors.

Incorrect.

This answer choice strengthens the conclusion, but you are required to weaken it. If business is lost when claims take too long to process, then the idea that coordinators that take longer to finish claims should be fired is supported.

D. Sure Enough's policy is to assign complex and lengthy claims to the most competent coordinators.

This answer choice weakens the conclusion's assumption. the reasoning behind laying off the agents who take longer to complete their analysis is that these agents are inefficient compared to their faster colleagues, and thus laying them off will do the least damage. However, if the most competent workers are given the complex and lengthy tasks to complete, then obviously they will take up more time per task, despite being competent. This, however, does not mean that they should be fired. Therefore, the data in this answer choice definitely weakens the author's conclusion.

E. There is no significant difference between the premiums Sure Enough currently charges and those charged by its competitors.

Incorrect.

To solve this Conclusion Weakening question, first break down the argument. The first 3 sentences are premises providing factual data. The last sentence is a recommendation ( it is recommended) so it's the conclusion:

Premise A: Sure Enough Insurance is experiencing financial difficulties
+
Premise B: claims coordinators decide how much to reward a customer
+
Premise C: Sure Enough is about to fire 25% of its claims coordinators
=
Conclusion: it would be best to fire claims coordinators that take the longest to complete claims

Possible assumption: The agents who take longer to work on their claims do so because they are somehow inefficient, and thus are best laid off.

Weakening Data: ?

You are required to find data that weakens the conclusion that the claims coordinators that take the longest to complete claims should be fired. The correct answer could be one that exposes the argument's assumption.

This answer choice neither weakens nor strengthens the argument's conclusion because the argument does not deal with premiums or competitors. Since no mention is made of these topics, further information about them cannot help us determine which employees to fire.

Sure Enough Insurance is a large insurance company that has recently

Prep Toolkit

Top 5 GMAT Debrief Videos

615 to 715 in 15 Days (Ria's Strategies)

More than Quant/Verbal Abilities: Speed vs. Accuracy

745 with Only Self-Prep and GMAT Club

From 555 to 765: 210-point Improvement

Perfect 805 Score Debrief by Julia

My Rewards

GMAT Critical Reasoning (CR) Questions

­Sure Enough Insurance is a large insurance company that has recently

Prep Toolkit

615 to 715 in 15 Days (Ria's Strategies)

More than Quant/Verbal Abilities: Speed vs. Accuracy

745 with Only Self-Prep and GMAT Club

From 555 to 765: 210-point Improvement

Perfect 805 Score Debrief by Julia

My Rewards

Sure Enough Insurance is a large insurance company that has recently