The claim director for Insurance Company (IC) realized that he was not on track to meet his objective of significantly lowering the number of liability claims pending by the end of the year. He was intent on meeting the goal, however, so in December he issued a verbal directive to the claim staff. He said that they could settle for more than they believed a given claim to be worth if it meant closing the file by the end of the year, as long as the coverage limits were not exceeded. One of the claim representatives, who is a CPCU, thought that this scheme could be unethical because of its potential effect on policyholder rates and the value of claims generally. Her best course of action would be to