What I've learned as an Insurance Adjuster

If the slope’s just right and the ground is just so, a digital camera can bounce clean over a six foot cedar fence…and the vet bill is $112.92 to retrieve it from St. Bernardo’s gut. 

If the grade is just right and the ladder is just so, you can back it straight through an overhead garage door window…and if Willy Nelson’s singing, “On The Road Again” a little too loud, you won’t even know it until you get out to shake the insured’s hand. 

He’s the guy standing there with his mouth hanging open.

After, scaling to the top of Roof Mount Everest...it's the wrong time to remember, you forgot to change the camera batteries.

Most gutters will catch a runaway tape measure…unless there’s a car hood to land on instead.

A 35’ tape measure puts the exact same dent in the hood of a Dodge Ram as it does in a Rolls Royce…but the fix-it tickets aren’t even close.

After thoroughly inspecting, scoping, measuring and explaining my findings to Mr. Rodriquez… evidently, Kansas City has more than one Mr. Rodriguez and 400 West Franklin Street isn’t the same thing as 400 West Franklin.

Contractors have really, reallllly good eyes, ‘cuz they can see hail damage on shingles from the ground, from way out in the street, in their truck, as they're driving, at thirty miles an hour, in the rain…at night.

On a new roof

Replaced the day before yesterday

From a year old storm

A mile away...

  

The best way to settle a claim is with your ears

Words are powerful. 

Mention the word, insurance, and the cost of a 2 x 4 doubles. Mention the word mold and it triples—throw, public adjuster, into the mix and you’ll be tripping over policy limits.

Eating out gets old

Kids grow up too fast 

But, what I’ve learned most of all…

When it all comes down, when the dollars and cents, brick and mortar and balance sheets are tallied…

When the file you worked on for hours, represents years. 

Years washed out, 

blown up, 

burned down... 

in a moment. 

You realize.

It’s not about the total.

It’s not about the numbers.

It’s not about how many you write

or how quick you close...

It’s about people.

Helping people

One

Claim

At

A

Time  

Adjust well, 

Doug

PS: What have you learned as an insurance claims adjuster?

What claims adjuster training would you like?

  

Adjusting, everybody’s got to do it…some do it for a living

Adjusters Life@aol.com

~

DO YOU WANT TO START LIVING YOUR ADJUSTER'S LIFE TODAY, OR KNOW SOMEONE WHO DOES?

The # 1 Best Selling Insurance Adjuster Training is at your fingertips.

Your new life as an Independent Insurance Claims Adjuster is at your fingertips.

* Everything you need to know from resume to payday.

* No sales gimmick or hook.

* Simple words penned with sweat from years of adjusting and one on one training. 

* No need spend time and hundreds of dollars with training and travel.

Adjuster’s Life comes not only with words and examples but a promise to personally assist you for *FREE* as you as you build your Adjuster’s Life.

The Adjuster’s Life thrives in any economy, you can too. Are you ready to see what it’s like to ride through a storm with an adjuster?

What’re you waiting for?

Jump in—let’s roll.

~

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How to avoid missing it

There’s plenty of ways to miss it, running insurance claims. But there’s one sure fire way to miss it, often—and one way to prevent it…

I still remember it. Hail claim. Nice, big expensive, new house. Thirty year laminate. It was disgusting. Footfall, marring and mechanical damage everywhere. I thought it must’ve been installed on a hot—hot Saturday afternoon…and the boys were thirsty.

I took my time. I took 92 photos (actually more but that’s how many I submitted with the file.)

Did I mention, I took.my.time?

I searched high and low and found plenty of damage—only none of it had anything to do with hail.

Just thirsty boys in a hurry.

I took my time. Explained what I found (and didn’t find) to the insured, as per carrier protocol.

No surprise—they weren’t happy.

I submitted my file. And you know what? I took my time, detailing in photos all the stuff I found and explained that it had nothing to do with hail—but just a bunch of thirsty boys on a Saturday (or so it seemed).

Back at the ranch, up on the roof, a day or two later a contractor or two, looked at all the things I’d taken pictures of and told the insured he couldn’t believe how bad I’d missed it and, “You have substantial damage to warrant roof replacement.”

As you might’ve guessed a re-inspect was requested—only not with that adjuster (me). I didn’t even know about it until later on…we’ll get to that in a moment.

And wouldn’t you know it? The new adjuster found “substantial damage to warrant roof replacement.”

So, the contractor was happy, the insured was happy, and the new adjuster was happy to bill a big fat fee for a big fat roof.

Only…something odd happened.

An inside handler for the carrier, took.his.time. and looked back through my 92 photos and thought, hmmm, this guy looks like he.took.his.time. Maybe he’s not blind as a bat like the contractor and insured said. Maybe, he didn’t miss it. I think we ought to take another look.  

In comes the engineer.

Lo and behold the engineer agreed with that blind as a bat first adjuster. The shingles were damaged sure and certain, in all sorts of ways except, for anything that had to do with hail.

But…

He didn’t take.his.time to review his report after he copied and pasted from a template. So he didn’t notice the statement about finding dents in the roof vents. The roof vents that he had no, zero, nada, zilch, photos of. He did have one picture of some mechanical damage to valley metal, though.  

The desk adjuster didn’t take.his.time to read the reports thoroughly, either. He did, however, see the part that said something about hail dented roof vents.

That’s why I received the claim back in my queue with a request to write an estimate to replace the hail dented roof vents.

I took.my.time and replied with photos of the vents from the original 92 pictures and an excerpt from my original loss report advising that the vents were vinyl. (Hail doesn’t dent vinyl vents—it may crack holes in older brittle ones, but not new ones. Well, if it does it will damage a lot more than just the vents.) I also included my original statement that the shingles were damage from poor workmanship, but not hail.

The moral of the story?

We don’t ever want to miss it—but sometimes we will. One of the biggest things you can do to prevent missing it is to: take.your.time.

Take your time, you’ll get there faster~ dougism 101

WANT TO START LIVING YOUR ADJUSTER'S LIFE TODAY?

do you know someone who does? 

The # 1 Best Selling Insurance Adjuster Training is at your fingertips.

Your new life as an Independent Insurance Claims Adjuster is at your fingertips.

* Everything you need to know from resume to payday.

* No sales gimmick or hook.

* Simple words penned with sweat from years of adjusting and one on one training. 

* No need spend time and hundreds of dollars with training and travel.

Adjuster’s Life comes not only with words and examples but a promise to personally assist you for *FREE* as you as you build your Adjuster’s Life.

The Adjuster’s Life thrives in any economy, you can too. Are you ready to see what it’s like to ride through a storm with an adjuster?

What’re you waiting for?

Jump in—let’s roll.

Get your Adjuster's Life today

Get your Adjuster's Life today

 You might also like:

So, You Want To Be An Insurance Adjuster?

How Much Does An Insurance Adjuster Make?

What Does An Adjuster Need To Know?

FREE Online Flood Insurance Certification!

What's your story? Have you ever bumfuzzled something just because you were in a hurry? 

Take your time and send me a line...

AdjustersLife@aol.com

or leave a reply. 

Adjust awesomely,

Doug

What you should know about Claims Adjuster prerequisites and licensing

Today we’re going to touch on two topics.  Insurance Claims Adjuster prerequisites and Adjuster licensing.

Background Training Prerequisite

The best background, in my opinion, is to have a basic knowledge of construction. After all you’ll be writing estimates for repairs. If a tree knocks a hole through the roof, can you rebuild it on paper?

If you don’t have any idea about construction that’s an easy fix. Find any storm chasing roofing company and tell them you want to sell roofs for them. If you have a pulse they’ll hire you—straight commission of course. Hang out for a storm or two and you’ll be meeting with adjusters inspecting roofs for hail damage normally. You’ll learn the basics of roof and siding measuring, installation and repairs. You’ll have the opportunity to read the finished product of insurance claims from several different carriers and you’ll meet lots of adjusters and you can pick their brains and learn insurance adjuster lingo.

And if you work hard you can make a good income while you learn. Many good adjusters started out as roofing salesman. 

That is just one simple way to get your feet wet in the world of an adjuster. It’s not necessary but a working knowledge of construction will assist you a great deal when it comes time to write an estimate for repairs from a chicken dinner gone wrong that burned half the kitchen down. But this is about becoming an adjuster, so I’m not going to delve into construction basics 101.

License

The first solid step toward actually becoming an adjuster is to become licensed. I’m asked often. How do I do what you do? Do I have to go to school? The answer is yes and no. 

You don’t have to go to school, but you do have to pass a test to obtain an adjuster’s license for your state. However, some states do not require an adjuster’s license. In that case if you live in Missouri for instance, you can adjust claims without an adjuster’s license.

But, you’ll be hard pressed to find anyone who will give you a claim to run if you don’t have a license. So even though it’s not required per se by law—it is required by the folks who’ll give you the claims. So, by default, you’re going to have to obtain an adjuster’s license from somewhere.

The common consensus is that Texas is the easiest place to obtain a license. I’ve been licensed in multiple states and I didn’t notice one being harder than the other once you figured out what they wanted.  Some states are more user-friendly. They tell you exactly what to do in easy to follow steps. While other states like Minnesota, the last time I took a test for them, are not so user-friendly. They said you need to pass the test, but they didn’t provide any easy access as to what information was on the test so you could prepare—I think they call that, Minnesota nice.

Anyway, if you live in a state that requires a license you’ll need to get licensed as a resident adjuster for that state if you want to run claims in that state.  Click here to find out your state requirements for obtaining a license in your particular state.

You can go to school for a fee and obtain a license. Fees usually range anywhere from $300 - $700 and last a few days to a week. You can get a license anywhere even if you don’t live there. If you live in Minnesota and want to get a license in Texas, you can. And many folks do this. You will be allowed to get a non-resident license. The Texas license is recognized or reciprocal in several other states. Thus, allowing you to work claims in other reciprocal states. So, you can have a Texas license, and then if a hurricane hits Mississippi, you can work claims there because you are licensed in Texas.

The individual states many times require you to purchase a temporary license or they may call it an emergency license. They’ll charge the adjusters flooding their state a nominal fee usually $25-$45 for a license that is good for 90 days or so allowing you to work the storm. After that you can keep up the license simply by renewing it, which of course requires another fee. It’s a source of revenue for the state and regulates in a small way who is in their state adjusting.

Remember, I said the answer was yes and no, regarding whether you had to go to school to be an adjuster. Well, the reason I said that was because of continuing education requirements. Typically every two years you must renew your license—pay a fee, of course—and document that you have completed the required number of hours of continuing education.

The requirements vary from state to state. But generally around 20-30 hours. You can choose how you want to do this. A vacation to Florida to attend a three day training when it’s 20 below zero in your hometown may be a nice way to fulfill your requirements and take a tax deductible vacation. Also, you can take online courses. Each state will advise individually what classes are required and acceptable as CE credits. Click here to see what your state requires.

 

So, in summary go to the website for your particular state and read what is required for licensing procedures. Take the test. If you don’t pass, don’t feel bad—count it as training. One of the best adjusters I know took the test five times before he passed. So, take the test as many times as you need to and count all the ones prior to passing as practice exams. When you pass the test--smile and say, “I’m a licensed adjuster.”

Yeehaw!

      Now what?

Having a license doesn’t make you any money. It doesn’t give you any claims to run. And it doesn’t teach you how to handle a claim even if you got one. Actually, getting licensed has little to do with the actual workings of how to be an adjuster.  

But, never fear…that’s why I’m here. J

Well, thanks for stopping by, that’s all for today.

What questions do you have about adjusting? How can I help?

I read you correspondence and try to answer as quickly as possible.

Adjust well,

Doug Spurling

AdjustersLife@aol.com

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WANT TO START LIVING YOUR ADJUSTER'S LIFE TODAY?

The # 1 Best Selling Insurance Adjuster Training is at your fingertips.

* No need spend time and hundreds of dollars with training and travel.

* Everything you need to know from resume to payday.

* No sales gimmick or hook.

* Simple words penned with sweat from years of adjusting and one on one training. 

FREE BONUS!

Adjuster’s Life comes not only with words and examples but a promise to personally assist you for * FREE *as you build your adjusting career.

The Adjuster’s Life thrives in any economy, you can too. 

Are you ready to see what it’s like to ride through a storm with an adjuster?

What’re you waiting for?

Jump in—let’s roll.

 

Get your Adjuster's Life today

 You might also like:

Insurance Adjuster School 101.1

So, You Want To Be An Insurance Adjuster?

How Much Does An Insurance Adjuster Make?

What Does An Adjuster Need To Know?

FREE Online Flood Insurance Certification!