The Construction Episode | AdjusterTV Radio 009

00:06 - And I want to be that guy at the end. So I’m going to do everything at the beginning to be the guy at the end, which means whatever they give me is I’m going to try and do it as fast as I can with the best quality and the best customer service that I can try to be the best.

00:19 - And honestly, it’s not that hard. I discovered that if I put in 10% more effort, that I could, that I was going to be working more than about 80% kind of other adjusters, James: if you’re average or better than 50% Matt: of the people.

00:34 - So if you’re S you know, if you’re slightly above average, then it started, you know, the numbers start to work in your favor.

00:40 - You know, you really have to push it to get into the top five or 10%, but it’s still, it’s just a matter of thinking through your processes.

00:49 - It’s a matter of always reaching for respect, friendliness and kindness.

00:55 - First, when you’re dealing with anybody and.

00:59 - Trying to keep your eye on the ball, which is volume how’s it going? Good.

01:08 - What kind of questions do we have today? Well, Chris Rawls says, asks best ways to shorten various learning curves construction for me specifically, but I’m sure exact tomato and other topics would be helpful as well.

01:23 - So I want to talk about construction, construction, because construction is super important, but it’s also one of the things that I think that adjusters across the board, whether they’re staff or independent, it’s, it’s a weak point.

01:41 - And on our side, and I think specifically, not necessarily, you know how to build a house, right? What goes into a house like framing, you know, whatever, but how to after the house is built.

01:57 - Tear off parts of it and put those parts back on new parts back on because they were damaged in some way.

02:03 - Right? Well, I was James: going to write up, um, think about this, about construction and put it together, but I’m still working on it.

02:14 - Matt: So constructing it. Yes. Yes.

02:17 - The dad jokes go at the end. Okay. All right.

02:21 - So how do you learn construction? Like how, what, are there any resources out there, um, currently and sort of is the answer.

02:33 - Yeah. So there are probably thousands of books.

02:39 - There are endless YouTube videos, right? There are in almost any neighborhood in the country.

02:45 - You can go find somebody working on a house.

02:48 - So there’s construction people, you know, nailing things into other things happening all the time.

02:53 - It’s all around us. Um, Even when you sit in your own house or your own apartment, you can look around and see the things that have been constructed.

03:03 - Right. Um, I, I would say generally speaking that we don’t necessarily need to know exactly how many nails go into a 3,500 square foot house, the framing of it, how many linear feet of, you know, Romax or AC wire or whatever you call it.

03:24 - Um, what we do need to know is how to repair stuff and how to repair the same things when they’re damaged by different things.

03:37 - Like if it’s something is drywall statements by smoke, versus if it’s damaged by water, right? So we need to know how to do repairs like that.

03:47 - How to, how to handle paint, what to, how to, you know, mask off a room or if it should be masked.

03:55 - And which way should it be masked, right? Should that you cover all everything up or should you just use blue tape everywhere? Or how does that even work? Right.

04:04 - So I think that the, the, that in order to learn construction, I think it makes it a lot easier to narrow down the things that you have to learn.

04:18 - Right. So you don’t need to learn how to build a house.

04:21 - Right. Right. It’s helpful.

04:22 - Certainly it’s good knowledge to have, but it’s not going to be a common thing that you’re going to have to deal with.

04:29 - Even if you are building a house, you know, a total loss, right.

04:34 - Because you still have to deal with tearing the house down.

04:38 - And there are ways to write total loss estimates where you don’t, you’re not, you know, putting how many nails are in the whole thing.

04:45 - Right. Right. Um, using the software, which will estimate the things that are already there and automatically calculate all that stuff.

04:53 - So there’s, there’s. That’s sort of a, a depth of knowledge that you need to have beyond, which is a diminishing return, as far as James: a resource, that can be a good place to get started.

05:03 - So you can have a general understanding this isn’t going to be your, be all end all, but, um, the home Depot has a home improvement book like home improvement.

05:12 - One, two threes, I believe is what it is. It shows you how to build a wall.

05:18 - It shows you how to do some of these home improvement items, and you can get a good understanding of the basics of what it takes to.

05:28 - Put up a wall to wire, something that sort of thing.

05:31 - So you can get an idea of it. That’ll give you a general basis.

05:34 - I mean, I’m not saying that this is going to teach you everything you need, but there’s photos and diagrams and things like that.

05:40 - That kind of give you a good idea of what you’re looking at.

05:43 - And especially for somebody who’s never been around construction, I’ve never touched it or anything like that.

05:47 - It’s a good resource to get started with, but it’s not going to take the place of probably what you’re going to talk about next, but I’m just throwing it out there.

05:55 - Just get that skim through it. Look at some things it’s going to give you some really, really good, good information.

06:02 - Yeah. Matt: There are, there are not a whole lot of like, uh, insurance, like restoration, um, how to use out there on construction.

06:14 - Right. But I know, I don’t know that there really are.

06:16 - There are any, because even when you go to, like, when I went to Vail national back in the day, It was, here’s how a house is put together.

06:26 - It wasn’t like, this is what a technician is going to do when he cuts the cuts out that dry wall and the ceiling, what it, what it looks like when he does that and what are they going to do? How did you have to seal the whole ceiling? Do you repaint the wall? I mean, what do you, none of that, right? Kind of like, they’ll, they’ll talk about it, but you know, seeing something, having your hands on it, I think is a, is a better way to teach because even years into my career, There were certain things that I was doing wrong for a long time.

07:00 - Right. Um, like masking off a room, the wrong way.

07:04 - And then somebody, some, some final reviewer or something manager, somebody was like, why are you putting this on there instead of this? Let’s just the way I’ve always done it.

07:11 - Well, that’s wrong. Okay. Right.

07:15 - So you kind of like, even if you are writing estimates and writing them wrong and they’re not getting kicked back to you are correct.

07:22 - You’re not being told that they’re wrong. You’re going to keep doing them that way then it’s still not going to be.

07:26 - Right. Right. So to narrow down the topic for construction, for learning construction, start with finished surfaces.

07:38 - Right. And start at the top. Right.

07:40 - So the very first thing I would, I would tell somebody to learn to do or to learn about and certainly could probably find some videos on YouTube is how to tear off.

07:52 - And re-install. Uh, composition shingle roof, you know, facing a lawsuit can be a terrifying and stressful experience.

08:00 - Jeopardizing your years of hard work and success.

08:04 - If you don’t have adequate insurance coverage as an adjuster, you’re putting yourself at great financial risk.

08:10 - If you make your living from handling claims as an independent adjuster, then you must get errors and emissions and general liability insurance coverage.

08:19 - It doesn’t matter if you’re a 10 99 or a W2 or you work carrier direct.

08:23 - Protect yourself with professional liability insurance from Koplik to find out more and to download the insurance for adjusters free guide, head on over to C P L I c. net/adjuster TV.

08:38 - That’s C P L I c. net/adjust your TV. Right? Learn that like watch that pro and it’s not.

08:49 - It’s super easy. It’s not rocket science, but when you watch it happen and you watch, if you can find videos or find resources where they show what they do around flashing like around chimneys, are they taking the flashing off? Are they leaving it on? Are they having to take off the siding in order to do something? You know, if there’s a, a dormer or a second story, what are they doing when they get to the Ridge cap? You know, what are the parts of the, of the rough that they’re dealing with? Um, are they, when they tear off a roof, are they tearing everything off of there and replacing it? Or are they tearing off some things and replacing parts of other things? Right.

09:24 - So for example, on a roof, you’ll tear off turtle, bents, like box vents.

09:29 - Um, that’ll come off with the shovel, right? When you shovel the shingles up, you just shoveled those events off with it.

09:34 - Right. But for a furnace vent cap, you’re not taking the, the vent stack off.

09:39 - You’re just removing, replacing the cap and a, guy’s got to get a screwdriver.

09:42 - Right. And take that, pop that thing off there and put a new one on right.

09:46 - Same deal with like sewer vent pipes. Right.

09:49 - You don’t mess with the pipe itself, but, but the boot that goes around it, we replaced, how do they do that drip edge.

09:57 - Right. Um, and then when the roof goes back on, you know, what’s the order of operations, what goes on first? What is it? What does ice and water shield look like? Um, what is starter look like? People talk about starter and if you’d never seen it or you’re not exactly sure what it is, it’s, it’s just a word, right? It doesn’t mean there’s not a corresponding picture in your brain of what it looks like, how it was installed, why it’s there.

10:22 - Um, and then I wouldn’t mess with framing, right? To start to start learning this stuff, because most of the claims you get as a, as a new, especially on the cat side are finished surfaces, right? Occasionally you’ll deal with framing, but you know, it’s going to be finished surface first.

10:39 - It’s probably going to be roofs. First, next thing I would look at is our gutters.

10:44 - What is a gutter. Why is it there? You know, what’s its purpose.

10:49 - If you know what its purpose is, then it starts to make sense about why spouts are the way where they are.

10:54 - You know, why they’re, uh, why there’s, you know, you don’t, you won’t see downspouts on the front side of a house for the most part.

11:04 - Why is that right? Aesthetics mostly, but yeah.

11:08 - You know, how far out are the run outs at the base of the downs and why? Um, there’s, they, they look simple and their function looks simple, but there’s a little nuances to them.

11:21 - There’s different materials for them. There’s different ways that they’re installed.

11:24 - There’s different ways to keep things out of them.

11:26 - A gutter screen, get her helmet, leaf guard.

11:29 - Um, sometimes those are integrated into the gutter itself.

11:34 - Right. Or they’re attached later on to any gutter, right? Like a gutter helmet can be put on any gutter, but leaf guard is the gutter and the gardens together.

11:44 - Right? So learning about gutters, cause you going to pay for a lot of gutters, millions of linear feet of gutters.

11:51 - Are you gonna pay for, you know, nearly millions and millions and then how are those estimated, I mean, do you have to pay for debt downspout separately? And you know, when you look an exact teammate, you’re not going to find a line item just for downspouts or just forget it.

12:04 - You’re going to see gutter slash downspouts, right? It’s the same price for the debt, for the gutter as it is for the downspout.

12:09 - And so you just pay by the linear foot, you just add all that up and pop that number in and you’re done.

12:14 - Right. So what’s next after that facia.

12:20 - Right? So it’s basically trim, decorative trim that covers up.

12:26 - The framing, right? So facia Cub, so metal facia or binal facia will cover the, the wood facia that is that the gutter is attached to.

12:36 - And that’s, it’s still kind of a decorative thing.

12:39 - You could have just wood facia with the gutters attached straight to that.

12:43 - Then we’re talking about siding, right? And there’s a lot of different kinds of siding.

12:48 - How is it installed? What’s its purpose? How do you tear it off? How do you tear off different kinds of siding? What goes behind the siding? Right.

12:55 - Um, windows, you can get pretty complicated with windows, but learn the basic types of windows.

13:02 - Because when you go to write an estimate in Xactimate, you’re not going to the window replacements.

13:08 - Are going to include almost all the things that you need for that, for the most part, there’s some other things you may need to add to it, but they’re going to cover all of the, the shims and the, this and the, that that need to go with it.

13:19 - You may just need to add like a retrofit kit and like casing on the inside.

13:24 - If you replaced that whole window or maybe you don’t.

13:27 - Right. So look at how windows are replaced, not just how they’re installed on a new house, right.

13:33 - Because you’re not going to be dealing with the, the house wrap and things like that.

13:38 - When you, when you do a retrofit, when you do it, when you install a window, pull out an old window and stick a new one in like, when you, when you put a new one on, when you’re looking at just the bare framing on the wall, you’re going to have like a there’s this adhesive thing that you put around the opening, and then there’s the house wrap and everything else.

13:55 - So that it seals that in. Right? So again, concentrating on the restoration side of things, the replacing everything, how do I replace a window? Not.

14:05 - Learn all about windows. Right? Right.

14:08 - Um, and then for the most part, that’s most things on the outside, right? You got some trim, you’ve got the roof gutters and siding and windows, you know, you could probably go look at fence.

14:20 - How, how would the different kinds of fence, you know, how were those installed? Look at decks, different kinds of deck materials.

14:28 - You know, there’s plastic, you can get tracks, you can do wood.

14:31 - There’s a bunch of different kinds of wood.

14:33 - Um, but it’s all square-foot linear foot stuff.

14:36 - Right? These days, there are a growing number of remote work opportunities for independent adjusters.

14:42 - With scoper writer programs popping up all over the place.

14:46 - You can do photo and scope. In the field, or you can just sit at home in your PJ’s and write the estimates on what the scope or got when they were out in the field.

14:56 - And it doesn’t matter where you live. As long as you have the internet, you can write claims as a desk adjuster, but you can’t get that sweet gig without being licensed.

15:05 - So if you live in Nebraska, which doesn’t require an adjuster to be licensed, you still have to have a New York license to write claims.

15:12 - Somebody scoped in New York, make sense of all the credentials you need.

15:16 - As an adjuster, there really is none more important than your adjuster license, especially your first one.

15:21 - You’re going to need it to do just about everything else.

15:23 - Including some adjuster schools even require you to have one before.

15:26 - They’ll let you enroll. So you need adjuster.

15:29 - Pro adjuster pro provides a comprehensive and easy to use way to get.

15:34 - And maintain your adjuster licenses. Most importantly, adjuster pro was founded by independent adjusters.

15:40 - And the team at adjuster pro is dedicated to helping you thrive as an adjuster with resources for every licensing state, including dead simple.

15:48 - CE packages adjuster pro is the gold standard for adjuster licensing.

15:52 - You’ll find everything you need to get licensed in one place, go to adjust your tv. com/adjust your pro right now.

16:01 - And then when you go inside the house, the things that I would concentrate on learning are going to be absolutely paint very first.

16:08 - How do you paint anything inside a house, dry wall or plot and plastic? Cause you’re going to still see plaster.

16:16 - There’s still houses with plaster and them installation because when, especially when you pull something off the ceiling, the is just going to fall right out.

16:23 - Right? So you need to know how to deal with that.

16:27 - You need to know how to deal with. Trim and molding different kinds of trim and molding baseboard window casing door casing, you know, crown molding, chair, rails, all that kind of stuff.

16:38 - The most common thing you’re going to see is going to be baseboard, you know, learn the different kinds of baseball, you know, paint grade versus staying great.

16:45 - Right? Those are going to be the two main different kinds of baseboard floor coverings carpets here.

16:52 - You’re going to write it thousands of carpet estimates, right? So learn the different, learn how to understand how carpet’s installed.

17:01 - You know, there are a couple of different ways that carpet goes in, right? There’s glue down carpet, which is just stick straight to a slab.

17:08 - Or there most carpet you’re finding a residential, especially in living areas or bedrooms is going to be carpet with a foam pad underneath it.

17:15 - And then on top of some kind of underlayment and then on top of sub floor, right? So.

17:22 - Learn how carpet’s installed. Right? So have you watched videos of people tearing out old carpet and putting in new carpet and there’s a bazillion, you know, flip this house videos and they’re all I’m guaranteed.

17:34 - There ought to be doing carpet in there. So laminate flooring, laminate, flooring, there’s all different kinds of flooring.

17:41 - So do you have vinyl, right? There’s final sheet goods.

17:45 - It comes in a gigantic role. You know, it’s old school, linoleum, ECC, like, you know, old kitchens.

17:50 - Do you see vinyl, tile, you see vinyl planks, there’s all kinds of different vinyl, like resilient flooring, right? And then there’s basically three main types of wood flooring, right? So there’s solid wood flooring, which is going to be probably the most expensive that’s going to be Oak Hickory, maple cherry resilience.

18:10 - I saw a guy’s house. He was a software developer for Microsoft.

18:15 - This was in Washington and he has had, it was like a $3 million house and had Brazilian.

18:21 - Cherry. And it was ruined from like his, his, his water maker on his refrigerator broke.

18:28 - And I was like, the house is James: no, I had one that was a car dealer.

18:33 - And he had Brazilian wood and the big, beautiful under cabinet ice maker.

18:40 - Yeah. Something broke on it while they were on vacation.

18:43 - Of course. And they come home and everything.

18:47 - I’ve never seen such work toward my life. Matt: Yeah.

18:50 - So in then you hear people talk about, um, laminate, wood flooring and an engineered wood floor.

18:56 - What’s the difference between an engineered flooring, solid flooring and laminate, then there is a difference.

19:00 - Right. And then how do those all go together? Right.

19:06 - And then what about cabinets? Because you’re gonna be doing kitchens and bathrooms, right.

19:10 - So how are cabinets measured? You know, what do they do? Can they just replace the faces on cabinets? Can you detach and reset cabinets? Can you save, if you’re going to replace the lower cabinets, do you have to also replace the countertop for the backsplash? What do you do with sinks? Cabinets, all the flooring cabinets over flooring or cabinets that aren’t overflowing.

19:34 - What do you do? Like, so there’s the Brazil cherry wood floor and the guy’s place corner.

19:40 - The corner of the whole place had it in there.

19:42 - Like everything was, it was like the wall had it on it.

19:45 - I didn’t, but that’s okay. Yeah. And it’s worse.

19:47 - I mean, they were all, it was anyway. So what do you do with the cabinets? If you have a water, you know, water damage to the floor on the other side of that, the room and that flooring goes underneath the cabinets and what do you do there? Right? What are your options? What’s an acceptable repair or do you have to pull all that stuff out? Right.

20:05 - Um, and then in bathrooms, what do you do with.

20:11 - Those vanities, like, how are those, how do you even estimate those to, can you just, I mean, can you just go to home Depot and just buy a whole vanity with the faucet and everything attached to it? Or what, how does that work, right.

20:23 - Or that you’re going to say something and then, but yes, you can.

20:27 - Yeah, you can absolutely. Or, you know, it may be a custom job where they, you know, they, they put their own, you know, you’ll, you’ll see it in a lot of aunties, especially if you go walk around your apartment or your house, you’ll see that the countertop has the, the sink bowl integrated into it.

20:42 - Right. It’s all one big piece. And then all these things that, that we’re talking about, especially what we’ll say on the inside, but what if we just want to draw, try that stuff out and we want it, and it can be saved.

20:57 - It’s not permanently like physically damaged.

21:00 - It’s just wet, but if it stays wet, it will be ruined and we will have to replace it.

21:05 - What do we do? To dry those things out.

21:08 - And for this, I strongly strongly recommend getting the what’s it called the ICRC.

21:16 - Is that what it is, um, going in and take there’s water remediation training for this that’s explained explicitly in detail, how to dry out structures and stuff.

21:28 - Right. Um, that kind of training, I would absolutely.

21:32 - It’s it’s specific to this. Go get that.

21:35 - Right. Um, or exterior surfaces in particular roofs, Hagen, Haig engineering.

21:42 - Hey Jay. Hey, education. com. They have resources and training for being a roof, inspector construction and all that kind of stuff.

21:50 - Um, exactly. Mate, exactly where it has a, uh, a program it’s um, so I think they put it together in the nineties, maybe.

22:00 - Uh, it’s a little bit dated. But it’s called the ILX.

22:04 - If you go, if you do a Google search for exact where I L X it’ll come up with a link and it’ll take you to it and you can still buy it.

22:12 - And it’s, it’s construction one-on-one and it’s a lot of like how stuff is built, not how stuff has replaced necessarily, but it does give a good sort of primer on, on basic construction.

22:24 - Right. And it also talks a little bit about blueprints and how things are measured square foot versus linear foot versus versus squares.

22:32 - Um, and that sort of thing. Um, so, and again, YouTube, there’s a lot of the problem with YouTube, unfortunately, is that anybody can put a video up about anything.

22:45 - So if you’re looking up, you know, how do I replace a hail damage drew up? You’re going to get a lot of like, not, not necessarily true things about hail damage and things.

22:57 - Videos made by people who are trying to influence people to spend more money than they probably need to.

23:02 - Um, I would say, but if, if you, if you dig, you can find resources on YouTube for, um, doing home repairs and which is what we’re talking about.

23:16 - Right. We’re not talking about building houses necessarily.

23:20 - Um, books again, home Depot, go to home Depot, walk in there and they’ve got a book rack.

23:28 - It’s got all, you know, how to make decks, how to build the cabins, how to build sheds, how to build this, how to build that basic wiring.

23:34 - One-on-one basic plumbing. One-on-one right.

23:37 - Those are good things to know, because you may get claims where they have.

23:42 - It’s not as common as the stuff I was just talking about, but you may have claims where lightning strikes a tree next to the house and zaps all the electrical in the, in the house.

23:53 - Right? All the I’ve seen him where the, the outlet, uh, plate cover.

24:01 - Is exploded off the, the wall and stuck in the opposite wall.

24:06 - Right? Little pieces of plastic and stuff.

24:08 - Um, because when the lightning hit the ha struck and, and, you know, zapped all the electrical, so those books usually they’ve got big, you know, big pictures in them and everything.

24:20 - And I think that does, they’re probably good basic resources for that kind of stuff.

24:25 - Short of that. Um, yeah, you can go, uh, get a job on a construction crew.

24:34 - You know what I mean? I will say that I feel kind of about that way, the same way I do about going and becoming a staff adjuster, just so you can get trained as an adjuster then to quit and become an IAA.

24:47 - That person is that you go work for on a construction crew is probably a small business owner, right.

24:53 - A local business owner. Anyway, and then we’re going to have to train you.

24:58 - I mean, you’re going to start off as a, as a job site labor, if you do that, do this kind of thing.

25:03 - And they’re gonna, you know, if you go work for them for a few months and then quit, then they got to go spend resources to go find somebody else to do that work.

25:11 - So I don’t think it’s fair to do to people.

25:13 - Let’s go get a job at one place just to learn something to go, uh, to go work someplace else.

25:22 - Right. Did you know that there is an adjuster school out there that has a full catastrophe property claims deployment simulation that you can sign up for, for training? Let’s talk about this veteran adjusting school in Sedona.

25:36 - Arizona is just such a school as a licensed vocational school veteran adjusting school, trains you to become a complete.

25:44 - Insurance adjuster. When you graduate from the Vos trained insurance adjuster program, you are ready to begin your exciting new career, whether as a daily adjuster or as a cat adjuster, listen, there are many outstanding adjuster schools out there, and you’ve got to get trained somewhere.

25:59 - Vos stands out among its peers for the depth and breadth of its program, which is a six week catastrophe deployment simulation complete with claims assignments, insured interactions, real damage that you can scope as well as it’s continuing support and mentorship long after graduates become working adjusters, all of which provide a significant advantage to you.

26:22 - I mean, there’s truly nothing else. Like it.

26:23 - Go to adjust your tv. com/v a S now, and chat with an enrollment specialist who will answer all of your questions and help you decide if Vos is the right choice for you.

26:35 - Again, go to adjust your tv. com/v a S. Um, but.

26:42 - Short of that, what you could do is job shadow instead, and it may be more, it absolutely be easier, um, to do a job shadow, not of a new build, none of don’t go to like a new neighborhood or a builder.

26:58 - I mean, if you want to learn framing, do that for sure.

27:01 - Um, but I would shadow a water mitigation, water restoration company, a local company, um, you know, shadow the, the, the tech at the water mitigation tech or shadow and exterior restoration company, like a refer a rough sales guy, or, you know, maybe at T talk to the guy and say, you know, can I sit there and watch your for an hour or two, watch the guy, the installers doing this, that or the other kind of work.

27:25 - Just go look, just go watch it. Right.

27:28 - And I can, I could tell you that’d be a lot easier than, than job shadowing and adjuster, because chances are with the adjuster.

27:35 - You’re going to have to wait for there to be a storm before anybody’s going to be out working.

27:39 - And then. You know, then you have to find somebody that will actually let you do that, which is not as easy as it may sound.

27:47 - Um, so with shadowing, a exterior restoration company or a water mitigation company, a technician, or a crew doing that kind of work, it’s, it’s as easy as just calling those companies, just cracking open Google and doing a search for those local businesses and just, you know, in exchange for something, you know, buying the guy’s steak or giving a gift certificate to Amazon or something, I don’t know, buying a coffee and just say, listen, I’m trying to be an adjuster.

28:14 - I want to be a good adjuster. And I want to kind of go to the source, you know, to see how these things are done so that when I write my estimates, I can write better estimates based on reality and not on just me kind of guessing and poking through Xactimate final stuff that I think might go, should go in the estimate.

28:31 - Right. And I think that that’s, if I was starting over, I would probably consider doing that first.

28:39 - I think what about you James, getting ideas on this? James: You touched on everything.

28:45 - Exactly what I would have. Well, that’s, that’s, I mean, I, I worked at home restoration, you know, and that’s where I got a lot of my knowledge, as far as roof siding, gutters, things like that.

28:57 - Um, you don’t get a lot of interior exposure, um, because most of those companies are doing next year, year restorations.

29:05 - Um, remodelers are probably a really good place.

29:08 - If you can find one that they’ll let you, I mean, just be honest with them, say, look, this is what I’m trying to do.

29:13 - You know, I’ll, if you need some help, I can come in, either volunteer to work for them, hang out, volunteer and, you know, help them, you know, especially if they have a, a demo job, if they have a demolition job, a great way to learn how to build something, has tear something down, you know, and, uh, and go in there and tear it out.

29:32 - You open up a wall, you look at it, you know, and, and it’s fun.

29:37 - Matt: You can’t, James: you can tear stuff up while you’re learning how to, you know, about how things are built and you can ask those questions and, and trust me, they, they enjoy having the help and you can learn a lot.

29:49 - And it’s yeah, it’s a win-win for everybody, you know? So, um, as a matter of fact, I, I actually did that.

29:56 - I knew a guy that was remodeler and, and there was some things I was curious about and I was asking him questions.

30:02 - He says, why? I just happened to have a job.

30:04 - I’m about to go tear up a tear out and I can show you a couple of things.

30:08 - I said, well, let’s go. And I’d never had so much fun in my life.

30:11 - Gave me a sledgehammer. And I just got to tear stuff up.

30:14 - Yeah. So got to be captain Matt: destructive.

30:16 - Yep. Yep. I’ve done some construction in the off season.

30:21 - I’ve worked a little bit of construction for a guy who was a remodeler.

30:24 - And before I ever got into claims. Uh, my dad had a construction company and he built houses and he also built commercial buildings, steel rulings.

30:33 - So I got to work on some steel buildings, which you find that you see more than you think that you would.

30:40 - There’s a lot of steel buildings out there.

30:42 - And when I say steel building, what I mean is a building with a steel frame that has metal, those metal panels on the side, and they can be agricultural buildings that can be, I’ve seen it sharps and guys backyards in the suburbs, you know, get a Morton building.

31:00 - Um, they can be warehouse. Do you frequently see them as warehouses or big garages or things like that? Um, a lot of buildings that don’t look like steel buildings on the outside, you know, when you go around and look on the inside, you see that steel, that free span steel frame.

31:16 - It’s a steel building with brick on the outside and the setter panels.

31:20 - It’s good to know how those go together. I mean, we, bill, I can’t tell you the number of buildings.

31:25 - Well, I can’t tell you the number of billings with there was a handful of them that my dad and I framed up together, just him and I with a forklift, right.

31:35 - And then a crane, we hire the crane to come in after you set everything up.

31:38 - And this is like a 40,000 square foot building.

31:41 - They just, they, they th the whole thing shows up on one flatbed truck.

31:45 - And th you get a big wrench or a couple of big wrenches, and there’s a, it’s like Legos, right? There’s an instruction book, step one, put these pieces together and then put all, you know, do do that 10 times for all the frames or whatever.

32:00 - So, but when you walk into those buildings, like if you get the duration claims and you get a bunch of farm outbuildings, and you’ve never seen a metal building put together, then you’re going to be like, Oh, I don’t know what to do.

32:10 - Right. But it’s any building is an it’s supposed to be an enclosed space.

32:16 - Right? So it’s modes, houses, buildings, whatever.

32:20 - They are mostly air. Right. It’s just the structure of.

32:25 - The thing that’s holding up the finished surfaces that encloses the space that you can do stuff on the inside, right.

32:31 - It’s people get intimidated by construction because they think it’s there’s science to it or that it’s, you know, which through there is certainly, but it’s, it’s, it’s still just a box.

32:43 - Right. And it’s mostly just air. So I think if you approach it from, from that perspective and say, all right, well, I’m going to tell you again, take small bites of this.

32:52 - I’m going to start at the top and work my way down, learn about composition, roofing first, learn everything that there is to know about how a composition roof is torn off.

33:01 - And then re-installed all the parts, the order of operations.

33:05 - Again, how long does it take? Right.

33:09 - And I’ll give you the answer to that one. The biggest, how so as you can think of could probably be done in a day, right? Any house in the suburbs, they’re gonna tear that sucker off and replace it in a day.

33:20 - And inside baseball. Which you certainly know if you’ve sold roofs, the crews don’t want to do 12 square, both houses.

33:29 - Nope. They want to do 35 square foot houses or square 35 square roofs day’s work because they can do the whole thing in a day.

33:39 - And it’s not, they’re starting another job.

33:41 - It’s like, they can knock it out in the day.

33:43 - Right? Tear James: off. You want to do small roofs.

33:46 - Is that they’re next door to each other or they’re all in the same.

33:48 - They’re just jumping from house to house to do it.

33:50 - And that’s the only time they want to do small houses.

33:52 - This is why whenever a storm comes through neighborhoods that are, that are smaller homes, nobody knocks on their doors.

33:58 - Yeah. Yeah, exactly. The nicer, the neighborhood you live in, the more knocks you’re going to get on your door.

34:04 - Yup. Yup. Matt: Yeah. That’s that’s, that’s why sometimes it’s hard to find a contractor that will go into the smaller neighborhoods.

34:10 - James: If you live in a ranch style home with a, just a simple Gable roof, you get fewer phone calls.

34:18 - You get fewer knocks on your door. Yeah.

34:20 - If you have this big old gigantic cable cut up roof.

34:24 - Matt: Yeah. You know, listen, I know that’s true Dallas.

34:28 - That’s true everywhere. Yep. Hey, Mr.

34:34 - And how’s it going? It’s going great.

34:37 - This is actually. Guy grant from veteran adjusting school.

34:41 - So you want to learn claims from the most experienced veteran adjusters, but you can’t find anybody who will let you ride along with them.

34:48 - Then let me tell you about adjuster TV plus developed by adjuster TV and its industry partners, including the high end training center veterans adjusting school in Arizona at gesture TV plus is a growing library of in-depth training videos created just for independent adjusters, learn scoping and estimating from professional trainers and adjusters.

35:08 - Learn how to handle customer interactions with confidence, learn the ins and outs of scoping and estimating exterior, hail claims and detailed videos about how to handle smoke, ice dam, water claims, and auto claims.

35:21 - Adjust your TV. Plus also features the very best of three years of adjuster TV.

35:25 - It’s YouTube videos, educational, entertaining, and inspiring come ride along with us on a gesture TV.

35:31 - Plus w you know, we, can we just shift gears here a little bit, and Kenny kind of talk about like, complexity, like, so a lot of times guys will hear guys complain about, you know, well, you know, I’m in this neighborhood and it’s all mobile homes, or I’m in this, this neighborhood.

35:48 - And all I got is all these little, like 24, 18 to 24 square roofs.

35:53 - Right. And they’re all small and there’s, there’s, it’s all brick, there’s no siding or anything.

35:57 - It’s just, they’re small claims. And then they’re complaining because somebody else is in a neighborhood, that’s got $600,000 houses in it.

36:05 - And they’re all the claims are all huge. I’m going to tell you right now, I want to be, and that small neighborhood with those little houses, because I can, I mean, you wanna talking about 10 claims a day? No problem.

36:19 - No brainer, easy. I mean, cause this is a volume game, right? Right.

36:24 - If the difference let’s say for example, like the minimum, the average you’re going to get on a, on a, any one of these claims average would be like three 50.

36:34 - Right. And maybe we’ll say on the, on the, the low end, if I’m in that neighborhood that has, you know, the big houses in it, my average might be four 10, right? It’s not going to be that.

36:45 - Does that made a huge amount, more per claim, right.

36:50 - If I can do, if I can only, and it’s killing me to do it because there’s so such big roofs, if I’m only doing five or six in that big neighborhood versus doing easily 10 easily.

37:04 - I’ve worked in North St. Louis so many times, and it’s all just a little, one story ranches.

37:08 - And it’s like, it’s so easy to just knock them out of the park.

37:13 - There’s so, hi, Mel. It’s just you, I’m going to make more money and I’m going to get more claims too, because my, my production is double what this guy is over ever.

37:23 - The nice neighborhood. I think that’s another thing I’m not fighting with contractors.

37:26 - James: Exactly. You know, and the other thing is, is that a lot of people lose sight of, I mean, it’s a, on the adjuster side, it’s a numbers game.

37:34 - It’s how many claims are you closing? Yes.

37:37 - And if you’re, yeah. So you want to go to that neighborhood where you’re going to get bigger claims and you make technically more money per claim if you’re on a fee schedule, but if you’re not closing claims, you know, It doesn’t matter.

37:51 - I mean, it doesn’t matter. And so, okay.

37:54 - So maybe you were closing, you know, you were closing them at a good clip with the guy over there.

37:58 - That’s closing eight claims a day and they’re smaller.

38:01 - You know, he is making more money in the long run.

38:04 - Number two is he’s, he’s getting noticed cause he’s closing claims, you know? And so whenever it comes time to look at okay, who we cut cutting and who we keep in, who’s closed more claims, you know, the guy that closed more claims or is going to get, stay on the job longer.

38:20 - So guess what, he’s out there working on that job for another three weeks, making more money while you go home and figure out what Matt: three months or three months, right? Yeah.

38:27 - And then that’s this. So this is kind of how my career went for a long time before things changed a little bit with the companies I was working for.

38:36 - Is they the first two weeks? There’s 25 adjusters there.

38:40 - Right. And you’re all over. They just they’re all over the place.

38:44 - Right. If I’m producing. And they start cutting people doing that, you know, doing the cut.

38:54 - Um, if I’m the last guy on the storm, if I started out in the neighborhood mobile homes there, it was all like Cracker boxes or little ranches or whatever, by the, by the time every, almost everybody else has gone, there might be like a one cleanup guy and one or two adjusters that are handling the new claims that come back.

39:12 - And this is the law tale of a hail storm. This is why I like hell so much.

39:17 - I’m in all the neighborhoods at that point, because I don’t have any more competition.

39:21 - Right. Right. So I’m doing the, that, and it’s not like I’m doing, you know, trying to smash out.

39:28 - As many as I can of these giant houses every day, because that’s all, that’s all I that’s.

39:31 - I mean, that neighborhood it’s like, I’m all over the place.

39:34 - So I’m doing one of those every couple of days.

39:36 - And you know, I’m in, um, I may be driving out here.

39:40 - I may be I’m, I’m the guy that’s going everywhere because I’m the last guy, because I can handle the claim volume at that point.

39:46 - Um, because if they got the big bulk of the claims taken care of upfront and then the guy at the end just ride it out.

39:55 - And I want to be that guy at the end, I’m going to do everything at the beginning to be the guy at the end, which means whatever they give me is I’m going to try and do it as fast as I can with the best quality and the best customer service that I can try to be the best.

40:07 - And honestly, it’s not that hard. I discovered that if I put in 10% more effort, that I could, that I was going to be working more than about 80% of other adjusters.

40:19 - How’s if you’re James: average, you’re better than 50% of the people.

40:22 - Matt: Yeah. So if you’re, you know, if you’re a slightly above average, then it starts, you know, the numbers start to work in your favor.

40:28 - You know, you really have to push it to get into the top five or 10%, but it’s still, it’s just a matter of thinking through your processes.

40:37 - It’s a matter of always reaching for, for respect, friendliness and kindness.

40:43 - First, when you’re dealing with anybody and trying to keep your eye on the ball, which is volume, right? If you do those things and you concentrate as much on those things, as you do about trying to figure out where you know how to search for something and Xactimate this, the technical part of it, you’re going to be, you’re going to do well at this job.

41:06 - It’s not the field of adjusters out there. We have a lot of variation in the kind of inconsistency and because they’re coming from so many different places with so many different trainings, right.

41:17 - And so many different experience levels. It’s, it’s easy, easy to distinguish yourself relatively easy.

41:25 - I should say to distinguish yourself because, because a lot of times I firms throw warm bodies at things it’s easy to be better than the warm bodies, I guess I should say that.

41:34 - James: Well, I mean, let’s go back to what I witnessed in the, Matt: in the, I just got my first iPhone guy.

41:41 - Yeah. I mean, James: the guy’s like, I just got my first iPhone a couple of weeks ago.

41:45 - They expect me to learn this crap in three days.

41:47 - I mean, it, it just, and the guy was serious and, Matt: and they expect James: me to, let me tell you what I have bad knees.

41:55 - Okay. And I have a difficult time, you know, own roofs.

41:59 - This guy had a difficult time. He was walking through the cross the room.

42:02 - Okay. But he was there, you know, and guess what he was still there when I left, you know, and, uh, Yeah, so you never know, but it’s just, it just, all you gotta do is just be better than the average in this, you know, just keep improving and you’re going to get there.

42:20 - I mean, it’s just the, the people, you know, obviously gonna refer back to the one video, my biggest motivation for me to be good in this business was a video that I saw that you did says we suck or hate really? Yeah.

42:40 - Because it, so you did that video. And then I was out talking to I firms and I’m doing my job and I was already trying to do a great job because I understand the dynamics of doing a great job and what that means for you.

42:59 - And I had, I affirms just extremely happy with me.

43:02 - Well, I’m thinking, well, you know, so I’m just doing my job, you know, and then you come out with that video.

43:08 - Okay. And then I started asking questions to the I for rooms.

43:12 - They go, James, you don’t realize how much suckiness we put up with.

43:18 - You know, they said that probably 70 to 75% of the people that they deal with every day on every storm, dailies, everything suck.

43:30 - There’s no detail, there’s no customer service.

43:33 - There’s, there’s just, it’s like, they think that you owe them real work that they’re doing, you know, and they don’t take any pride in what they do.

43:42 - Nobody goes above and beyond. And everybody’s saying we’ll have got one over here seeing if you could do it.

43:49 - Well, that’s a little outside my area. How much more are you going to pay me? Yeah.

43:53 - You know, or, and I just want to stick with some big thing.

43:56 - They go versus you you’ll look at it and go, Hey, I’m really not going to be that far from there tomorrow.

44:00 - I sold that it’s on the outer edge where I go, it’s just beyond the outer edge where I go, but I’m happy to be close to there tomorrow.

44:05 - Yeah. I’ll handle it. I’ll handle it from a regular fee.

44:08 - You know, that you do stuff like that, you know, and you get more work and then guess what, when they have that really good gravy thing that comes up whenever you have 23 school buses in one location, you get to build time and expense for at 75 to $80 an hour.

44:24 - Okay. And every bus has the exact same damage to it, which means your parts research is very simple, parts research.

44:31 - One time would you get to charge parts research with every single claim you get those things.

44:37 - You know, by just doing the little extra, you know, as Matt: an independent adjuster, do you feel like you only have bad, expensive choices for health insurance plans? And when you have to use the insurance, you’ll have to pay a lot out of pocket makes you wonder why you even have insurance in the first place.

44:55 - The stakes are high. Having no coverage puts you and your family at risk.

45:00 - It doesn’t have to be this way. You want peace of mind with common sense health coverage.

45:05 - You can count on it. That doesn’t include things you don’t need.

45:08 - You need real insurance with world-class protection, from established carriers, not health sharing and not cobbled together, prepaid medical, and you shouldn’t have to wait for it.

45:17 - Get approved in days not weeks, there is no risk.

45:20 - It’s no cost to see if you qualify for these high quality plans.

45:24 - Not everybody will qualify, but you’ve got nothing to lose by getting a free consultation.

45:29 - Visit adjuster, tv. com/health for more information, and to apply.

45:36 - And the thing about it is, is that it’s, I w we’re not meaning to like, say that if you don’t know how to use an iPhone, that you can’t do this job or that you suck.

45:44 - We’re not saying that at all. What we’re saying is, is that there, because I think because we’re independence.

45:50 - Okay. Um, that there’s a little bit of a mercenary attitude.

45:53 - Yeah. It’s like, what’s in it for me.

45:55 - I’m out looking out for number one, kind of a thing, which is, I think is perfectly natural.

45:59 - It goes against human nature a little bit to be like, show up to serve.

46:06 - Right. So it’s, it’s a, it’s a, an like an attitude shift or like, uh, like almost like a worldview shifts that a person has to like consciously do and then constantly cultivate in their character.

46:19 - Right. In order to, to, cause it’s not, it’s easy to backslide.

46:22 - I mean, I’ve gone. I’ve gone on a diet two times this year and I’ve been back slid both times.

46:28 - Right. I know what I need to do to be, to feel better, to be healthier, whatever, but I backslid cause I’m, I’m not gonna do that right now.

46:37 - You know, I’m just gonna, I’m I’m looking at it for my taste buds at this moment.

46:40 - I’m gonna eat pizza, whatever. Don’t look at me.

46:44 - Yeah. By the time this airs, hopefully I will, uh, be stuck into my diet.

46:48 - So my point is, is that it’s an attitude shift that I think needs to happen in our industry.

46:54 - It’s not a lack of skills or all these people.

46:58 - Most of these people that we’re talking about, you know, that when we, when we say we find do 10% more effort than everybody else, I can be better than 80% of everybody else.

47:07 - Right. But that doesn’t mean that. If everybody else put in 10% more effort, it would, it would be better for the industry as a whole.

47:15 - It’d be better, better for our industry, for our particular career.

47:19 - If everybody just was like, you know what, I’m going to not be in this for me.

47:23 - I’m going to have an attitude of service when they call me.

47:25 - And they say, I’m the fifth person that they’ve called.

47:28 - I’m trying to get a claim taken care of. It’s a, it’s a flyer it’s way out there, right? With a smile reassure that that manager or that dispatcher I’ll take care of it.

47:40 - No problem. Just send it over to me, right? Not negotiating mileage or how much extra this, or how much, you know, how much more are you going to give me to help you fix a problem that, that you are, you’re starting to get anxiety about because you can’t, nobody wants to take it or they want to fight with you on money.

47:58 - Right? If I’m the manager and I, this claim comes in from the carrier who I have a relationship with as the AIAA firm.

48:05 - The carriers, like, I don’t care how you do it.

48:06 - Just solve this. I need, we have to take care of this claim.

48:09 - It’s on me now to take care of the claim so that I can go back to them and say, it’s taken care of.

48:13 - Right? So then I reach out to you and you say, no, or you fight with me on, on mileage or some nonsense or whatever, or you’re afraid that if you take it, you’re going to be the guy that has to do those all the time.

48:26 - And then you’re going to lose money. Every time you walk out the door, don’t just go do something else, get out of here or change your attitude.

48:34 - One of the other, right? Because reciprocity is real.

48:38 - I can tell you if I go and I go do a garbage cat for those guys and they’ll tell me, they’ll say, listen, this is not a good, this is not a good one.

48:45 - We really appreciate you. Yeah, absolutely.

48:47 - Take care of, we appreciate you taking one for the team.

48:49 - 100% later on, they’re going to send me off for 77 apartment buildings.

48:54 - Right. And that’s all I got and it’s James: happened to me.

48:56 - It’s it’s I love it. It’s it’s it’s it makes up for it.

49:00 - It makes up again, relationship building. Go back to my school buses.

49:04 - Yeah. That was like, no, the great payday.

49:07 - Matt: How many, let me ask you this. So how many, uh, flier garbage claims did you have to do in order to get that couple, couple? Yeah.

49:15 - It’s not that common to have those, those, those far-flung claims like James: that, or they’ll call you up and go, Hey James, we had somebody drop us in the grease.

49:24 - I got to get this one done. Matt: Now drop us in the grease.

49:27 - Is that an auto thing? Yeah, James: it’s a matter of fact.

49:30 - It is a colloquialism. Yes, it is. You know, somebody else’s dropped us.

49:35 - We got to get this done fast. Okay.

49:36 - How fast can you get to it? I’ll say, how fast do you need it done? Just send it to me.

49:41 - I’ll figure a way to get it done, you know? And I’ll figure out a way to do it.

49:45 - They’re not arguing money. They’re not arguing what it’s going to cost them to do it.

49:49 - No, you know, I do it, you know, I’ll put a note in it saying, this is what I needed for mileage to get there.

49:55 - And they don’t even argue with me. I just go do it because I took care of their problem for them.

49:58 - Matt: And do you, listen, you got to follow through on that.

50:00 - You can’t just like, say, all right, well, I’m just going to say yes to everything and you got to do it because you have to take care of it at a time.

50:07 - James: Just like this has happened before I was on my way back from fishing.

50:12 - Okay. I’m out in East, Texas heading back towards Wiley James.

50:16 - We’ve got one that’s in this town. We can, how, when can you get to it? Can you get to it tomorrow? I said, send it to me.

50:24 - I’ll do it right now. You know? Cause I carry all my stuff be all the time.

50:29 - I was literally going to drive right through that town, you know? Yeah.

50:34 - And I got paid my, I got to pay it 110 miles.

50:37 - From my house to there and I was already there, you know, and those things happen.

50:43 - They just, cause if you you’re going to be the first person they call when they have a problem, because you’ve always been willing to help and, and you get those rewards, I’ll go over and over and over the more you say yes, the more opportunities you get to say yes, the more you say no, the less opportunities you get to say.

50:59 - Yes. Yeah. Matt: Yeah. That James: makes sense.

51:03 - These guys up there and go, well, I won’t work for less than this or I won’t go beyond this or I won’t do this, you know? Well, I’ll be honest with you.

51:11 - How’d you do in 2020, you know, when all these people sat around and complained that they didn’t make any money until the hurricanes came around and even then some guys didn’t make that much.

51:21 - Cause they got so picky about it. Okay.

51:23 - I’d really like to compare tax returns next year.

51:26 - I mean, I’m not trying to be cocky, you know what I mean? But it’s just like these guys sit there and complain about everything, you know, and talk about how they’d run their business and they’ll call me on the phone.

51:35 - Hey James, what’s up? Well, I’m over here.

51:37 - You’re out of town again. You haven’t sent in home.

51:40 - They’ve been sitting home and I’m out working.

51:42 - Yeah. You know, so I’ll shut up on that one, but it’s, it Matt: gets on my nerves.

51:46 - Yeah, it’s true though. The thing about it is, is that people will complain about fee schedules, right? Or the percentage of the cut they’re getting off the feet that they’re splitting up between the IFR or whatever, or they’re complaining about how much they’re getting paid for photo inspections, all that kind of stuff.

52:02 - You give yourself a raise when you’re more efficient.

52:06 - If I can do. All that work, all those, those, those pieces of that claim, which individually are not complicated.

52:14 - If I can spend less time doing each one of those things that I’m spending less overall time doing the claim, which means I close the claim faster.

52:21 - Yep. It’s not, again, it’s not, I’m not running around the house.

52:24 - I’m not, you know, speed talking. I’m not typing twice as fast as I normally do.

52:28 - I’m just doing everything at my normal speed, which is taking less time to do that.

52:31 - So I’m becoming more efficient, close, more claims.

52:35 - I’m going to make more money. Doesn’t matter.

52:37 - I don’t really almost don’t care what the fee schedule is.

52:41 - As long as it’s customary reasonable, you know, typical, you know, for the, for the industry and the cut isn’t.

52:49 - If the, if the cuts less than 60%, that’s what it was.

52:52 - It has been for most of my career. And before that, it was a little bit higher.

52:56 - If it gets less than that, then right. That’s, that’s a point where I’m James: going to start shopping.

53:01 - I stand that. I’m like the be all end, all greatest, a independent gesture appraiser out there.

53:05 - That’s what I’m saying. I make mistakes.

53:08 - And Lord knows I’ve made a lot of mistakes.

53:09 - I’ve made mistakes where I’m just like, man, this is going to come back and bite me.

53:14 - I mean, or I’ll wake up in the middle of the night and realize I totally did that wrong.

53:19 - I totally messed that up. I missed that, you know, and, and I, but you know what, the difference between a good adjuster and a suck adjuster as a good adjuster is going to, is going to acknowledge this mistake.

53:31 - It’s going to learn from this mistake. He’s going to correct his mistake.

53:34 - I got up the next, next morning. I got up.

53:35 - I contacted, Hey, look, I did this. This is what it should have been.

53:39 - What can we do here? You know? And they’re shocked that I called and called attention to a problem problem.

53:45 - I, I have that. Nobody at that point even knew about yeah.

53:49 - You know, just make the mistakes. It’s okay.

53:52 - But don’t sit there and act like, you know, I’m not sure well to tell anybody what they should work for.

53:58 - I’ll never tell you that if this is what you feel like you should work for and you’re not going to work for it, that’s fine.

54:03 - You know, but if you’re going to sit there and complain so much that your income falls below six figures a year, okay.

54:09 - Because you’re not working the now you’re worth less than six figures a year.

54:12 - Right. You’re doing less work and getting paid less.

54:15 - This is what you said your worth is now because you say, well, I’m not going to work for that.

54:19 - So I’m going to sit home. You went from making six figures to nothing, right? Exactly.

54:24 - While I’m out there making six figures. Yup.

54:26 - Okay. Matt: Yeah. And I think at like a really shortened, like, um, way to look at this is a question that I get when hurricanes pop up, Hey, I’m on standby with these companies.

54:40 - And, uh, I know that company a pays this much and company B pays this much more company B pays more.

54:47 - If company a calls me first, should I try to negotiate with them? Cause I know, you know, and or should I say no to them because a company could be, be, might call me and I might get paid more.

55:01 - I’m going to say. Until you’re an experienced adjuster and you’ve built a relationship and you’re good to go.

55:06 - You know who you’re going to go with. You’re not going to be on standby for anybody else until you get to that point.

55:11 - If you’re brand new, go with the, go with the very first one that calls us.

55:15 - That’s how you do it. You have to, because nobody else would, might call.

55:20 - Right. And you know, it may turn out later, you talk to somebody, maybe you got friends with somebody that worked for, to some other company and they’ll say, Oh, it was awesome.

55:26 - We got paid this much. Now I got this many claims, yada, yada.

55:28 - And it was better than you did. So what right.

55:34 - It’s it’s it happens. I mean, I’ve, I’ve missed hurricanes because I was staying on hailstorms.

55:39 - Right? Or are you new to the professional claims industry? Confused about exactly how to get started as an IAA, worried that the advice you’re getting on social media might not be totally accurate than you need to check out.

55:51 - I pass. I path helps adjusters get started in their new career in 90 days with online mentorship programs and training.

56:01 - If you need help getting started or making a transition as an adjuster, head over to dot com slash adjuster TV for a free video course, showing you how to get working in the next 90 days.

56:14 - That’s dot com slash adjust your TV. It may be in the future that it’s switched right then you’ll, that’s how you’ll learn.

56:24 - Like maybe, maybe company B is James: great.

56:27 - And it happened to me several times this year, where I received a phone call.

56:30 - I said, yes. And literally within minutes or hours, the company calls me, offer me to go.

56:38 - It was the company I really wanted. I’d really much rather work with.

56:41 - But I’d already committed, already told the other people.

56:44 - Yes. I’m going, yeah. You know, you gotta go, you gotta take it Matt: dance with the one that brung ya, James: you know? And, and, uh, and one company that I just love doing a lot of work for.

56:54 - Um, I do a lot of dailies and, and special projects and things like that for this company.

57:00 - I have not done one deployment with them because they would always call me after somebody else called for a deployment.

57:04 - Yeah. You know, like there’s like, we should just be a little more patient.

57:08 - I’m like, no, no, that’s not my best virtue.

57:12 - Matt: Yeah. So, and it may be, you know, we’re talking about pay and it may be that that company, a doesn’t pay as well.

57:21 - Like the carrier, their, that they, they came to with the IAA firm isn’t as like, uh, as good as.

57:28 - You know, company BCD, ENF, but their process is super simple and their team, they got a small team and they can give you a lot of volume and you can close claims quickly.

57:40 - I’m going with that company because volume again, the less like minutiae, like, you know, small work stuff.

57:47 - I gotta do, like having to do 59 steps to close a claim kind of thing.

57:52 - The less of that I can do the better. Cause it’s also about like a work experience for me.

57:58 - If the, if the process is simple and, um, I’m able to, you know, concentrate on good technical accuracy with my estimate and scopes and with great customer service and then close the claim quickly after that, instead of getting bogged down in all the details and stuff, I might be getting paid more, but I might not be able to close as many claims as I can with these guys.

58:20 - Volume, volume, volume, volume haul on cat.

58:24 - 100%. Yep. Is volume. You got to close a lot of claims you can’t hang on to claims.

58:29 - So again, James: take care of you, take care of your business, you know, take care of, of your, I firms that hire you, you know, don’t, don’t be the premadonna, you know, Matt: Donna, until you can be the premadonna I would James: say I will admit that I made a mistake.

58:47 - Okay. I got real frustrated about a situation that I was in and I voiced it.

58:52 - You know, and I know that when I voiced it, I did myself, no favors.

58:56 - Okay. I, I absolutely know, but I was frustrated about a situation.

59:00 - There was no excuse for me to bring it up the way I brought it up.

59:02 - Okay. I should’ve just internalize it, maybe pulled one manager aside, but, uh, I w there was four managers standing around in a circle.

59:11 - I went right in the middle of them. Yeah.

59:16 - Voiced my opinion. And, uh, and that kind of talked me off the ledge a little bit, you know, and everything.

59:21 - But, um, I’m sure that that immediately gave me a reputation as a complainer.

59:28 - I had that reputation and I had to, and I had to come off of that.

59:31 - I had to do a lot to make sure that they understood that that was not who I was.

59:35 - Yeah. I realized when I walked away, I was like, James, Why did you do that? You know, what were you thinking? You know, and, and I, and I feel like I recovered out of that pretty well because I ended up getting to do some things that other people didn’t get Matt: to do.

59:50 - Listen, developing a relationship. And I will tell you.

59:56 - Most AIAA firms that I’ve worked for are all I firms I’ve ever worked for.

60:00 - And most that I’ve ever heard of are run by great people.

60:05 - And they all it’s, you know, they’re all great companies, you develop a relationship with an IAA farm and you, you fit into their culture.

60:14 - Right? And they like you and they like working with you and you like working with them, you’re going to move up right.

60:21 - When they get, you know, and they, they start needing more commercial work done, you get certified to work commercial for them.

60:26 - And then you get out of the residential, you know, little piddly, wind claims, and you’re still gonna do that stuff through your career.

60:33 - But then you move up a tier as you gain experience and the pain may be way better.

60:38 - Right. You know, so if you want to talk about pay, you may be, and again, you may be specialized into condos or, or whatever you move.

60:44 - You can even move beyond that. And it may be a leadership position or something at those ones, or you have so much experience with all this stuff and have so many years in the field or as a, as an a claims professional, how once you become a general adjuster and then you can write your own ticket at that point, you know, a real general adjuster, not just like, just adding GA to the back of your name, which is, you know, you gotta, you gotta earn that.

61:10 - It’s, it’s, it’s a, it’s a thing. And those people, you know, that’s, that’s the guy that goes to Michael Jordan’s house, right.

61:17 - Has water stain on the ceiling kind of thing.

61:18 - Right. So there’s, there’s a progression.

61:21 - And again, we talked about before the people at company a with a kind of okay.

61:26 - Fee schedule, but the high volume who run that company may end up over here at company B, right.

61:32 - It may, they may bring their like streamlined workflow, ethos to this company with the better pay.

61:38 - And then you slide over there. Right? I mean, Who knows, right? This is, it’s a journey.

61:43 - There’s a lot of paths you can take and you’re gonna end up re mostly in the same place, but you have to network, you have to be willing to have the attitude of service, be ready, willing to relationship, build, take, say yes.

61:55 - When other people say no. Right? Yep.

61:58 - And we got so far away from like learning construction, but you know, it is what it is.

62:04 - That’s why we do this. So I had this one, I went out to this house and it was a hail claim and he has roof gutters and some window frames on two sides of the house and like deck stain and like a grill, pretty standard issue, suburban hail claim.

62:22 - And the house was, I think it was probably around 25 square.

62:27 - Rough, maybe, maybe not even that. And.

62:32 - I got out there, you know, sky was super nice.

62:35 - You know, it was it probably a three-year old house, no trees and neighborhoods and brand new subdivision and sitting in the truck.

62:43 - I write everything all up and I go back out and standing in his front driveway, going over the numbers with them.

62:50 - And he starts to scratch his head to give me a little bit of like, kind of like his body language started to kind of like close up a little bit.

62:55 - And I’m like looking at him and he’s like, how much was it for the roof? Cause my total estimate was like $11,000 or something like that.

63:03 - And I flipped through and I was like, ah, I think I got it’s 6,500 for that.

63:07 - It’s black. And he blew up on me. Right.

63:11 - And that it wasn’t a near neighborhood. Now that I remember this because he had replaced the roof himself and he paid a contractor $12,000 to replace the roof and.

63:23 - He lost his mind because he thought we were half, basically half for the roof when we should have been paying 12 grand for this roof that he just bought a year ago.

63:32 - Right. And it was only the roof that he did to do the gutters.

63:34 - Didn’t do the window wraps or window frames or whatever.

63:38 - Um, and I was like, Oh my gosh. Like, so I’m, double-checking my numbers and everything.

63:42 - And, and, uh, cause I, I, for what if I made a, I could have made a mistake on it.

63:47 - Right. And it could be, you know, but I, it turns out that that was what it came out to was 6,500 bucks.

63:53 - I said, listen, I totally understand the, the most important thing here that we have to be concerned about is getting the word, right.

64:03 - It doesn’t, it shouldn’t matter how much it costs.

64:05 - So with that being said, get an estimate, get two or three estimates from contractors.

64:10 - And if they all come back at $12,000, then all work with whoever you decided you’re going to use on it and we’ll get it figured out.

64:17 - Right. Um, but if. You know, and we’ll just go from there.

64:21 - So we’re going to give you the money to go ahead and get started and keeping in mind and leaving the door open that I, I miss something.

64:27 - I just didn’t see. Right. I totally missed.

64:29 - I’m totally just lifted. I got a call from him like three or four weeks later apologetic.

64:37 - Right, right. Because he’s like, well, I went and got three estimates and, and one of them was $7,000 with the other two.

64:42 - One of them was, was 5,000 and the other, then the guy we’re gonna use with 6,200, he’s like, I think I just got screwed and cheated, but I had the roof done for $12,000.

64:53 - And I’m like, and he’s like, I’m so sorry. I yelled at you without a doubt.

64:56 - And I was like, listen, I totally understand.

64:58 - You know, I, I, I, I feel your pain. I, what do you say to that? Right.

65:03 - I can’t remember exactly what I said to him, but it was, there was basically the whole point of this is, is people will pay I’ve I’ve had this happen more than once it happened in New York.

65:16 - A guy, he had like an eight square roof and he paid $16,000 for it.

65:20 - It was ridiculous. He was like, well, that’s $16,000 rough.

65:23 - And I’m like, Oh boy, you know, James: they use gold line felt.

65:29 - Matt: Yeah. And then another guy in Seattle is $22,000 for this little roof and they wanted to finance it.

65:38 - And it was going to be like three or $4,000 in finance charges over the course of like a 15 year.

65:43 - I was like, I can’t, I can’t, I just can’t.

65:47 - This is it’s it’s it’s stealing is if you ask me right, contractors are some of these guys and, and I, I’m not painting a broad brush here.

65:55 - Cause most contractors, I met a lot stand up, dudes, stand up guys.

65:59 - And they’re like, we just want to do the work for what the going rate is.

66:02 - And they work on volume to having done roof sales.

66:05 - And that’s, you know, you got volume game, right? If you start getting bogged down and trying to fight on supplements and stuff, you’re going to be not going to get the volume.

66:14 - So. But, but some guys out there will charge whatever they can get away with.

66:20 - Right. You know, and they, some of them say in business, other ones too, I don’t know.

66:24 - I mean, this isn’t like a bagging on contractors, but when this happens, there’s you have to make, let the customer reassure the customer that you’re going to you’ll you, you, you’re leaving the door open to the expectation that if something changes for any reason that you’re going to work with them to get it straightened out, I’m not saying don’t ever say, if it’s more related, we’ll pay more.

66:51 - Right. We’re used which you will, if it, if it is, but you, but the first step before that is to review it, right.

66:58 - We’ll take a look at it and we’ll get it figured out.

67:01 - We’ll work with your contractor to make sure we be pay the right amount, which is what it is, what I always say.

67:06 - Um, not, you know, Making a promise that I can’t necessarily back up or that I’m going to make the, the carrier back and we’ll use adjuster who came out, said, you know, they’ll pay more if it’s going to be more, right.

67:17 - The contractor comes back with an estimate.

67:18 - That’s more than they assume that we’re just going to pay it.

67:20 - Right. Right. So that’s my one thing.

67:24 - So that’s your one. James: So I had this one other auto claim, the, uh, go to the house and knock on the door.

67:37 - Wife says, okay, one minute walks back, hands me a piece of paper.

67:45 - And it has, and this is a hell claim. And it had all the dent counts for her husband.

67:51 - It counted all the dents. Oh boy. And, uh, uh, he said that this is accurate.

67:58 - And, uh, and there shouldn’t be anything different than this.

68:02 - And, uh, I go out to the car. I look at it immediately, you know, it’s my counter higher.

68:08 - I’ve got more also on there. They had, the front bumper was loose.

68:17 - The front bumper was loose because the winds were really high and it blew the front bumper cover lips.

68:23 - Matt: They going down the highway? James: No, no.

68:25 - It was sitting in their driveway, but they had 50, 60 mile an hour winds that were so strong in that neighborhood that it blew the bumper off the car.

68:30 - That’s designed to go over a hundred miles an hour and I blow off.

68:34 - But you know, they they’ve got it on the list.

68:38 - Probably not. Sorry. I write up my estimate.

68:42 - Well, the car’s going to total. The car is a total loss because of hell.

68:46 - Okay. And certain States, um, just because the car is totaled by hell, it’s an aesthetic total loss.

68:56 - So therefore it’s not going to get a branded title.

68:59 - Okay. Are you, you, you don’t get a salvage title.

69:02 - Uh, you can buy the car back, keep it, repair it yourself.

69:05 - If you could find somebody, you know, whatever you want to do, you can do well.

69:11 - I look at it, you know, and I did my estimate there on the spot and, um, I knew it was still a loss, but the guidelines were, as I was not allowed to tell them it was a total loss on this because there’s a few of the things we had to do.

69:25 - So two days later, her husband calls me irate, just, just really, really upset.

69:34 - I told you, I gave my wife that piece of paper and told you that the accounts to tell you that those did counts can’t change from that.

69:42 - I already knew it was gonna cost to fix the car.

69:44 - And I don’t want the car total. I’m like, sir, I got it.

69:48 - Call it for what it is, you know, but we don’t want that car total.

69:51 - We don’t want a new car. We can’t afford to buy a new car.

69:54 - This is what, I didn’t say a four. They just didn’t, you know, buy a new car basically.

69:59 - And I was just, I said, well, you don’t have to give it up.

70:01 - Well, no. Then I’ve got a, a title that I can’t.

70:04 - I got a car and I can’t get insured. Right.

70:07 - I said, so let me ask you a question. So you wanted me to give you an estimate on this vehicle that would have less damage to it.

70:13 - He goes, well, I would pay the difference to you.

70:14 - It repaired, you know? And, uh, I like, I was like, you can still, they will, we will, if we do it now, you’ve got a total of the vehicle.

70:24 - I’m not going to get everything I need and I’m not going to have enough money to repair it, the car, you know? And I said, sorry, you’re going to get made whole, don’t worry.

70:33 - And you can sit, get the vehicle insured. You just have to get the dents fixed.

70:35 - You’re just not going to, nobody’s going to pay for hell damage again, but you can still get collision insurance and everything.

70:40 - This guy was just irate as could be. Um, writes a nasty gram to insurance company that I did, what he, I went against his wishes that they’re crooks, and then I’m a Crow.

70:52 - Give him and everything else. The guy ends up, um, retaining the vehicle.

70:57 - He retains the vehicle. He takes it to get it repaired.

71:00 - Um, he’s gonna pay it out of pocket. He ends up with money back in his pocket.

71:03 - You don’t have to retain them. The VA after they pay the total loss and he retains the vehicle, he ends up a little bit of cash back in his pocket, takes it to a shop to get it repaired.

71:13 - The guy at the shop does a great job when the car charged him next to nothing to fix it.

71:18 - I guess the guy had pity on him or something.

71:20 - He didn’t. So the guy didn’t pay that much money out of his pocket.

71:23 - The guy’s got full coverage insurance on his vehicle now.

71:25 - Okay. And it was ended up costing less money.

71:27 - It’s going to cost before I forgot about this car.

71:30 - Completely forgot about it. I’m sitting in front of this restaurant.

71:37 - One day. Car pulls up next to me. I, you know, come sitting in the car, the guy gets out, looks at me, come to the window and he goes, Hey, just wanna let you know.

71:47 - I’m sorry about that letter. I wrote to the company, he goes, there’s the car it’s fixed.

71:51 - And it kicked that up. Everything ended up costing me less than what we got.

71:55 - All right. I thought it was going to cost and everything’s good, you know? And I’m like, all right, man.

72:01 - Yeah. That’s so similar to your story.

72:03 - I got some guy that’s really upset with me and you know, and it all works out in the edit, but the fact is the guy had already nasty letters off calling everybody crooks and make sure it’s got any crux and you know, well, you know, you should have been a little more specific or not even filed a claim, you know? Right.

72:19 - Is that all, but, uh, that’s another thing.

72:20 - So a lot of people think there’s this big myth that, um, Uh, if you, if I told her your car because of hail that you’re gonna receive a salvage title and it’s going to affect your ability to sell the vehicle and everything else, the only thing is going to affect your ability to sell the vehicle as the damage to the vehicle.

72:38 - At the time he tried to sell it. That’s the only thing that’s going to affect us, um, in that scenario.

72:42 - So, um, I’ll be honest with you. If I’ve got an older car that I’ve got insured and they want to pay me for it and I can retain it.

72:49 - And I put a few dollars in my pocket. Why not? And I just, you know, what had been paid for it? I just put liability on it when it goes away, it goes away.

72:55 - Yeah. There you go. All right.

72:59 - Oh, it’s that time. Guess what, what? You didn’t give you enough time to write some more cards.

73:08 - So pick a card. Any card? Matt: Well, look at that James: here about the blind man who fell in a Matt: hole, I did not hear about the blind man who fell in the James: hole.

73:22 - It was, it was because he couldn’t see that.

73:24 - Well, Matt: if you enjoyed this episode of gesture, TV, radio, leave us a five-star review on iTunes.

73:34 - Find more episodes at gesture, tv. com/podcast.

73:41 - This is adjuster TV. .