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Posted By nancy ferris on 16 Feb 2009 10:34 AM
my husband and i are thinking about adjusting...
...we do not want to spend the money if you can not get work...

If you are not successful at what you are doing now you are not likely to be successful at Catastrophe Adjusting. If you don't have the finances to go a year without working my sincere suggestion is that you stay on the porch.

Nancy...Bob & Chuck both give you good advice, but your personal situation will guide you.  Chuck mentions the porch, which I love here in Nebraska.  While most go for cover, I sit out back facing the west/southwest watching the thunderheads build & lightning scattering across the sky.  All of this does not usually turn into claims work due to our small population in Central Nebr, but the porch can be a great place to be while waiting for work.  

Posted By Larry Hardin on 24 Oct 2008 09:52 PM
Put Vale on your resume and see what happens

 

 

Larry, Like many others I am new here.  I was planning on getting my training from US Staffing, however many are saying that Vale is the best or #1 for training.  What will happen if I have Vale on my resume?  Is having them listed for my Auto and property training going to get my foot in the door?  I know that I am still going to have to work hard to get some work, but is worth the money??

 

Thanks

 

Kevin  

Do you want a foot bath or a good long  hot shower, go to Vale its where insurance carriers send their new adjusters.

Once you go to Vale, then go to the Haig roofing school and there get a level three certification in Xacitmate. Then with about 5 years of experience, I mean working your but off and keeping your mouth shut you will be ready to make a living.

I loved us staffing... called them before ike.. and was sent out.. not alot of field support.. but we ar supposed to know what we are doing.. it was my first storm.. and went well..

U.S. Staffing is nothing more than a license farm.  I love the people there, well, most of them anyhow.  The fact is that they do LIE over and over about how they will get you work.  They LIE about how they treat their adjusters and that their adjusters are the 'best', which is a complete joke.  They actually got me work, but at a rate that was far from competitive.  They didn't even pay me what they agreed to.  U.S. Staffing is a good place to get your license, but nothing more than that.  I realized what a fiasco it was working with them during Ike and quickly signed up with another company.  I made 8 times the money with the other company in only twice the time.  Even U.S. Staffing's own 'team leaders' trashed them.  I have no vendetta against them.  I like a lot of the people there.  I just want you to know straight up what the truth is about them.  One last thing-when they tell you that their classes are recognized by other companies and will get you on other rosters.  Not so.  Maybe your experience and their classes but their classes alone won't get it done.  At least it didn't for me. 

First, you are incorrect about your friend getting a Tx Adjuster's license. She just needs to fully disclose the facts, and I mean fully disclose. Hopefully she has made restitution. I know of an adjuster that has a felony conviction for drug possession that has worked for one of the large independent vendors. His conviction included serving a prison term. If you read the Tx Dept. of Ins. website you will see adjusters that loss their license due to criminal convictions do so because of failure to disclose.

As for US Staffing, this is not the first we have heard concerning the ethics or actions of this firm.

Sounds like your nieghbor shouldn't have passed fraudulent checks. Also, you're wrong, TX will accept a felony if it's well documented...not that she deserves it.

Just a piece of advise, put together all of the documents US Staffing requires in an application. Store them in a folder on the harddrive. Then when you start to apply to various vendors, put together a cover letter in an email and attach all of the documents.

Also, competition is the American way, free enterprise. I call it chicken house economics. Just let a farmer put in chicken houses then buy a new pickup. His neighbor will put in chicken houses and buy a new pickup truck. Purty soon there will be 20 farmers, in the area, raising chickens, then they all go broke.

Question # 1 is always, does US Staffing Pay ever two weeks on good approved  turned in files. This will answer most questions on any vendor.

It's one of the ironies of life that we all have different takes on the same experiences. We also all have different expectations and perceptions.
Based on my experience with US Staffing, I think there are much more professional and productive training opportunites out there than US Staffing.

My 3 week experience with the training at US Staffing turned out to be medicore and unprofessional at best.

The TX Pre-licensing was adequate enough to get my license. Got what I paid for. The two instructors worked well together. It was fun and they had a good system for teaching the material and getting you to retain it for the TX license test. Worth the money spent.

The "Adjusting 101 - Surviving the Storm" - in retrospect, now that I've been in the field with another Cat company - turned out to be a waste of time: outdated training materials; poor quality instructor; irrelavant, erroneous, and missing information; and Waaaaaaay too much "drama" and bickering being displayed by the staff to each other. The instructor, apparently an adjuster doing daily claims for US Staffing, actually spent some class time working on closing his own claims during the class! We paid for his full attention and didn't get it.

The Xactimate was poorly taught by two instructors who were distracted, impatient, and rude. They may have been able to do the Xactimate on their own but completely lacked the skills needed to actually impart that information to people who were new to the system. They even refused to assist in actually properly setting up Xactimate on my laptop because they were "too busy" with other training to help resolve the issue.

The US Staffing recruiter made no "PROMISES" of work to me. Don't read that into anything they say...and remember "If it ain't in writing...it ain't happnin'"
However, she did tell me that IF I completed the courses, get on their roster, and close 100 cat claims, they would refund the cost of the course to me. Bad news: After finishing the course with high scores and being "invited" to be on the roster, US Staffing put me on the roster and later put me on "standby" for IKE...but then never cancelled me, called me, answered my calls, or emails and instead, pulled un-licensed, untrained, folks out of classes and put them to work, instead of fully using their own roster! They don't have to refund that money if they never use you! But again, they never promised work. They need to review their own standards of ethics before handing out CE Credits for ethics.

US Staffing has a SERIOUS problem with communication and accountabilty. My experience was that once they have your $$, they are slow to return phone calls - if at all; fail to reply to emails, or display accountabilty. Their office Staff were rude and unprofessional and the facility is marginal and in disrepair. I think Mickey would be ashamed of whats happened to his dream.

Recap: if you're looking for the basic training to get into Cat adjusting, In my opinion DON'T USE U.S. STAFFING. You can find a better training company easily and get a better value for your tight training $$. And DO NOT believe them if the recruiter "promises" you will get work from them because she can't make that promise and they are so disorganized anyway, that you may not wish to risk working for them. But that's just my opinion.