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Mark,

I don't think there are even very many of the more experienced adjusters from 04 that are still around, at least as catadjusters. Unfortunately, I believe the industry has once again set itself up to need a bunch of wide-eyed deer-in-the-headlights neophytes again when the next big one comes around.

I'm one of the people who landed on his feet with a carrier position which still allows me to "keep my finger on the pulse", and offer some of the better catadjusters some occasional daily work, but I would have to thing real hard and long before I return to the feast or famine world of catadjusting.

Steve,

Feast or famine is correct it definately can be a tough way to make a living with plenty of heartaches. Speaking of  new meat on a storm I can definately relate to that. While working Hurricane Ike in the early stages it was a regular routine each evening. I would stand at the hotel door and watch steady stream of frustrated and overwhelmed adjusters packing it in and going home. On one occasion I caught a fella in the parking lot to encourage him to hang in and get the job done. He simply stated that after 4 weeks with only a few claims approved that he had maxed out his credit card and was going to limp home to his former employer and try to get his job back. I have seen this scenario played out numerous times while working storms and it still bothers me.

Mark,

How have you been? The business has changed a lot. Outsourcing has been perfected and it is increasingly difficult to make it in the CAT world. The industry is awash with 3 day wonders. I left staff during Andrew. I had a very good Ike but am now considering other endeavors.  I took a U.S. Staffing 'trained' newbie with me to Texas and with out going into detail will never do that again. There was no romance etc. She had no job and I figured what could go wrong? They (U.S. Staffing)  were going to assign her 30 claims while she was still in Florida. Huh? The final straw was when I was asked by this person to look at a fire loss estimate...it was a mess. I asked why you were working it (assigned in error) and said it should be returned to the vendor. The reply was that I need the money and the insured does not speak English and I don't care. I went ballistic and stated the insured was owed a proper adjustment. Like I said..never again.

 

Steve,

Stay where you are at.

Les

I remember speaking with uou on the phone in 05 with Wilma. We were all waiting to see how the whole F.I.G.A thing was gonna shake out. Sorry to hear about your bad experience with the mentoring program with U.S staffing. I can,t imagine trying to cope with helping a newbie on a daily basis while pumping out claims. It is good that you made the effort ......

Here is to a couple of big canes hittin this year.

 

 

Mark,

I was not working for U.S. Staffing...I just took the greenhorn along because she was unemployed and assigning her 30 claims while she was in FL appeared to be a recipe for disaster....and it was....for me. Actually, it was just aggravating...  Maybe we will get a late Cane...but I doubt it.

Les

While working a Hurricane Charlie claim in Orlando I saw an adjuster on the roof next door.  He was walking aimlessly around the roof crying.  He eventually got down, put up his ladder and drove away. 

After a working a bunch of residential claims I got an office job handling supplements and recoverable depreciation payments.  It was there that I heard about the dozens of newbies that crashed and burned in various ways.  Some took the advance money they were given (to pay for laptops and hotels) and just left.  Others tried to work a few claims and realized they had no idea what they were doing so they went home.  Others fouled up their claims so bad that I job security well into 2005.   

We had people that were afraid to climb on a roof and didn't know how to measure from the ground.  One guy didn't speak English.  Don't know how he got through his 'training'.  One fellow was legendary...  He'd allow one bundle of shingles for a roof repair rather than a minimum charge.  He'd remove and reset flashing.  Many times he repaired ceilings, walls, or floors that obviously should have been replaced.  We even caught a couple adjusters in 'inappropriate relationships' with contractors.  It was interesting! 

I know first hand many new people were hired in job fairs, sent thousands of miles to fail, but stopped thousands of phones from ringing for several weeks. These poor people had made the "24 hour contact and left their cell phone number. Guess what software they had to use. This was criminal and I saw it with my own eyes. The carrier was Citizens who made some bad choices in 2004 and hired some real crooks, as vendors.

As I am want to say, if you can't run with the bigs dogs, stay on the porch.

I agree with you Chuck, but when some one who needs a job reads a newspaper add to travel on catastrophe claims and big bucks, this will attact several hundred people and they selected 75 ask them to meet tem in the ball room of hotel x sunday morning at 9AM. spent about 5 hours talking about the program and how to be an adjuster and we will see you at 0900 at the z hotel in West Palm beach, Fla. on Tuesday spend another 5 hoursw on how to be an adjuster. And then give 75 people 30 files with a supervisiors phone number (just 1) and then turn them loose, pull all the files after 21 days, because they did not become adjusters in 21 days. This has to be a scam to stop the phone calls until vendor xx get in the real troops who close on their scopes, measurments, and photos.

04 was the end of cat adjusting as we know it. Before then I never had problems getting paid, then 04 hit. Global Adjusters in 04 hurt. Then in Ike I had a Bright opportuntiy, another costly lesson. At least I haven't been sued in Texas yet to the best of my knowledge. I will not work for a company that doesn't pay until they are paid. I am tired of funding vendors. I wonder how many dollars are unpaid to adjuster since 04, I guess millions, and I guess certian vendors did no miss a payday for the owners.

Vendors that will get larger and better are the ones who pay on time and demand better files. This is shown by people I have been in contact with since 2005 who are new to the catastrophe adjusting world. The one,s who read ever book, take all the free information they can find and keep theprospect list active seem to catch on with one of the big 5, 6 or 7 vendors and survive another year or two. We all remember 1997. Cat. adjusting will become more of a triage industry by multi-level management.

The carriers will realize that a good catastrophe adjuster that can close 6-8 roof claims a day ever day can supervise 15 other adjusters that can close 12-18 per day each with some help in the process.

I have seen one carrier TWIA give out an example of a good windstorm loss in their manual. I have seen one vender, Pilot for Allstate Flood losses give an example of what a good flood file should look like. Hundreds more could exist that I have never seen. Any comments.

This is exactly why vendors take care of their core adjusters. If a large storm hits these vendors will scramble to get as many commitments as possible for deployment. If a vendor can commit say 150 adjusters for a large event it looks good on paper and gets a large commitment for a volume of claims from the carrier. The vendor may have 40 core adjusters that they know will hit the ground running and start closing claims this is crucial so that the carrier will release additional claims.The other 80-100 adjusters may or may not receive any claims as this is just the pecking order. Any Cat manager will take 20 good adjusters who can get the job done rather than 100 adjusters that they will have to spoonfeed during the duration of he storm.....it is the nature of the beast.

Mark you have the answer to some of the catastrophe claims solution at your finger tips. The problem is too many large claims at one time and not enough adjusters to work the claims in a proper manner. If the large vendors would convince the carriers a triage system would be better than one roof one adjuster system used today.

One good adjuster(level 2) could find 20 good adjusters(level 3). The 20 good adjusters could close 6 roof claims per day. 21 adjusters will close 120 roof claims per day. Now this is the big change from the way it is today. Let the 20 good adjusters hire helpers to move the production to eye popping stats.Each of the 20 good adjusters hires 10 people to do the office or field work to finish the file(these people do not need  a license). This has now become a true triage concept that can close1200 good files a day with the same 21 adjusters. The carriers would incourage the vendors to keep these teams intact, the person at level 2 would do ever thing possible to keep the level 3 adjusters happy($$$) and the level 3 people would always be trying cost saving ways to make their bottom line better.The vendor will still keep 30% and furnish E & O. The carrier will have to pay $10.00 more per file if the two most expensive are required.The carriers will have to pay the invoice, when received. The vendor will have to pay level 2 and level 3 ever two weeks. AND level three must pay all peple under banner ever two weeks.

I want a level 2 job today as I will start looking for my level 3's and training my level 4's