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I started doing cat claims working flood in the Beaufort/Hilton Head SC area in the fall of 1993 as a low paid assistant. I had spent the last five years developing, deploying and trying to sell estimating software to the insurance industry when it became obvious no large company was going to trust a four man company to support their software, and selling to the mom and pops cost as much as the software brought in. So I started doing catastrophe claims. Got hired directly 1994 for the Thomas Howell Group. I worked most of 95 and 96 doing Texas hail and Bertha/Fran and Erin/Opal. In 1998 we had large hail storm here in Southeastern Virginia, and the software company morphed into an adjusting company, doing catastrophe claims in Northern Virgina and Northeastern NC and by 1999 we had nine full time employess and 37 sub-contract adusters, almost all storm work. I left that company in 1999 due to a distaste for a partner that ccould not tell the truth.

I spent the next five years building a computer services company based in Virginia Beach, VA. I now have over 40 clients and three of my clients, for which I am the sole IT provider, employ over two hundred and fifty employees and in 2007 grossed over 50 million dollars in revenues. This put an end to my catastrophe adjusting days.

However in 2004, a large rain storm in Williamsburg caused flooding and one of the vendors that uses my claims management software asked me to do a few claims. So I started doing local claims as they came up, which was very infrequently. Hurricane Ophelia and Tropical Storm Ernesto close to here and provided me with storm claims on a local basis. That vendor has signed up several LLoyd's brokers and flood clients and I do their day to day claims here in SE VA and NE NC.

What I have found is this. Day to day claims are no where near as revenue producing as computer services. I average 124 miles a claim. I recently put 67 hours in closing a contentious repeated flood claim that paid me just under four hundred dollars. That works out to around $6 an hour. Every loss has a contractor, an insured, a management company and often a Homeowner's Association. Lightning affadavits must be obtained. I had one claim I had to diagram the cracks in a parking lot.

Contrast that to computer services. I bill my time by the hour. Several clients buy service contracts where they prepay me for a per hour discount. But the least any of these clients pay is $60.00. My main large competitor in town sends over his beginners for $115.00 an hour. I can make in seven hours on computers what I spent 67 hours earning adjusting. And I did not have to drive the 124 miles, or buy gas, or deal with three interested parties who are not the insured. Not to mention each carrier does thing a little bit different, so there are many different requirements.

The only time I have made good money on the adjusting business is when a storm hit close enough to provide a large number of claims in a short period of time. Most of the time it is a high effort way to keep the bills paid. I see no way that local claims can be as profitable as storm claims.

I find it amusing when newbies on here want to pick up some local day to day claims to fill in the gaps. If they got claims like these they might soon wish they could go back to pounding nails or supervising car washes.

Why do I do it? Because it keeps me in the industry, a small rash of claims in January kept the roof over my head when the computer clients freaked out over the economy, and I still develop my claims software as well as do programming for other claims software companies. And every now and then, probably, a storm will hit somewhere around here and provide good revenues for a short period of time.

If there are beginners in SE VA, I sometimes could use a part-time short-term claims assistant to help drive and the like. It does not pay much, but you will learn every aspect of the business. A word of warning, I am very busy and have a very low BS tolerance threshold. Save your drama for your mama. Must be professional, dependable and responsible, I can teach the rest. Come learn why you want to be a catastrophe adjuster and not a local claims guy.

Man it took forever to write this.

Jeff Goodman
jgoodman@stormcentral.com
www.goodmanadjusting.com
www.jeffthecomputerguyva.com

I work daily claims and while some involve alot of traveling which I am reimbursed for and considering they are daily vs. CAT the volume of money is less, of course, I find they are still profitable to work. Presently I'm working a large commercial fire loss, daily, which will bill quite respectively. I agree re: inexperienced adjusters called to CAT's vs. experienced. I, with 11 yrs. experience got passed over for the Denver hail because I'm told I made to much money in the first quarter. Go Figure! . I expect they create quite a head-ache for the CAT companies who are not up to par knowing what they are suppose to be doing. Hang in there, work those dailies, and negoiate a reasonable fee for your extra add on fees.

I made pretty good money in 2007-8 doing daily's. I didn't limit myself to measuring roofs. I handled auto, property, heavy equipment, sight investigations, any thing that would keep me busy. If you want to be successful in daily claims, you need to broaden your horizons.

JWG

I agree 100% with Jim Gary. I never wanted to learn how to write a sheet on auto crashes, and I have a lot of regrets today as this is always a steady income producer. Some of the insurance carriers I work for would have paid for the training. But I was well trained in auto liability investigation ,general liability investigation tort law and negligence. I advertise as slip and fall Hall, I work both sides on law suits and some work for out of state vendors/carriers and do about as much as I want to do.

If I had a good auto tec background like some of the people who post, I would try to be a heavy equipt. appraiser. I turn down these type losses and don,t know many people to refer them to. Clerk of the works are needed on these monster losses and sharp adjusters do this type work. Sight investigations are very good. All the carriers need photo's and diagrams of intersections, canvas for witness etc. Regular IA shy away from these task. If you live 100 miles from the city and will travel in a hundred miles circle, go to the city and ask the claims office for business, train our wife and brother in law and hit the storm trail when called. Never miss a beat.

Posted By Ray Hall on 09 Oct 2009 09:08 PM
I never wanted to learn how to write a sheet on auto crashes, and I have a lot of regrets today as this is always a steady income producer.

 

Auto damage appraisel pays very little compared to a good property claim. But if you can handle a couple auto claims on the way to your moneymaker, it just adds to your bottom line, and can take as little as 15-20 minutes per, once you get experienced. Supplements are usually handled over the phone. Heavy equipment can be real good. The repair facility will help you write the estimate, and you can make a good fee, basically for gathering information.

 

JWG

i worked daily property claims for about a year then went to strictly in-house cat. i get my daily claim salary when there are no catastrophes and get the bonus cat pay when there are big storms. the in house thing doesn't pay as much as what most of you are doing, but it is much better than daily claims.

still.. you get used to massive hurricane cat season income one year, then hit a financial depression the next. on the bright side, i'll pay less taxes for 2009!
i'll make something like $120k (according to the IRS) for 2008 and probably about $80k for 2009. my base is just $50k right now though.

i was going broke doing daily claims.

edit: i forgot to add, the insurance company pays for all travel and hotel and also gives per diem (which the irs doesn't see).

 

Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm, I heard it all!

ya right inhouse