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Imag Industries Inc. is an enterprise solutions provider for Asia's IT industry. Our mission is to be the partner of choice for Asia's software professionals as well as vendors seeking to enter the Asia market. Imag currently operates in China and Australia.

Roof claims. If its not a flood or a conflagration fire the deployments will probably be wind or hail or ice dam losses. If you are a catastrophe adjuster who will survive you must learn ever thing you can about roof damage and how its caused. Read all the atricles put out by the factory,s that make the shingles. Get all the Haag (expert) reports.

100% of all wind hail claims will have the roof involved. The total losses to all slopes or less than all slopes will be a simple loss to conclude in one trip. The losses that just don,t jump into your face at the top of the ladder are the problems that many people who want to do this work full or part time have problems with. Most properties (houses) do not have interior damage from high wind/hail with lots of rain UNLESS bare roof deck is exposed.Most leaks in houses from rain are caused by a leak in valleys, shylights, around plumbing vents, chimneys OR a bare exposed roof deck. Most wind driven rain damage to the interior is not from the roof but from the walls, windows and doors.

If you are told the stain on a wall or ceiling is from a storm and you can not determine the real source of the stain is not storm, but some other cause(covered or not) and explain to the homeowner/contractor . Please stop trying to do this work and leave it to people who can do the job the right way.

Wind Lift claims. This was never a problem until Ike in 2008 and TX is the now the training schools for roofers, attorneys and public adjusters. Insurance carriers have been rolling over and paying these outragous claims. It pure economics...its less costly to pay a total loss on a roof that does not have to replaced, than end up in a lawsuit. I agree with that thinking in 2010, but not the long haul.

My background is casualty insurance  and I like facts to back up the claims, and then give the jury some say in the cost of hazard insurance. It worked on tort reform and mal- practice for MD, s.

This is the usual roof claim in the hurricane Ike area that reopens. A lawyer has filed a lawsuit OR a roofer has knocked on the door. The contingency roofer has a contract to represent the insured in all dealings with the adjuster. The roofer tells the insured to turn in the claim and when the adjuster calls to re inspect for a next day inspection at an appointed time. The two meet. The typical roof is composition more than 8 years old, the house is not not in the high dollor neighborhoods. The shingles are unsealed on some slopes or areas of some slopes, some tenting may be visable by nails backing out of decking or staples. Could be some plywood decking that has the small end come loose from the rafter etc. The roof could have some missing  or broken tabs. (the roofer will  walk straight to these area's.)

This is the argument: all of what you have seen is direct damage from the hurricane winds from Ike. No the roof can not be repaired, its a toal loss.

Now we all know this is a scam; but we do not fight for justice.

Posted By Ray Hall on 24 Nov 2010 11:26 AM

Wind Lift claims. This was never a problem until Ike in 2008 and TX is the now the training schools for roofers, attorneys and public adjusters. Insurance carriers have been rolling over and paying these outragous claims. It pure economics...its less costly to pay a total loss on a roof that does not have to replaced, than end up in a lawsuit. I agree with that thinking in 2010, but not the long haul.

 

My background is casualty insurance  and I like facts to back up the claims, and then give the jury some say in the cost of hazard insurance. It worked on tort reform and mal- practice for MD, s.

This is the usual roof claim in the hurricane Ike area that reopens. A lawyer has filed a lawsuit OR a roofer has knocked on the door. The contingency roofer has a contract to represent the insured in all dealings with the adjuster. The roofer tells the insured to turn in the claim and when the adjuster calls to re inspect for a next day inspection at an appointed time. The two meet. The typical roof is composition more than 8 years old, the house is not not in the high dollor neighborhoods. The shingles are unsealed on some slopes or areas of some slopes, some tenting may be visable by nails backing out of decking or staples. Could be some plywood decking that has the small end come loose from the rafter etc. The roof could have some missing  or broken tabs. (the roofer will  walk straight to these area's.)

This is the argument: all of what you have seen is direct damage from the hurricane winds from Ike. No the roof can not be repaired, its a toal loss.

Now we all know this is a scam; but we do not fight for justice.

Ray, do you have a TWIA tattoo somewhere that none of us has ever seen ? :-)

What does the remark about a TWIA tatoo mean. TWIA is the only way some people can purchase windfstorm coverage in TX. The program is because most insurance carriers will not write coverage. I think about 5 or 6 state have a program like this. I think you should HAVE to get a flood policy, BEFORE you can get a TWIA policy.

I have worked for TWIA of and on since the program first started. By the way they have seen the error in not defending the adjusters who are named. All you have to do is call the plaintiff attorneys and sign a 4 year contract (Tx contract law statue) and the plaintiff will non suit the adjuster.

Yesterday Igot a call from a person I met several years ago on this site. He is a retired Navy three stripe fighter pilot and wanted to get into a second career. He explored adjusting and has done very well. Along they way he passed the TX license for the real estate inspector for buyers. His military backgound led him to a vendor who like retired miltary and he went through all the routine to get "certified". He has been working as much as he wants for about 5 years, but had to leave a hail storm in Minneapolis as the snow was flying around and it was not safe to inspect roofs in the winter and drive back to his home  in Atlanta for downtime. He sold his Dallas home and moved to Ga. two years ago after working branch assist in Atlanta for two years in a row for months on end. This is what is known as a top 10% cat. adjuster. Seems most are educated, disciplined and have plans that do not have dreams of getting rich quick.

Why don,t vendors have a test for people with an adjusters license.? The 2nd question is why don,t carriers have the vendor certify that they have checked an estimate completed by the applicate?

I don,t know the answer; but, think about these two questions.

A basic test could be something like this. Use your Homeowner policy dec. sheet to write a total loss on the building, contents and ALE for 270 days for your family. All before photos must be a part of the file. Cause of loss was tornado.

I would expect this to reduce the names by thousands. The carriers can use this information to select vendors and select adjusters.

O I forgot about stop the phone from ringing off the wall. Thats the reason. I was a witness to the worst story in 2004 in Lake Worth Fl. Ibumped into some new faces at the laundy room of the motel who were recruited in Indiana @ a job fair for adjusters. 75 were selected and send to Atlanta, when they got out of the meeting in Atlanta they were send to Fl. By this time they had been exposed to xmate and the HO-3 about 12 hours. They were given 30 losses each(the Lake Worth Group)(Citizens) and told to sink or swim in 14 days or turn back all the files. I don,t know of any that had a file approved; but I guess they stopped  at least 750 calls for a two week time frame ; UNTIL the real adjusters arrived and wrote up the files on the mullets notes and photos. Sounds criminal to me. I will not post the name of the vendor; but they are still around.

I made a post about an adjuster who just left Minneapolis after 6 months on a hail storm. With the adjuster talk it came down to loose or  screwed down tight just like it always. His carrier started with 6 hits per square and never changed. I just assumed this means your camera will show the hits in the test square. It,s been 8 years since I worked large hail and that sounded right to me. Another very large carrier started their troopers off with 14 and it was 27 the day before he left(feed back from contractors was the source). This sounds very odd to me. If the rules float around, why sould the unit price not float around. What is a hit? I think it is something that an almost blind roof adjuster that has seen lots of hail could not miss  ; but the digital photos would give him away.

Does this sound like real numbers or just roofer talk in the Applebees parking lot. We all know the unit prices have to in lock step to make the computer estimates work, or one company would not contral over 80% of all insurance repair estimates.

Stop the phone from ringing off the wall. Get more boots on the ground, both demanded by competion retween the carriers for good customer.s loyalty.Call centers and names and number  of your adjuster and 30 waiting files in the basket is kinda the norm. This is why the training schools are doing pretty good even in slow years. I think the tag team adjuster will become a larger problem in future years. And I will always agree a lot of files stick when thrown against the wall. The lawyers will make first party property claims a  better golden goose than ambulance chasing.

 I'm not sure I fully understand your statement, but I do not agree with the part about "get more boots on the ground", many of the most experienced adjusters need and require a volume of claims to make their living, if you put more on the ground the volume of claims per adjuster drops thus reducing the income. If you want experience  and good claims handling  that will give you files that will stay closed you need to should pay for it, give them volume.  If the experts cannot make a living then they will leave (and have) the industry.  It use to be that an adjuster could expect at least 100 files on an assignment, is 30 worth the trip? A crew of good experienced adjusters can stop the phones from ringing but you pay for what you get. 

In one way I feel this "we got to it have now" attitude is hurting the industry and resulting in poor files and talent lost. 

I have not worked for one of the top 10 vendors in over ten years and I am really out of the loop. Age catches up with all of us.I have worked hurricane losses in 03, 04,05.06 08 and still some 08 in 2010. Many younger adjusters have kept in touch with me and state the paper work is more time consuming. All the one,s I worked with years ago have quit-retired for several reasons.

I also know many old adjusters including myself that was cheated out of some portion of their fee bills that were not working for for the top 10 vendors, who also seem to all work for the top 10 carriers.

Just read a post over in chat about a three day FREE xmate class in South Michigan about Jan 10th. Please go to chat and get the dates and the number. All the law firms advertise this way. Serve Pro, Blackmon Mooring and all the franchise cleaners should jump on this write off that is good for all.

Newly licensed adjusters should contact...WWW.Claimsmentor.com. Deb. is having excellant live on line classes starting on Jan 4, 2011. Well worth the time and very reasonable cost.