Forums

I think first and foremost you should be loyal to your self, which means you and your family. Of course, I've never had any experience with larger vendors, but like any large corporation, I seriously doubt that the loyalty will reciprocate.

Do they have the right to discount you? Yes. Should they? No. They need to understand that you cant base your decision on the POSSIBILITY of getting enough claims to justify deployment.

This is why we are independent, loyalty is better suited for employees. Even then it may not reciprocate.

Of course there are always exceptions. I have a vendor that I will happily go on standby for. But only because they are good friends and thats my exception.

It's a fine line we walk as independents.

I agree with nwest above. Our first loyalty is to ourselves and our families. As independents and self-employed people, we must consider what is the best business plan under which to operate our own independent business. Sometimes this may mean "playing the field."

I have one vendor who has almost consistently offered me work year in and year out. Am I loyal to them? You betcha. Will I give them first crack at my services every time? You betcha. Am I loyal to them in the sense that I will abide by all their expectations while working for them and fulfill the contracts they assign to me to the best of my ability? I sure will. Will I wait for them to call if I haven't worked for six months. That would be a "No". If I have tired of sitting on my thumbs, contacted my primary company every week or two for months on end, and there is simply no work, I will take an assignment from someone else. That's because I am an independent. I control my own destiny. I have tired of hoping my ambitions for my life are shared by those with the power to control my advancement. I have taken my own promotion and advancement into my own very capable hands. I am self-employed.
The company for which I usually work has asked me to be on "perpetual standby" in 2005 and 2006 during the storm seasons. They have delivered both years with as much work as I can stand. Even without a hurricane this year, they kept me working. I am loyal to this company. I will also work for other companies from time to time. The relationship, however, is unlikely to be the same with other companies.

The fact of the matter is that even this company has experienced a couple changes in CAT management. During one period the CAT department was controlled by a clueless staff and upper management who didn't know me from anybody else -- despite the fact that I had worked 48 weeks out of the previous year for them. I owed no loyalty even to this company during that period. Competency breeds loyalty, and that period during which the management was incompetent inspired no loyalty in me.

Another aspect of loyalty that is usually rewarded -- Are we willing to stick with an assignment until the assignment is basically finished? A hit-and-run adjuster has no loyalty even to providing the best work product possible and deserves no loyalty from the vendor. I jumped ship just once. It was a situation where I disagreed with the claim management. I told them what I expected from them and gave them advance notice that if they could not comply with certain basic expectations I would be leaving. Their way of doing business did not mesh with mine.  That caused me to be inefficient in my claim handling by 40%.  They intentionally did not change their method of assigning claims to me. They were not wrong.  We simply could not mesh together properly.  I left.  It was the best move I ever made. I worked 88 of the next 104 weeks because I left an unprofitable situation. I exercised my right as an independent self-employed person to choose my own destiny.

There is more than one side to loyalty. We need to search our conscience, choose what are our values and stick to them. That's what responsible, honorable people do. We need to decide what is the best way to run the small business that each of us is. That's what free people do.

Well said Steve.

A forum from the year 2000 archive related to this topic:

http://www.catadjuster.org/discus/messages/2893/349.html.

I am in total agreement with Steve on this subject. Another concern is, are the vendors loyal to the people who have significantly helped them, above and beyond duty. I am of the opinion lately, that the answer is NO. I believe in loyalty, kinda like a marriage, loyalty is important.

Now, when vendors are cutting each others throats to get business, it is not helping the people who help them, in fact, quite the contrary, is this loyalty to us?. Is this being loyal to the people who help them? Not only no, but hell no. I for one am getting tired of working for wages that I could earn at K-Mart or WalMart. They expect us to be ready at a moments notice, have thousands invested in equipment, be current in software practices, and interrupt our families lives for weeks and months on end.

It is time to stand up and be counted. Before we go to a catastrophe, the vendors need to expose their schedules to us, so we can make an intelligent decision as to whether it will be beneficial to us to work for them, regardless of who they are. There are some big named vendors out there that have demanded that we do professional work, for immigrants wages. They should not be surprised if we don't want to work for them, until such time, their loyalty to us is in place. Better wages for professional work.

I personally would like to see a vendor grab this by the horns, offer decent work for a decent wage, care about who works for them, have concern when we have to sleep in our trucks and cars when nothing is available, offer incentives to those who excel in their work, and express gratitude when a job is well done. Which one of you vendors would like to be first? There are few now. After 46 years in this business, I am tired of vendors taking advantage of their workers, new or old.

Tom,
Hope you and Janice the warmest of new years.
In so far as your above post, which would require a vender to come out of his back pocket, I am with you. The sad truth is it will never happen. Just as the venders are not going to raise a fuss with the carriers, very few of the readers of CADO would be willing to sit out a season or two in hopes that the vender would wake up and realize that our services are in fact needed and worth paying for.
In the past 14 Years, the phrase "dime a dozen" still holds true for the most part.
In the past 14 Years, all the venders still have more phone numbers to call than work.

Looking forward to seeing you all on the road this year,

Your Bud,

David Houtz

Why should any changes ever be made as long as the vendor/carrier system runs the whole cat. industry?  It's a good bet none will be made as no incentives are in place.

How about this one large carrier who does not like the product and the cost of what they get in the pile of catastrophe claims.

This one carrier hire's a labor broker. The broker then finds 100 of the best catastrophe adjusters in the country. These independant business men are told to hire as many helpers as they need to turn in excellant work at a cost less than what is being paid now for the average to poor work they are getting.  The 100 adjusters are responsible for the final product that have their name on the file. The labor broker only has to keep the books and insulate the carrier from the temp employee status.

This way you will have 100 super rich adjusters and many thousands of persons below them working the peter principal overtime fashion and being well paid while doing the grunt work.

Well good thats two of us and I know about 23 more so other 75 should step foward before the ship sails.

Ray, I know your pushing your FICUS concept every chance you get and that is okay, of course. Now a question. You said, "This way you will have 100 super rich adjusters and many thousands of persons below them working the peter principal overtime fashion and being well paid while doing the grunt work". Super Rich adjusters, well paid doing the grunt work, yet all of us know the schedules are low. Where is all this money going to come from, plus the broker will want a handsome share. I am not condemning what your saying, I would just like to know where all this money is going to come from and who is the market expert that is going to develop this with the carriers.

All of you are right. You answered my question in your own fashion. You say it can never happen, and with that attitude, your absolutely correct, it will not. Would be nice if the vendors would ask for a decent fee for us though. Maybe some of us could build million dollar houses and have million dollar yachts.

The carriers have been paying for contract labor long before I was hired as a staff adjuster.

Today many large carriers have their own staff attorneys or captive law firms to represent them in lawsuits. Why ? Savings of millions of dollars each year in legal fee,s.

We all know adjusters will work for 50% of the fee bill. Check with any old line Independant adjusting firm in any city,state in the US, that's what the thousands of fire and casualty adjusters working regular daily claims work for plus mileage.When I was a staff adjuster in the 50 and 60's we paid our storm troopers 10% more for living away from home expense.  This seems to be the norm today.

Administaff would be a good labor broker or several super rich business men.... thats not the problem.  All I need is one large carrier to agree to give me a shot to use the FICUS TREE catastrophe system at 75% of the fee's they are presently paying..... for no cure no pay results. I think I can round up the bankers for 15% of millions each day. The  adjusters will still be getting the full fee less labor broker charges. All the workers below the adjusters will be paid out of the adjusters slice of the pie.  We all know we can train people who do not know what a composition roof is to travel for $500. per day and do the FICUS work.

No cure no pay... it just takes confidence.