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Switching into corporate-think mode, Mike, in order to properly answer your last question.

That bean counter probably got promoted. Corporate types just don't think like we entrepreneurial types.

Case in point, the last vendor I worked with as staff -- They were down 15% on income from the year before. They did not take into consideration that the previous year had seen some major CAT work. They were actually up from the last non-cat year. Since the concept of comparing apples with apples seemed to elude everyone in a position of authority, they began to panic. They hired a consultant who told them, basically, that property claim work was dead and that their future was in Casualty, Worker's Comp, etc. Despite the fact that property was their core business and far exceeded the income from other types of business, they put a nurse in charge of the company. Then they demoted my branch manager, who had led us to a 15% increase over the previous year while the company had dropped 15%. This had been no accident. Neal Stevenson's (the branch manager) management style and practices had been directly and intentionally responsible for all of us digging in and exceeding our goals. We had consciously and deliberately worked with each other, from the bottom up, to achieve and surpass what we set out to do.

The list of mistakes they made in their unnecessary panic is very long. I won't go into all the sordid details. Suffice it to say, however, that the prophecy that property work was dead becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy when you lose all your property staff to attrition because they no longer wish to work for your company, when you lay off your best people, and when you just don't care to pursue your property business. I guarantee two things: 1. The corporate types are patting themselves on the back for the boneheaded decisions they made, and 2. The other vendors working that territory are bagging the big bucks from all the property work they picked up after that company let it go.

It's so slow......." How slow is it "........it's so slow ......I only need to check in once a week to catch up on the new CADO posts.

JWG

The IA working daily local claims in a metro area of over 4 million (Houston) are very slow and have been since 2003. The mold gold killed off the "risk of loss" policy and the name peril policy eliminates most of all the volume losses that we used to get.: leaking roofs, leaking shower pans, undiscoverd drips inside walls, kids letting the bath tub overflow, kids spilling Kool Aid on the carpet, checking out all contents stolen while at work(and neighbors not noticing a van) washing machine overflows, dishwaster overflows, AC evaporator pan overflows, was it dead or alive tree that fell or was it wind, or any lightning evidence. And I think that may cover the "risk of loss" field.

Most of us were trained as casualty adjusters, before property and fall back on liability claims.

I have been too busy working freeze, hail and water damage claims so far this year to notice that it was a slow year.   But with twice the file requirements and half the pay for the dailies, and factor in the fact that we are now officially in the "dog days"  and i am starting to feel the squeeeeeeeze

IA fee's are an expense dollars. Claim overpayments are indemnity dollars. The carrier can over pay and ask the insurance commissioner for a rate increase because their losses have increased. They 'eat' the expense dollars and when expenses are cut many mangers get a bonus. So, no IA assignments is good business. Tongue in cheek, but true. Jeff, they do know that using you controls indemnity payments but do they really care?