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Don't you dare change that can opener cleaning price, Ray.  Xactimate will put an asterix by the price showing that you changed it and some "supervisor" or "reinspector" who got their license last week will review your work and call you on the carpet for why you changed the price.  They would have never known you changed it if not for the asterix  (that, and also the electronically generated Xactanalysis noncompliance report).  No wonder I saw so many employment ads looking for "general" adjusters with 2 to 5 years (don't bother applying if you have more than 5 --trust me, I tried) to handle "very complex claims".

You have touched on something there, Steve.  During a previous life I found that the "general" adjusters assigned or brought in to take over "complex" files were not required to prepare their own software estimate.  Estimates and bills/invoices were collected from the contractors, attached to a report and submitted to the carrier for payment.  They moved merrily on to the next one with the benefits of liberal expense accounts and 50% higher hourly rates, no strings or asterisks attached.  Not a bad deal, huh?   Don't know that I'd find a lot of personal satisfaction doing it that way, but my pockets would enjoy better health.

Years of experience often is a liability in most new employees hired unless a company is hiring management staff.

Yep my day claims business has picked up a bit since I changed my resume to" experienced windstorm adjuster on screen doors and fences" and liability to slip and fall cases.

Maybe we all should re-arrange our resumes to befit the inception of our experience to commence with Charley, or Jeanne or Ivan. Maybe even Katarina , Wilma or Rita?

We would then have 3-5 years of experience and be welcomed for our lack of knowledge, our ability to be led by the nose, and possibly get hired as a GA?

Ah yes it takes all us to get the job done. Had a smoke file questioned the other day when I used heavy smoke clean on an electric can opener instead of light and I told the examiner it looked like heavy smoke to me instead of light. She paused for a while as she was looking up the answer to my reply and ask if I thought about sending questions like this to ITEL and my reply was , not really and her response was when the field inspector looks at something and does not knoiw the real answer the article should be sent to ITEL for their opine. I said I would remember next time, but should I use 2 bags if I ran into a loss that had two electric can openers as my supply of ITEL large bag,s would only hold one electric can opener in my opine. She advised she would check with her supervisor and get back to me; however her experience was most houses only had one electric can opener. I agreed, but I think we must be prepaired when working these limited assigments until we get a feel of how much discresion we should use on their assignments. !

( I just made this up.... it's satire) new people please do not take this to heart.

Ray,

Satire or not, it smacks of the real truth.

These erstwhile examiers, for the most part, could not tell a 2x4 from a 2x10 without a ruler. Most have never been in the field. A prequisite, IMHO, for any  examiner.

This statement is NOT meant to be construed as an opinion of the true file examiners that have paid their dues, worked the tails off and prefer the comfort of a desk job.

It is meant to apply to the thousands of ill equipped, ill-knowledgeable people that have only a book to follow (yep, it's true), who are hired to examine work done by the professionals, and to question any item that does not fall into their limited knowledge base.

Ray, do you mean to say that you didn't have your smoke guage with you??  Simply hold it up next to the damaged item & snap your photo.  Your files will sail right thru.  If you need one of these guages, I have them for sale @ $22.99 each, or $50 for two.  

Speaking of ITEL, I recall a water damage loss to about 50 yards of 1-month old carpet, drywall & baseboards in a basement family room when a water line froze.  Carpet probably would've been OK if not for the stain bleeding out from the baseboards.  But anyway, the insured still had the original installation invoice & I confirmed the dealer would pull and replace for the same cost as before.  Sent  1st & final report/estimate back via email/fax same day as received, and this was the day after the loss occurred.  10 days later, got a request from the carrier examiner to send a sample to ITEL.  OK, I'd had a hunch and prepared for that and had a 12"x12" sample, so complied with their request.  Guess I should have called about that before I sent in my report, but was familiar enough with local pricing to know it was a no brainer.

About 2 weeks later, I got the ITEL valuation back showing a Rep cost price on the carpet & pad @ close to $30/yard vs. the $18/yard I had originally confirmed and submitted.  Faxed that in to the examiner with a revised estimate for comparison to the original.  Insured called me weekly for a month to check on status of payment, which I had no idea & referred them to the carrier.  Insured told me later they eventually received payment based on my original estimate.

This is not intended in any way to be a slam on ITEL.  Used them countless times with good results, but hated to do so when I felt my own discretion would yield equitable results to the insured and carrier. 

Well I kinda put my foot in my big mouth again, the supervisor called me back instead of the adjuster and said they are use to these questions from some of their new vendors. Addditionaly, If I would have thought this out  two electric can openers in the same house would have the same amount of smoke on both electric can openers and it would be a waste of money to send both electric can openers into ITEL and as long as I was the field inspector on their claims in this area to call their smoke and water remediation contractor with a national contract when I had a question like this and they could resolve the light clean or the heavy clean question possibly without sending in the Electric can opener ;but, if it was necessary you could get the differance back or write a supplement on the contract we have with your vender. By the way this file was assigned to you 68 hours ago and has not be resolved yet and the dead line is 72 hours for the Recommendation for settlement.