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This has been ask many times...... I have my license, but have never worked a claim. I think you you should do a practice claim on your own house and send it to the large vendors who use exactimate. I am sad to say its about all of of them. But thats another topic for another day.

Its reasonable to assume you own or rent a dwelling that is insured. Get a copy of exactimate and "play like" a tornado destroyed the house  and its contents.  Play like you are the assigned adjuster to work all the claims. Keep a copy of the Dec. sheet in your name and send to the vendors and SHOW them you can do the job.

NOW if you can not do this ... you are not a qualified asjuster, So stop saying you are, and asking to be deployed.

You need bad weather more than you need training, Some years not enought bad weather for the old folks. But if are going to give a 2-3 year shot before not renwing your license you cab do a lot of training on your own time. If you would study insurance 21 hours per week you will be able to market your wares better to about 100 or more vendors who hire part time sub contract people like you want to become.

I  think all the training schools except Vale Tec. is a waste of $. You can read, discover your self how to buid a house, the principles of property adjusting in dozens of books. Use exactimate to estimate your own house from the slab up and all the contents. The policy will be the HO-3 for the state you live in and the dec. sheet will be your own . When this done locate me on my phone and and I may ask you to send it to me to critique. Or i may tell you. I dont waste my time. Why would any vendor worth their salt let you represent them if you can not do the most basic requirement. They do not need roof measurements, the need correct estimates.

Bob I am an agent from massachusetts for the past 25 years. I am looking to relocate to Fort Lauderdale and was hoping to get started doing some Cat adjusting work. I took a 1 week course with US Staffing in Dallas last week on estimating. They have another course next month on the software and claim they will call everyone that passes if a storm hits. Am I just wasting my time I know the policies and have had some experience in doing construction. Your advice will be appreciated.

 

Thank you

 

Tom Sullivan

Tom,

I've got a really sweet deal on a bridge in New Jersey if you're interested

If I was a vendor I would ask you to send me a copy of your last 5 years "reading files" Not all, but at least 3 for each year). If you have none, call me in five years when you have them. This would clean out a massive list of names, not cat. adjusters.

Ok, good chance the hurricane season although very busy will spare the CONUS. You have taken every course you can, bought enough licences to sink a battleship, been promised you will be called (putting you on standby once a year fullfills the promise with having to guarenty work), phoned every vendor and filled out endless online applications. You have been given a list of courses to take. You might have quit your job. you have spent money with no return. Now what?

Ok, good chance the hurricane season although very busy will spare the CONUS. You have taken every course you can, bought enough licences to sink a battleship, been promised you will be called (putting you on standby once a year fullfills the promise with having to guarenty work), phoned every vendor and filled out endless online applications. You have been given a list of courses to take. You might have quit your job. you have spent money with no return. Now what?

I wonder if you would be interested in training a newbie? I can come to you, and would love the opportunity to get some training from a pro.

Insurance adjusters jobs are to help the policyholder present documentation of their loss to the carrier.

Just take a small fire in your kitchen while your teen age(or her boy friend) was cooking fries for a party. This would have a lot of smoke, water or dry chemical damage in the kitchen with smoke and odor in the house, possible in in each room and closet. The fire dept. would come out and put put out the fire.

Several thousands dollars of damage has now occurred. Your job as the adjuster is to help the homeowner(with a Homeowners Policy) document the loss and get all the damage repaired , the insured paid under several sections of the broad Homeowners Policy.

Read your Homeowners Policy to SEE what you should list is your loss.
1. Cost to repair the house.
2. Cost to replace contents ruined in the fire.
3. Cost to clean the house.
4. Cost to clean the contents.
This should take you several days.

Send an email to Traders Training System c/o rhrayhall@gmail.com and I will return some instructions to keep you on the right path. Good luck.

Carol or any new person, please go over to CHAT for your answer.

I have learned a lot about new adjusters since about1994 when I was started as a full time traveling cat. adjuster and did very well in some years and not so well in others.

**Many of the people I met came from the contracting-remodeling-home repear industry, They were able to adapt very well as wind-flood damage was very apparent; therefore scoping the repairs from wind-flood was straight foward. New people were not assigned flood, only wind and the cause and origin of the Loss was answered. They had a list of limitations on coverage amounts and excluded property.*** The estimatics  was  in a computer program and moving the paper out  on a completed file was not something that could not be mastered ; ****in several weeks of OJT.

This post is directed to only** Go to the Home Depot or Lowe,s and purchase($17.97)The Wagner book on House Framing-Plan-Design-Build and read each page as many as  it takes you to learn from a book. Ever house you see study the design, go to constructions sites and watch as house going up. Go to these big box stores and look at all the material in the store that goes into the house go very slow in the roofing department, lumber, cabinet, floor covering, siding and windows. This will be in 100% of all the dwelling estimates you will ever write or see.

*** One program is not better; but, is the most used and this site is replete with adds to learn this program. All the others also give you a free 30 day trial. Some people can learn at home , some cannot.

**** This is the goal.. right, you are one of thousands who wants to get the call. If you would start a diary of all the things you have done up until you get the call. Write up a practice estimate on your own house in some program with a tree laying on your kitchen sink from  a windstorm . Also write up all the self-training along with the class room training as a curriculum vitae, and why you should be called

Ray gives great advice on how to "know before you go"! There is no storm, no experience, no work! However, I recently met an ex builder with six or seven years experience as a supervisor for a large restoration company. He has had his license less than a year, but is earning money writing claims.

He read everything that Cado had including the appropriate discouraging warnings to newbies. After reading them, he decided to not let them slow him down. He'd made the decision to become an adjuster and that was that!

He took a three week course from one of the better vendors that never promise deployment, but actually has a record of working hard to deploy their students. He pestered the Adjuster relations guy for something to do. He discovered the companies top adjusters and pestered them for ride alongs. Everyone knows it is almost impossible to get ride alongs, but he managed to talk them into it. He even got background approval and permission from the carrier. This can't be done, but he did it.

He found an adjuster with claims that wanted a partner. He helped scope and write 40 claims. The adjuster finished his assignment and was called home on personal business. This new adjuster managed to get a mention on the daily guidance to help write claims. He finished the storm writting claims and made a few thousand more dollars.

People at the carrier, the vendor, and other vendors know his name. As soon as he gets certification for this carrier, he will work claims on his own.

It can be done, but the newbie must be ready to write good quality claims.

New adjuster, ask yourself if you would be truly confident if your home was destroyed to have someone with your skill level write the claim that you would have to live with. If you would not be absolutely comfortable with that level of skill, you need to stop wishing for deployment and follow Ray's advice.

Every community has repo houses. Shop those houses, photograph and write them to pristine condition, multiply the replacement cost by 2, subtract from the current market price of this home, then make an offer. Do this a hundred times and you'll be ready to work claims (providing you have read the policy a couple of hundred times as well).

Even if you don't get deployed, you might make some money helping the nation repair the housing bubble break.

You can almost predict who will make $ as a cat , adjuster, All the  good training from any source, able to learn, lots of practice and a second income seems to be the common thread of most I have met.

It is amazing to me that there is so much negative and actually useless feedback on this site. I would suggest if you are so jaded about adjusting, fold down your laptop and quit participating on a web site that is designed to help adjusters and would be adjusters. I have been adjusting for three years and have to fight daily with the pompous and arrogant and most of all egotistical personalities that you come across in adjusting. I got into this field to have flexibility, make ok money, travel a bit but most of all help people in need. How can some of you say you are good adjusters when all you have for advice is hot air that can be compared to a sad case of inflated ego and a jaded sense of personal reality. If you don't like the system of adjusting, please step away and let the people that want to adjust and do it for a good reason take the lead.

Take the lead adjuster4, your second post should be something interesting.

Intelligent questions based on reseach and thought receive thoughtfull answers. Garbage in garbage out.

Welcome to the club A4

A4,

I can't understand how an adjuster w/ 3 years experience has to fight w/ other adjusters everyday .Maybe you need to take a hard look in the mirror.

In three years you should start to have things pretty well figured out . Maybe you are not cut out for this type of career.