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YES except there are way to many wnata be adjusters and way to little work lately. Stick with crop, I have not heard of companies telephone adjusting crop losses yet.

Mr. Texas Crop Adjuster: I would like to ask you a question re crop adjusting, do you mind sending me a private message?

The cat is out of the bag, may be more money in crop adjusting than in Cat adjusting. Maybe it is time to open a school.

Might be right....no ladder or rope & harness necessary, perhaps no licensing needed (?), likely no PA's...just good old Oliver Wendell Douglas from Green Acres.  But look out for Mr. Haney!

I've done crop claims in the past in NE/IA/KS, but only on a 3rd party basis when a neighbor's herd of cattle got loose and destroyed part of a corn/bean field or a controlled burn turned out not to be controlled.  Another example is if the neighbor was applying liquid ammonia fertilizer and wind drift burned and thwarted or killed the adjacent growing field due to improper application (cultivator shovels & spray nozzels not into the ground deep enough). Those were simple losses to work, just not too often. Lots of walking & measuring, establishing market price, etc., and obtaining a release (at the carrier's discretion). 

Crop adjusting on the weather-related side I'd imagine would be just as easy or easier, since the coverage generally establishes a price per bushel yield & also an agreed bushel per acre yield average based on prior years production.

Posted By John on 07 Oct 2012 11:31 PM

Back ground first- 10 years Ins. Agent, last 5 years as an Crop insurance adjuster, corn, wheat, cotton etc...

I'm contracted with 3 companies and on bad crop years I'm looking at $85K+ and good crop years $25K+ big swings in income.

I have good knowledge on type of construction, because did some building for a builder(home and commercial)  to get through college.

 My question is property CAT adjusting about the same in ups and downs on income year over year?

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Property CAT adjusting does share the up and down income cycle as above. However the down cycle is closer to 0K than 25K , the up cycle could be considerably less than 85K, and considerably more than 85K. Granted this is the world of the independent adjuster. Staff adjusters  will not make 85K (in most cases) but by the same token, staff adjusters will not make 0K.

Before you chuck one for the other, you should prolly consider staying where you are and see if you can dabble (IE dip your toes in the IA pool before doing something drastic)

Like most industries, 20% of the CAT adjusters make 80% of the money and vice versa

Maybe it is time to ask the question "is cat adjusting as we knew it dead or dying?"

Posted By stormcrow on 12 Oct 2012 02:53 PM

Maybe it is time to ask the question "is cat adjusting as we knew it dead or dying?"

 

Dead or dying??...No, it's cycles.  Compare the Cat IA's from the 90's up til 2003, and then the canes of 04-05 that made an influx.  And then the drop-off.  Nothing much more has changed except the players and them (me too) getting old & gray. Mother Nature will have her say some day.

On an added note to the original poster Tx Crop Adjuster, that is most likely a job that is going to be staff related and not available via an IA firm.  It might also be linked to a financial institution that has an interest in the crops that are leveraged to the farmers' loans and hedged prices at harvest time.

We have been saying it's just a cycle, but technolgical changes, the age of the old f*rt adjusters, endless schools, a world of immediate service just for a few thoughts. I recognize that the cycles of telephone adjusting (overpaying losses and under paying adjusters) and large staffing numbers are normal. I wonder if what we know and loved is history.

Posted By olderthendirt on 12 Oct 2012 08:06 PM
We have been saying it's just a cycle, but technolgical changes, the age of the old f*rt adjusters, endless schools, a world of immediate service just for a few thoughts. I recognize that the cycles of telephone adjusting (overpaying losses and under paying adjusters) and large staffing numbers are normal. I wonder if what we know and loved is history.

OTD,

I would love to say that the experienced hands with 10+ years of service are a valuable asset to the carrier if only for the educational value of their combined experience and knowledge (that could be passed on to the next generation of adjusters) but I cannot.

Over and above that experience and knowledge, I believe the experienced adjusters have also gleened through the years on how to calm down devastated/desperate insureds. Often the best results come from simply listening to the insured, let them tell you their story.

With reducing costs and the dramatic leap in adjuster tech, that (customer service) seems to have been left by the wayside.

Some of the most lucrative aspects of the industry (for experienced adjusters) and quite frankly, what most often supports (CAT) independent adjusters and their families in the lean times and in between larger events (IE hurricanes,floods,tornados) are the hail storms. Hail claims more often than not are relatively routine and damage in most cases is limited to roof and related components (gutters/fascia/skylights/siding/etc...) and most adjusters can efficiently handle a large volume of these claims. Another nice thing (in most cases) is nobody is dead, nobody is displaced. Repair or replace the roof and on to the next claim. With 2 to 3 hail storm deployments a year, my bills were paid / expenses exceeded and a bit in the bank. For a major event deployment, (IE.hurricanes Jeanne(2004)/ Katrina/Rita(2005),California Wildfires(2007) hurricane Gustav(2008) and Ca wildfires (2009) were a bonus (make no mistake I am not trying to diminish the horrors suffered by our insureds from major events) from a strictly financial standpoint

Prior to my ladder accident in October of 2009, hail storms were my bread and butter and from 2004 through 2009 accounted for approximately 75% of my billing.

With the advances in satellite technology, companies like EagleView and GeoEstimator have increased their reliability tenfold since 2009. Pictometry (a snot nose college kid duct taped the bottom of a Cessna with a Polaroid camera) has also made dramatic strides toward reliability. Since 2010, EagleView has become fully integrated within XM8.

With XM8 sketch, when an adjuster creates his/her estimate, those dimensions are archived. In the future should said risk sustain any future damage from hail or any event, depending upon the severity, a desk adjuster could feasibly handle the claim over the phone.

Hail storms once the bread and butter for many of us can be handled without a field adjuster( in my opinion). Insured files a claim, the staff adjuster makes phone/email contact with the insured, handle the POL and then order an EagleView report,done!

Of course some risks cannot be reliably viewed from satellite tech, so someone will have to get out there.

Whether completely eliminated or substantially reduced workload (which brings substantially reduced fee schedules), I must agree that things will NEVER be the same for IA's

Customer service is reduced to almost nothing. Although these things are happening right now, I still feel that tech cannot completely replace the IA. Nevertheless, sat photos cannot tell you if there is a second layer of shingles and other minute details, and the trend to handle claims over the phone is bound to miss alot of important facts.

I foresee many a displaced IA moving to the other side of the game

Robby

More about corn....I once applied for a crop adj job about 5 years ago.  It would have been local (a tri-state area) and part-time only. I never even got an interview despite the following qualifications because the email response stated I did not meet their requirements:

*born & raised on a 1200 acre farm with about 800 acres that were crops of corn or beans (not pasture or homestead)

*20+ yrs multi-line adjusting 

*Ate corn, both field & sweet (you have to eat the field corn early while it's tender and it still isn't real good)

*Planted, fertilized, cultivated, hilled, irrigated, husked or shucked, and harvested corn

*Ground corn to feed the cattle & hogs

*Cracked corn to feed the chickens, ducks & guineas, and Jimmy didn't care

*Arranged corn kernels in resin to make interesting paper weights for Mother's Day gifts 

*Utilized cobs in the out-house in my younger years.  Now then, there is an art to this for those of you that don't know.  Field corn has reddish/brown cobs and sweet corn has white cobs.  So, the proper etiquette is to use one field cob, and then one sweet corn cob to determine if another cob is necessary. The Sears catalogue gets way too much credit.

 

Posted By Mike Kunze on 13 Oct 2012 10:00 PM

More about corn....I once applied for a crop adj job about 5 years ago.  It would have been local (a tri-state area) and part-time only. I never even got an interview despite the following qualifications because the email response stated I did not meet their requirements:

*born & raised on a 1200 acre farm with about 800 acres that were crops of corn or beans (not pasture or homestead)

*20+ yrs multi-line adjusting 

*Ate corn, both field & sweet (you have to eat the field corn early while it's tender and it still isn't real good)

*Planted, fertilized, cultivated, hilled, irrigated, husked or shucked, and harvested corn

*Ground corn to feed the cattle & hogs

*Cracked corn to feed the chickens, ducks & guineas, and Jimmy didn't care

*Arranged corn kernels in resin to make interesting paper weights for Mother's Day gifts 

*Utilized cobs in the out-house in my younger years.  Now then, there is an art to this for those of you that don't know.  Field corn has reddish/brown cobs and sweet corn has white cobs.  So, the proper etiquette is to use one field cob, and then one sweet corn cob to determine if another cob is necessary. The Sears catalogue gets way too much credit.

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Uhm Mike, really?

I mean I have heard something about corn cobs, but only in passing. I am sure I am going to regret this, but when you say using the cob, I am assuming the corn is not still connected to the cob. I only say that because well it seems that those little indentations where the corn used to be, well it would appear very conducive to uhm, sanitary value?  But with the ,oh hell, you know what I am asking! 

In my humble opinion, Dirt, you are on the right track. At least one adjuster admits that he works for wages, drags shelter from one place to another and spends 4t a month to keep his show going.

When we started in this business there were no estimating programs, no certifications, no CE hours, no laser beams, GAB had a stellar property school, no cell phones, the legal climate was different and the income possibilities were limited only by physical exhaustion. Now we have innumerable schools teaching the use of the premier estimating program, get a license in 3 days and Robbie Robinson offering counseling to anyone who wants free advise.

I am engaged in rewriting an estimate, the original adjuster finished a hardwood floor with latex.

The only bright light Chuck is that anything takes a while to die and I should have enough work to see me into retirement, at worst I can get a job examining others work. Programs that force an adjuster to fill out a questionaire in the field using tablot technology are the wave of the future (with forms signed right on the computor screen). Everything is becoming geared to drag everyone up to a minimum level.
But soon all will be at that minimum.
(I have seen the future and it is different from the way I did things, and I can either be sad or scared).

Always successful, Dirt, at finding a niche, I will make it to my expiration date. Even though most work will be done with the lowest denominator and is being done with what I call revolving door claims reps experienced people are required, if not on the traditional company side then on the claimant and claimant's attorney side. Possibly even PA work. Adjusters who truly understand the nuances of commercial coverage are few and far between.

As a part of my CE hours I took a Residential property course. The course refers to co-insurance in an HO-3 which is ACV cover with RC provisions.

I, too, have found somewhat of a niche. I've had a couple of health issues that have prevented me from normal claims work. Plus, I've gotten lazy.

I've been doing some work for a couple of IA firms that are TPA's. They send me the stuff that the regular adjusters think are beneath them like photos of an intersection, timing the left turn signal, photos of a parking lot and sidewalk, with measurements, the little stuff that requires little thought and even less reporting skills. Hey! Somebody's got to do it.

Just my cup of tea

Happy Trails

Posted By OkcLarryD on 15 Oct 2012 11:09 PM
I, too, have found somewhat of a niche. I've had a couple of health issues that have prevented me from normal claims work. Plus, I've gotten lazy.

I've been doing some work for a couple of IA firms that are TPA's. They send me the stuff that the regular adjusters think are beneath them like photos of an intersection, timing the left turn signal, photos of a parking lot and sidewalk, with measurements, the little stuff that requires little thought and even less reporting skills. Hey! Somebody's got to do it.

Just my cup of tea

Happy Trails

 

OKC Larry, that can most times be little stuff...sometimes not!  I know that you are just being modest that it takes little thought, unless you have spent a few hours a day watching CSI.  A good part of my early career (staff) included doing just what you described but it also included meeting with the families/attorneys of the deceased & permanently disabled, taking statements from involved parties, seeing the blood, brain matter and hair on the windshields, or talking to the folks who found a neighbor child at the bottom of their pool. 

Obviously, 99.9% of the time IA's are not going to be put in the position of dealing with all of the above.  But when they are, I hope they have prior staff experience and training.  My original staff employer had us spend a week with former State Patrol investigators who taught us about skid marks & speed, whether headlights/signals were on or off at the time of impact, traffic light timers, etc.  Watching them show us in the parking lot was kind of cool at the time...until it became real.

Slip & falls, the same thing.  It's amazing what you learn if the carrier allows you enough T&E to observe, and if you do a little bit of research which is a lot easier these days on the net. I recall a few "falls" on ice at a government facility in the midwest that were rep'd by partner attorneys with different office addresses, and the dates of loss did not coincide with the weather reports.  They also did not realize that I happened to be at the location at that same day taking photos of another alleged accident. Oops!

In any event, I am glad to hear that you have some assignments like that coming your way.  It beats climbing a ladder, crawling in an attic, whatever.  Sometimes fact finding on gray issues, no matter in whose favor, is more satisfying than the black and white of property damage. 

Me three. Pretty much all I do is commercial 3rd party liability claims. Different animal from homeowners. Did the hail claims for 15+ years and enjoyed that, but nowdays you can't do but 4- 5 per day and keep up w/ everything. Just too much paper work.

I got into liabilty claims a little over 5 years ago ('07) and haven't looked back since. I also like the claims from TPA's that other adjuster's won't do, because they pay pretty good. Could be better, but it's better than nothing. I'm sure not going to turn claims because "it's not worth my time". Send it to me, I'll do it!!

My .02 cents worth   

I, for one, am hoping there is still some money to be made out there. As of October first I quit the best job I ever had, making right in the vicinity of Texas Crop Adjuster's top years every year working on staff with a regular pay check and benefits, not to mention working conditions I could not complain about. I must be nuts. But, truth be told, catadjusting is my bliss. So, this week I'm taking a little vacation trip to Colorado. And next week I'm hitting the bricks and looking for work. Hopefully I can parlay the training and designations I gained over the last five years and the contacts I still have into enough money to get by and live the life of a gypsy again. I must be nuts. And I hope to be blissfully nuts for years to come.