I have been adjusting claims for the past forty years and elected to pursue the public adjusting side of claims four and a half years ago. I recently ran into a claim in which Safeco/Liberty appear to be in collusion with an outfit by the name of Materia Supply Werehouse, Inc. The more that I dig into this matter, the more that this situation is troubling.
In the early days, before Xactimate and Simsol or any estimating software property adjusters completed market surveys by calling several repair contractors in a given area. We recorded the unit costs with high and lows and did our best to identify a fair prevailing rate for given repair/replace applications. Now, the vast majority of the insurance carriers utilize Xactimate.
Yes, there are areas in Xactimate that still cause some concern, but all in all, I believe Xactimate does a pretty good job and most repair contractors accept the unit cost allowances provided in their respective areas. Most of the complaints are generated from the insurance adjusters not properly identifying the full scope of the damage required for the repairs at a property. A very hot and heated subject is overhead and profit.
Now comes along a Liberty Mutual/Safeco program in collusion with an outfit by the name of Material Supply Werehouse Inc. The carrier is peeling off 6 to 8 dollars a square on the roofing unit cost provided through Xactimate and stating the prevailing rate is being set by Material Supply Warehouse, Inc. Please also bear in mind, the carrier is dictating the price to the Material Supply Warehouse. Inc. folks according to my sources. Something about this scenario is inherently wrong and I am reaching out to this community for help.
1- Does anyone know if Material Supply Warehouse. Inc. is associated with Madsky Inc.?
2- Has anyone out there run into this scenario?
3- This program appears to have been implemented just in time for the 2019 hail season?
THIS IS A VERY SERIOUS ISSUEā¦INSURANCE CARRIERS CANNOT FIX PRICES!
I believe it is affiliated with MadSky. This program has been around now for several years. You should call those morons from MSW. The guy we talked to was out of Colorado. All he does is tries to work with a local ABC Supply to supply the shingles. And thatās all they will supply, at least that whatās we were told. No cap, no starter, no other accessories. For the most part, itās just LM/Safecoās attempt to further lower their low ball claim scopes.
Thank you, sir. I spoke to a representative at MSW who stated that he was in Kansas City. When queried further he stated that they had an office in Colorado. This Madsky (Colorado) outfit claims that they are going to ārevolutionize the roofing industryā. Wow, what an egoic claim. They appear to have a slick sales agenda, but the bottom line, this is collusion with an insurance carrier to fix or control the free market place and is in my professional opinion illegal. It seems to be a unique developed compartmentalization program of collusion that has been planned and schemed.
PLEASE, EVERYONE, send in specific details of any case that you may have encountered. There are a few law firms that have expressed interest. We need data, My belief the carrier can bleed off 1,000 to 3,000 a claim which does not have any legal interest, but a number of claims collectively on a class action could be a sizable amount needed to bust these buzzards on deception and possibly collusion.
My company has attempted to work with both the Madsky program and through normal direct customer sales for the past year and I have seen the same thing.
When dealing with Liberty and safeco outside of the madsky program we see the same materials supply warehouse inc and a claim that that is a fair price on the estimates. But if you call the number, fax or email you will not reach anyone. Ever.
By recording those calls and emails and sending that evidence with our supplement we have āwonā regular pricing every time. If you are experiencing this I would give it a try.
Due to our contract, and my position in my company I will not give more detail about the Madsky program, but it is just as shady as you would expect. Underpayment on claims quotas and not paying us their āpartnersā we are not continuing with them this season.
Additionally if you look for the Materials supply warehouse LLC business information you will be hit with a few interesting anachronisms. They have no website listing for the sate of Colorado, their business listing on COOPENDATA shows a process address that is not a warehouse and they are not registered with the BBB. Shady. If anyone can find more information about them I would love to give them a piece of my mind
I have no knowledge of or expertise in high volume insurance work but I have
to say, Hooray for class action lawsuits! Letās punish those guys and make sure an even sleazier law firm makes millions. Oh by the way, the people who got screwed will receive a check for $37.
You are so correct Tileman. However, the real purpose (generally) of class action law suits is to make money for the law firm filing the class action and to punitively punish the offending party in order to discourage them from repeating their offensive/illegal behavior.
Authentic,
Of course youāre right and the only thing regrettable is the lawyers making a killing while necessarily punishing the wrongdoers, while the people who got screwed get pennies.
Thank you to everyone for your input and comments. Yes, there is merit for consideration in the unfairness of the claim system and good points with the insights of whom really makes the dollars on a class action. We just learned about the āgood handsā folks getting popped for 1.5 million on the proverbial cosmetic hail endorsement here in Texas. Hells bells, now the cosmetic waivers are standard practice. With one golf ball producing storm, oneās metal roof becomes uninsurable period. The roof might look like crap, but along as it shedding water, the carriers are saying it is good to go. Wow! What a scheme, eliminating their exposure on metal roofs! Millions and millions to their profits.
Seriously, guys, the insurance folks are very crafty at their schemes. If the carriers can peel back 1500.00 to 2500.00 per roof claim, they know no one will take them to the mat. Itās just the plain truth and business. These guys are big and have deep pockets. The only way to fight them is to hit them hard in their checkbooks. Sometimes that changes bad behavior. But in consideration of this Liberty Mutual/Safeco dance on a National level 300,000 claim in a given hail season adds up to more millions to savings on their bottom line.
Its a cold hard battle for the consumers and roofing industry to fight and the carriers are banking on the small 10,000.00 to 40,000.00, knowing that the bottom line will deter the fight by the public, roofing contractors and public adjusters. I wish there was a better way and the spoils of the wins would be distributed more fairly to the hard-working consumers and roofing contractors across the country.
My hope is we continue to keep this conversation going, maybe we will find a better solution. Insurance claims are such dirty words for most folks. If we stand united, we stand strong!
There is a much better solution. Thatās for Contractors doing insurance work to actually learn the proper way to work with the Insurance Companies. It is a specialty skill just the same as installing a tile or slate roof is. If Roofers will learn how to take proper inspection and property photos, to educate the Homeowners and properly set expectations to solicit their support and to submit professional and proper supplements, things will change.
From what Iāve seen, perhaps 5 Roofing Contractors out of 100 really have their act together for doing insurance restoration work. Rest assured, that 5% does really well. Perhaps another 15 to 25% has some kind of clue but leaves a lot of money on the table and fights battles inefficiently. That leaves 70 to 80% that just do the work for what the insurance is willing to pay without putting up a meaningful battle to have them pay what theyāre owed.
So donāt totally blame the ICās for the issues. The Contractors are their own worst enemy in most cases.
They are not a warehouse as you would think Iām sure. They are likely the purchasing arm of mad sky. Mad sky has an agreement with virtually every supplier in the country for roofing materials. Iām sure the ins companies involved in the mad sky program are using his material price as a āfairā market price. However, if you are not in the program, you canāt touch his price thru any supply house, you donāt have his clout! Iām not sure this constitutes a violation of the Sherman act āprice fixingā as much as itās cost control to the extreme. What kind of number are they telling you the cost of a standard (30 yr) laminated shingle is thru This materials warehouse inc is?
Not every vendor participates in Mad Sky. We use Beacon/RSG, the local branch we buy from in Alabama has never heard of MadSky, MSW or anything about their special pricing. The pricing is only good for shingles, not even cap or starter. So what good does it do to buy the shingles only from ABC, pay an additional delivery fee and order everything else from RSG? Twice as much overhead internally plus weād lose our purchasing power with RSG.
Their pricing is $2 to $4 less than what we pay. Iām just happy we donāt have to deal with LM/Safeco that often, horrible insurance company to deal with.
All, repeat, all the nation distribution companies have a purchase deal with mad sky. Your local branch my not deal with them in your area, so isnāt privy to the national deal. Mad sky gets the materials at a huge discount that I guaranty you is way more than 2-4 bucks a sq. They back the sale so the supplier knows the money is good. Mad sky gets the difference between what you pay, and the deal they have worked, plusās all the manufacturer back ends. As for the ridge and starter not being in the deal, makes no sense to me why it wouldnāt be. The ins company see it as a savings to them, the supplier sees it as safe money. They sell it to the roofer as easy sales and great leads. Itās an ingenious plan if it works out. A true win win deal lol
The MSW Managed Material Program is a scam perpetrated by LC at Madsky along with the people of Liberty Mutual/Safeco. It was originally created as part of a preferred vendor program managed by MadSky where a contractor who was a member of the program would order the materials through this fictitious MSW company (probably can be traced back to being owned by LC or Madsky) for the claim and those materials would be delivered at no cost to the contractor, however, you would only received 42% of the claim funds while Madsky would receive the additional 58% for the materials and āmanagingā the delivery of them or some other BS. Iām assuming that enough contractors realized the preferred vendor program was BS, so they just turned it into the MSW MMP to see how much they could get on the back end. This is brilliant on LCās part because he gets all of the kickbacks from suppliers and manufacturers (which can amount to 10ās of dollars combined per square = millions per year) and heās essentially just a shingle broker. Meanwhile LB and Safeco can save $5-10/sq as well which also amounts to millions. My understanding is that, in the State of Texas, it is illegal to even IMPLY that customers have to use a certain vendor or contractor to do repairs. I am surprised the TDI has not attacked this head-on yet, but hopefully theyāll get enough complaints to do something.
I have been searching for information on MadSky and came across your post. Wondering if there has been anything that has come from this regarding MadSky and Safeco/Liberty Mutualās managed care repair program collusion with roof pricing. Are there current attorneys that would still have an interest in cases where this was done? I have a client with a current claim that has had a lot of problems that resulted from a MadSky contractor. The roof leaked 2 days after the new roof was installed and caused additional water damages. MadSky supposedly refunded the claim back to the carrier so they could choose their own contractor. The 2nd contractor they hired to mitigate damages. They noticed that a portion of the estimate was changed by the LM/Safeco estimator. The roofing supplier went from who the new contractors supplier was going to use, back to MadSkys Material Warehouse Supply. LLC. They are getting the run around from
LM/Safeco.
