What are your business and social challenges when you take on insurance related work?
In other words - What do you like, or not like, about it?
I love it because you can make money hand over fist compared to retail, but I hate it at the same time for the “Wild Wild West” it has become. It seems like even though there is a set of written rules, those rules are not enforced on carriers, adjusters, contractors, engineers, or anybody for that matter. It has devolved into the “Law of the Jungle” and whoever blinks first wins.
Here are some specific market challenges that construction business owners/contractors (and consumers) across the U.S. commonly deal with -
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Indemnity insurance adjusters, by the misuse of a construction estimation cost software program titled “Xactimate”, leave out critical replacement cost components, and then when proven that they should not do so…do so anyway. This improperly and commonly puts the cost of repair onto the shoulder of the construction business owner, or their insured client.
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Insurance adjusters and their managers try to falsely accuse construction business owners of “acting like a public insurance adjuster” when the contractor necessarily stands up for complete business protocols the insurer is illicitly denying. By illicit denials, and bogus accusations, the insurers/adjuster attempt to deflect attention from their market conduct
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Insurance adjusters going behind construction business owners backs, and falsely pretend to construction business owners clients that “Your contractors’ price is tooo high…You need more estimates”. This illegal act is a favorite of many adjusters, and their managers.
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Adjusters falsely pretending to clients that a reconstruction project needs a certain “damage repair complexity” before general overhead costs of [10%+] is a reasonable and necessary replacement cost factor.
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Adjusters falsely pretending to clients, or even to construction business owners, that a reconstruction project needs a certain “damage repair complexity” before a gross [10%] profit factor is a reasonable and necessary replacement cost factor.
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Adjusters falsely pretending that they have a right to determine what construction business owners are entitled to pursue as fair market share, by claiming that using a general contractor is not “necessary” or “appropriate” for an insured client’s reconstruction work.
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Adjusters illicitly dismissing final invoices that are market fair and reasonable, which then shifts their financial responsibility back to contractors or their clients. This is a another popular market practice by insurers and their “adjusters”.
I am a public adjuster boca raton by profession and from my personal experience I can say it’s not easy to handle legal works. Our job is to battle with insurance companies to claim insurance money and for this we need to study detailed intricacies of all policies, paperworks and legal details. Like an investigator we have to collect proofs to present before insurance companies. But now after working continuously from 10 years in this field it has become a part of my life and I like all those social and business challenges that again improve me and force me to work more.
Profile - henrypoirier - TalkRoofing.com. You mention that we need to study detailed intricacies of all policies, paperworks and legal details to beat insurance adjusters. Point me in the direction where I can learn more and study these facts of yours. Thank you.
Adjusters who know nothing about roofing can make life difficult. After digging in to a tearoff and finding that the adjuster did not do his/her due diligence - then having to explain that to the customer, call the insurance company, take pictures, wait for the adjustment… if you can. Many problems in this regard. Also, customers who don’t bother to tell you until the job is finished that they spent their insurance check and “need a few days” to come up with the money.
As understood - Insured clients should NOT grab/steal insurance proceeds that a contractor has established with an insurer, for the contractor’s needs. Insured clients have a fiduciary responsibility to their contractor to hold and release the contractor’s funds due the contractor, in a timely and good faith manner.
Now more than ever there is a need for a true BPO (Business process outsourcer) in this space to help general contractors with all the back office support of dealing with the insurance companies to write their Xactimate estimates and process supplements and reconcile claims. Writing Xact estimates and processing supplements, negotiating settlements and reconciling claims IS NOT or should not be a core competency of a general contractor. A GC should be focused on their core competencies only, selling jobs, producing builds and getting referrals. GC’s should not be spending time writing Xact estimates an reconciling claims as this is not a core competency of being a general contractor serving the storm damage restoration industry. Supplements are hugely important to a GC servicing this space because almost half of the profit margin comes from supplements. GC’s that are very successful understand that they need to focus on their core competencies and outsource estimates and supplements to a BPO like SIC, LLC (Solutions for Insurance Consulting). You want your salesmen selling, your sales manager managing your sales department and your general manager managing the business, not writing estimates in Xact and haggling with the carriers to reconcile out claims. Outsourcing to a BPO is the best way for a GC to have the most success in the storm damage restoration industry. Many companies have a inside adjuster and that’s wonderful and especially helpful when outsourcing estimates and supplements because those companies are able to take the inside adjuster off of the front line from writing ever single estimate and being punched in the face everyday processing every supplement. Outsourcing supplements/ estimates allows that inside adjuster to become the companies claims manager. Your BPO supplement estimate company needs to understand the time value of money and also know the expected value of a project or supplement so that they do not tie up the GC’s money or deprecation release to keep the cash cycle short and maximize the profit and return of the general contractors money. When a general contractor goes into a new market to execute against a storm it extremely important for them to know what expected value is of their estimated sales, selling X# of jobs, cycle time, cash cycle time so they know exactly how much outside financing is needed to float their cash cycle and what their margins and ROI will be. This is the true value that can be delivered by patterning with a BPO like SIC, LLC. To learn how to increase your Profits, Productivity and Professionalism call SIC, LLC today 888-798-1214
www.sicclaims.com
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Oh, how nice. Spam written by a chat bot.