INDEPENDENT ADJUSTING IS DYING..?
UPDATE:
The firms are coming around! AdjusterTV is proud to offer an Independent Property Adjuster Certification currently honored by: Sedgwick, CMMS, Pilot, Alacrity, Pacesetter, & Crawford
You have probably heard people on social media saying that the cat property IA industry is dying - pick your poison: drones, photo assist, AI, AR..
Is it though?
Is it possible to build a career as an independent adjuster in 2020 and beyond?
In this video I'm going to talk about why I believe that robots and fancy insuretech isn't going to make field adjusters obsolete.
I’ll start with a controversial statement:
The job of independent property adjuster is alive and well. Why? Because fundamentally claims is a face-to-face people person job.
At the highest levels, the carriers compete on one metric and one metric ONLY:
"How likely are you to recommend Big Insurance Company to your family and friends?"
Insurance companies will do ANYTHING to make sure that the response they get to that question - on a scale of 1 to 10 - is a TEN.
Everything else is secondary.
What's the number one thing that helps them get tens on their NPS surveys? Face to face settlements and a check in an insured's hand.
I don't like to trot out my resume unless I have to, but I've been in this business for more than 20 years now (which to some grumpy old veteran field adjusters means that I don't know what the hell I'm talking about).
And I've seen this conversation happen again and again on social media and, back in the old days, on catadjuster.org.
"This industry is dying."
"There's a surplus of IAs out there so good luck getting any work."
"Direct repair is making field adjusters obsolete."
"Such and such huge insurance company is doing another reorg and they're firing all IA firms and building their own cat teams."
I mean, I've been hearing this stuff literally since the day I started doing this.
"After Irma, carriers are going to cut fee schedules in half."
You know what? They said that after Katrina. And that was 15 years ago.
I'm not going to speculate on the motives of people who trot this stuff out every year in social media or whatever.. but the simple truth is this: only the best adjusters will consistently work and consistently earn great money every year - no matter what else is going on.
Doesn't matter what the weather is doing. Doesn't matter what new tech is out there.
Doesn't matter.
Drones, photo assist, FaceTime claims, AI, AR., etc.. those are TOOLS. Carriers still need a trained adjuster to handle claims for them if they want to remain competitive.
If an IA is GOOD, FAST, FRIENDLY, and can be counted on to step up and get it done with a smile and no complaints, they will be as busy as they want to be.
That's a fact.
How do I know?
Because I'm good, fast, & friendly.
The most money I've made yet in a year had not one landfalling hurricane, wildfire, or big Dallas hail storm. Not one storm I worked was on the news. In fact, most storms I work aren't even on the news.
It was big hail in a handful of small to medium-sized towns.. just me and maybe a half dozen other top tier IAs. And we do this year after year.
"Aw Matt! You just proved my point! You have to be in a small clique to make it in this business! There's no way I can break into that super small club!"
Listen.
The only thing that gets me gigs like that - that puts me in that small group of consistently working adjusters - is that I'm GOOD (that is, I have great damage ID, construction knowledge, and estimates), I'm FAST (which means I'm able to close more than 6 claims a day - every single day), and I'm FRIENDLY (I've got great customer service, I don't take things personally and I always set and exceed expectations).
Everybody I work with at that level does all of those things at least as well as I do - and I'm not too proud to say that in many cases - much better.
"So, Matt, what you're saying is that you've got some kind of secret knowledge and special skills that I just can't get access to that gives you a special advantage over the rest of us."
Not what I’m saying at all.
Good.
Fast.
Friendly.
That's it! That's all you need to know......
You know what - that's a lie.
That's NOT it. That's not all you need to know...
The secret that I know that you don't know is this: In order to get into the top 20% of IAs, I discovered that all I needed to do was just put in 10% more effort. To get in the top 5-10%, well that's where the real work is.
How did I figure this out?
First of all.. I'm not some random dude who went on Irma a couple years ago and decided that I could make a fortune selling an online course about how to run claims.
I've done nothing but run field claims for 20 years.
I spent 15 of that trying to figure out how to address the major problem that I feel.. no.. i KNOW is the number one threat to our industry.
As a group, we suck.
I've approached firms and even carriers about developing training that I believe will help reduce errors, speed up production, and improve customer service.. but because the insurance industry moves at the speed of a sleepy turtle, and because developing some new untried training paradigm is expensive for them and doesn't fit their corporate models, they passed.
Which is actually fine. I actually prefer it because now I can talk to you without some corporate attorney over my shoulder telling me what I can and can't say.
