Earn $100,000 in ONE MONTH as an independent Adjuster?
In this video, find out how independent insurance adjusters have made up to $100,000 - or more - in one month providing disaster relief after hurricanes..
Of all recorded weather disasters in U.S. history, tropical cyclones—known as hurricanes when occurring in the North Atlantic, central North Pacific, and Eastern North Pacific Oceans—have caused the most deaths and destruction.
Here are some stats:
The number of weather disasters in the U.S. from 2019 to 2021 with losses exceeding $1 billion dollars is 56.
The total approximate cost of damages from weather disasters in the U.S. from 1980 to 2021 is about $2.2 trillion
The average annual number of weather disasters from 2017 to 2021. 17.2
In 2021 alone, the U.S. experienced twenty billion-dollar disasters.
That's expensive and as more and more people are building homes and businesses in coastal and flood-prone areas, these costs can only go up. The population isn't shrinking and the storms aren't going away so that's why we have insurance, right?
"if adjusters get paid more for writing bigger estimates, why not just write everybody a huge estimate?"
And that's where the independent insurance adjuster - or IA - comes in. IAs are sort of the quick-reaction force of estimators who are called on short notice to help - on a temporary basis - with getting recovery checks in the hands of home and business owners.
And we usually get paid on a sliding scale which means that we typically get paid more the bigger the claim is. So we have a lot of incentive to write as complete an estimate as possible so that there is less work and headache for the homeowner as they start their rebuilding process. “Dragging out the process” helps no one.
That's pretty much it in a nutshell.
I know what you're thinking, "if adjusters get paid more for writing bigger estimates, why not just write everybody a huge estimate?" It doesn't work that way. Unlike other parts of the total insurance restoration industry - which includes contractors and roofers - we as IAs have pretty strict rules and oversight over what we can and cannot pay for.
Also, we are held accountable through a pretty robust quality assurance department at the insurance company. They follow around behind us to make sure that we're giving the homeowner as much as we can using customary and reasonable construction methods and that we're following the rules and guidelines in the policy.
They only care that if I say the repair is $10,000 that $10,000 is what it a regular contractor will charge to get the work done. If I say MORE than that - in other words, giving the insured extra money that they won't need to do the repairs - then I'll lose points on my technical accuracy performance review. If I say LESS than that, I'll lose more points and also get in a little bit of trouble.
It's a common misconception that insurance companies are just out to cheat everybody. Think about it this way - what's more expensive for an insurance company: just paying the customary and reasonable price of $15,000? Or being taken to court and having to pay probably at least double that for the claim along with all the legal fees?
The bottom line is that adjusters can and do make mistakes. But for us, we can get in more trouble for not paying enough than for paying too much.
We have to pay the right amount for the claim - and that takes training and experience.
