The Art of Adjusting® Podcast

Episode #67 - Claims That Haunt Us: What Keeps Adjusters Up at Night?

• William Auten & Chantal Roberts • Season 3 • Episode 67

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What keeps insurance adjusters up at night? From catastrophic losses that inspire genuine nightmares to the frustration of policy limitations that leave families vulnerable, our latest episode delves into the claims that haunt adjusters long after they're closed.

Bill and Chantel share their most memorable cases, including the heart-wrenching story of a truck driver whose family went without heat or electricity during winter holidays because of payment delays, and homes insured for a fraction of their replacement cost. These situations highlight the emotional reality of claims work - when adjusters recognize injustice but face constraints beyond their control.

The conversation takes a lighter turn with Chantel's account of perhaps the strangest claim ever filed: a truck driver who insisted aliens abducted him, took his 18-wheeler for a joyride, and abandoned it in the Nevada desert. Despite the obvious Ambien-induced explanation, the claim was actually covered - creating the surreal situation of documenting extraterrestrial vehicle theft.

We also address serious safety concerns adjusters face in the field - from confrontational policyholders to having ladders removed while on roofs. Our hosts offer valuable advice for new adjusters on de-escalation techniques and maintaining professionalism when being recorded by hostile parties.

Beyond the technical aspects of policies, adjusting is fundamentally about people navigating difficult situations. Whether you're an experienced adjuster or considering entering the field, this candid conversation reveals the human stories behind the paperwork and the emotional intelligence required to handle them effectively.

For more insights, you might consider a career in liability adjusting or if you're searching for reliable adjusting services, visit Auten Claims Management.

To explore more about Chantal Roberts and her contributions to the industry, visit CMR Consulting.

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Speaker 1:

Hello, I'm Bill Auten of Auten Claims Management.

Speaker 2:

I'm Chantel Roberts of CMR Consulting and welcome to the Art of Adjusting podcast.

Speaker 1:

Today we're going to talk about life as an insurance adjuster from the perspective of property, auto liability or workers' compensation adjusters. Our goal is to bring interesting topics in the world of claims adjusting to people who are working as an adjuster now and to people who are considering a career as a claims adjuster. Hey Chantel, how are you?

Speaker 2:

I'm doing well. How are you? Welcome back.

Speaker 1:

Thanks. It's been a wild couple of months here. So, yeah, we had a family member get injured. My beautiful wife and I've been taking care of her. So she's on the mend and, uh, things are getting slowly back to normal and the weather's tuning up here today. I think we're going to hit 70 degrees this weekend, for the first time in a while.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, that's great. We've been hitting 80 every once in a while, but then we'll immediately go back down to like 32.

Speaker 1:

And then we'll go back up.

Speaker 2:

It's like that in the spring? Yeah, yeah, it is Absolutely yeah. So, but you know, since we're talking about spring, let's start thinking about fall, because we are six months, basically give or take a few days from Halloween, which is the best holiday ever.

Speaker 1:

Top of mind is Halloween right now.

Speaker 2:

Sure Right.

Speaker 1:

We got the daffodils pop popping up and you know we want the candy corn pumpkins aren't even planted yet but we can do.

Speaker 2:

Uh, I was thinking, you know, maybe, uh, cause I think I think I'm going to try a surprise on Halloween. Uh well, we'll see if I can see, if I can pull it off. So I was thinking, maybe, talking about the claims that kind of haunt us, and haunt us not in a bad way, so no one's going to be scared, it's not going to be so, it'll be maybe something fun.

Speaker 1:

All right.

Speaker 2:

Yeah.

Speaker 1:

Cool yeah. So when we talk about claims that haunt us, they could be scary, right.

Speaker 2:

They could be Absolutely.

Speaker 1:

Absolutely. They could be things that just keep you up at night.

Speaker 2:

I have a few of those, but those are like more current ones, not ones that I feel that I could like. I don't think I can talk about the current ones. I don't know.

Speaker 1:

I can talk about the current ones, I don't know. When it comes to scary claims, we've all seen claims where bad things have happened to people. Either they get injured or they lose property in some catastrophic way and those can strike fear in the hearts of mere mortals just to see what happens. If you look at the videos of just some of the tornadoes that hit in the Midwest and some recently, and that destruction is just bizarre and that could definitely inspire some nightmares.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I mean, if you recall, what was it about two years ago, Maybe a year and a half ago, something like that, where that tornado hit Arkansas, the Little Rock in fact, and it went right by my very first house. I was very shook. I was very shook, and so that is something that sticks with me, even though I didn't handle those claims. I remember going up to Little Rock and driving through my old neighborhood and it was absolutely horrible just to see how it had been destroyed.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, the circumstances of a claim can certainly be traumatic. To to observe and to talk to the people and hear their stories about how it happened, to get the police reports and the fire reports and and read what the first responders encountered. You know that that that can all weigh heavily on you and probably give you some nightmares. But there's another aspect that gives you the chills and that's when you are dealing with challenging people, challenging maybe even supervisors within your own company, challenging deadlines, a mountain of work. All those things can be a little scary too.

Speaker 2:

They can be they can be. I can think of one that Was a little weird. You know, it's more like Twilight Zone, weird kind of deal. I was taking a recorded statement of a woman and we're going through all of the brouhaha. She was a German citizen or German national and immigrated over, so she had a thick German accent. And we're just talking, I'm letting her talk, and then she starts talking about this totally separate claim and I'm like where did this claim come from? And the fact pattern of the claim that she the second claim that she started talking about matched perfectly to this fatality that I was also working.

Speaker 2:

That had a little suspicious thing in there. It was like a kind of deal where maybe the police did something to protect a senator's kid or whatever. I can't say, I don't know, it was never proven, but I just think that that was a little like creepy kind of haunting thing, cause I think about that every once in a while. Do, do, do, do. Creepy kind of haunting thing, because I think about that every once in a while like what are the chances that I am talking to one witness that has seen two separate claims?

Speaker 1:

I think that's weird it is weird and uh it. It speaks to the effort that we should be making to try and find witnesses Early on. Actually, this happened at Vail training back mid-90s when I was there and the instructor was Ron Smith was his name, and he told a story about a claim that he had handled where it was a fatality. No, it wasn't a fatality, it was a quadriplegic. The person in the car was T-boned by another car. They pulled out in front of it and the car hit them and very catastrophic injury and there was a lawsuit made against the driver of the um the car that hit the other car, and tough case because it looked like they pulled out in front of him and there was an argument that this car was going too fast and that's why it happened.

Speaker 1:

And there was a crest of a hill and they came over that hill and there was just not enough time for them to react or for this other car to even see them before they hit the hill. But there was no evidence at the scene that could conclusively say the speed of this car. And the instructor said that he had gone to a diner nearby. He just happened to be there meeting somebody and he was talking, telling them about this accident that happened just outside over the hill, and somebody at the table next to him said oh, I remember that. I remember that day because I saw that guy flying past the diner. He had to be doing 90 or 100 miles an hour.

Speaker 1:

Wow, nobody knew this guy, nobody this guy had, and this had been after many years of investigation and litigation and all this so um. He got on the horn to the the attorneys. They brought the guy in, he testified as a witness and they wound up getting some huge, multimillion dollar verdict for this person who was injured so badly.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I mean this is the kind of attention to detail I think that adjusters need to do. I mean, we're kind of putting a soft spin on this by saying you know, this is claims that have haunted us. But one of the things that this witness did not like that I did was I made her do two recorded statements, like I wouldn't let her talk about both claims in one statement, because of course we know that we have to keep these claims completely separate, and if we intertwine our claim files then we could allow plaintiffs to get into more than one claim file, right, and that's kind of like the same thing. So often we don't have witnesses and because they don't stick around for the police or whatever, and so as field adjusters we kind of have to keep our ear to the ground or canvas the neighborhood to see if anybody has seen it. And it might have been just the luck of the draw, because that guy was a patron and not a patron at two separate times.

Speaker 2:

You know like not a patron a patron at two separate times, you know, like not a patron. Not a patron because I'm sure the insurance company would have sent someone to canvas the neighborhood, but that guy may not have been at the diner at that particular time when the diner was being canvassed. And it just occurs to me that someone may not know what canvas means. Like a neighborhood canvas.

Speaker 1:

Right, it's kind of going door to door, knock on doors to see, just introduce yourself and tell them what you're doing and see if they know anything about the incident that may have happened Car accident, trip and fall, whatever it was.

Speaker 2:

Yeah.

Speaker 1:

House explosion. I've had those.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I have had those too. Ironically, it was a, it was a meth lab, so go figure it was a meth lab, um, so, go figure, no big loss.

Speaker 1:

Then, huh I, the last one I had, um, sadly, was a suicide, um, but uh, yeah, that was. That was a a tough one, but yeah, you know the the haunting claims yeah nine times out of ten are going to involve some sort of uh, horrible injury or death yeah, yeah, something catastrophic, unfortunately, and it is unfortunate that that that's kind of that way.

Speaker 2:

I mean, there are the unfair ones, like you said, with the, the high caseloads and and, uh, I, I, because cause, I, I happen to think about cause you were mentioning catastrophes or whatever and I'm thinking about hurricanes or unreasonable expectations and I think about, you know, we adjusters happen to have, because we're human, we, we have a lot of emotions that deal with these claims as well.

Speaker 2:

And I've mentioned this before that when Hurricane Katrina came and hit, I had nightmares for a week about drowning, you know, the levees breaking and about drowning, but and I never really I mean I talk about it here and and these sorts of things to to illustrate that it is okay for an adjuster to feel the emotions that they feel and they need to get some help with this. Mental health is very important, but it's nothing compared to what those people went through. Yeah, uh, you know, just because I'm having nightmares, I mean I'm all the way up in Arkansas. You know, it's not my house that got destroyed, but there there are some times, like you said, that these kind of things kind of haunt us as well.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, yeah. And the claims business. The claims business can be chaotic for sure. And I mean, if you take a look at a chaotic claim like damage from a tornado that goes through and destroys a town, so pick one house out of that that has been flattened and all the things that you have to address in your claim with them, the scope of your work on a job. A claim like that is huge.

Speaker 2:

Oh yeah.

Speaker 1:

You have to evaluate the damage to the building, and that's actually the easy part, yes. Then you've got to evaluate the damage to the personal property Not so easy, okay. Then you got to address additional living expenses and then, oh, what else is there? There's the additional coverages.

Speaker 2:

There's additional coverages and I admit that and these I guess maybe we debris removal or the additional increase for construction or something to that effect law and ordinance through and I would see it on the estimate or something to that effect.

Speaker 2:

But it's not anything that I explained to the insured and I think oftentimes about that and I've started counseling adjusters and articles and things like when we're explaining coverage, which we have to do according to the good faith claims handling practice act, we should also be explaining these additional coverages that the insured has. And I would forget, guys, because I would just read down the deck sheet. I admit it, I would forget this kind of stuff and I think that's one of the reasons why the insureds don't trust us, but they trust maybe public adjusters or the contractors, because those contractors are putting that on there and then they, you know, you look at our estimate and you look at the contractors or the public adjusters estimate and it looks completely different, and so it looks like we're low balling, but we're really not. It could seem that it's unfair we're not trying to be unfair in that particular instance, but uh, but that's a way to help people again yeah, I.

Speaker 1:

so I review a lot of um lately, a lot of first party stuff as well, and what I see is, um, not any intentional effort to reduce the value of a claim. It's more about stress levels. It's more about rushing to get things done within certain timeframes. Mm-hmm, because on one hand, you're trying to turn things over quickly to make that customer, that insurance customer, happy that their claim was settled quickly. On the flip side, if you miss things, that doesn't help, right? So there's a fine line between being thorough and being quick. Quick, yeah, it's um.

Speaker 1:

So adjusters should be um, I should say they should be more thorough, but it really comes with experience for folks that are just a few years into it or five or less years into it. Um, these are probably things that you're you're not seeing. You should be studying those contractors estimates and the public adjusters estimates to to catch things that you may miss on future estimates or that you missed on this one. That and it's okay. You know, if you missed it, it's okay. It doesn't mean that you're, we can always do a supplement, right?

Speaker 2:

Yes, yes, and so many people don't know that. But I've just had a thought. So you keep talking for just a second, because I just had a thought.

Speaker 1:

All right, so she's going to go retrieve her thought. But it's a stressful job and when you miss things that are pointed out by a contractor or a public adjuster, it just adds to the stress, because now you're like, oh my gosh, I didn't do a good job. They're accusing me of lowballing where I didn't really mean to lowball anybody. All I did was I missed. You know something of you know minimal consequence that should have been in there.

Speaker 1:

You know, I missed a door in a room, or I missed this or that, or you know I forgot to add overhead and profit. You know those simple little things. And good public adjusters, good contractors, can roll with the punches and say, oh look, you missed overhead and profit. Can you put that in and call it a day Right? Other times you'll see you're trying to screw my customer because you didn't put overhead and profit in there Right, right right.

Speaker 2:

Right, right, right so it happens and you were mentioning, you know, the, the younger adjusters making these kinds of mistakes and everything, and it does take some time and that's why I've written the art of adjusting.

Speaker 1:

Yes, was that your idea? Yeah, that was my idea.

Speaker 2:

It was like oh crap, it's all the way on the other side of the room. Um, I gotta go get it so I can be funny.

Speaker 1:

Ah, it doesn't work well in radio, as I have to get new copies of all your both your books, because I keep giving them away. Oh, people love them.

Speaker 2:

Thank you. Yeah, I will give you the discount, the best friend discount, friends and family discount, yeah. But you know, these are the things I guess kind of haunt me and I regret there was one and I've talked about it. Actually, I don't know if I told you, but I have been hired by Bankrate, which is a website to write articles for consumers.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, congratulations, by the way, thank you. Thank you. None of the articles have been published.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, thank you. None of the articles have been published yet talking about how claims adjusters are human and how we can feel things. But you as the consumer may never know, and it's, and we can't tell you that either, because you know we kind of have to sing the corporate song, so to speak, and we can't sit there and go. Yeah, you're absolutely right, this is really unfair. Or? Yeah, you're absolutely right, I totally disagree. I should be able to give you like $5,000 more, but I can't. We can't say that. And I was talking about in this article about one of the claims that I felt was not necessarily unfair in the aspect of we were giving the insured exactly the amount I mean, we were in policy limits exactly the amount that we needed. The unfair aspect was that this happened to be a Lloyd's of London claim and it happened right before Thanksgiving, and so you know, I did my report, I did my cash call on that and it just got stuck in a quagmire over in london and then in london because it's a whole different culture over there I mean they took two weeks off from like christmas to new year's and I ended up not being able to pay this trucker for her truck, total truck, and it was only like sixty thousand dollars or something like that. I wasn't able to pay her until February and in the meantime her kids didn't have Thanksgiving, didn't have Christmas.

Speaker 2:

She started, she lived in Philadelphia, you know. She started getting kicked out of her house. The electricity had been cut off. It's cold and it's unfair and it does haunt me and my my hands were tied. If I could have written her a check, I would have, but I, I, you know like I would have written her a personal check, but I couldn't do that either. You know, and it's like it, it totally tugs at your heartstrings. It's not like just because we're human and I know I'm preaching to the choir because mostly adjusters are listening to this podcast, but yeah.

Speaker 1:

Another type of claim that haunts I would say haunts me, but bugs me just because I feel like it could have gone better is our cases where the limits are low.

Speaker 1:

And you don't see it a lot with larger carriers. They're usually writing the limits you know on homeowners. You know you're going to see the replacement costs You're going to see. You know adequate insurance on the home. You may or may not on the liability side of it, but but when it comes to auto liability or first party property claims I see over my career I've seen a lot of claims that were made on policies with inadequate limits. A house burns down. That's 2,500 square feet and they had $75,000 on it.

Speaker 1:

Old farmhouse. The farmer didn't want to pay more than he needed to for insurance, so he paid the minimum. And here they have, you know, a $300,000 or $400,000 loss, and they've got $75,000 to pay it.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, no, I, I, I completely agree, because my husband works for some admitted carriers that that deal with pretty low limits and I just jump up and yell and scream like um additional living expense $5,000,.

Speaker 1:

You know and it's a total loss, it's a total loss.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, and, and it's like that's that is crazy. Or the, the um ALE will be cut off within seven days of of them cutting a check. I'm like that's ridiculous. How are we gonna? I just you know and and you sit there and you go. Well, that's an agent problem. Well, maybe it's an education issue?

Speaker 2:

for one it isn't it's not the agent's problem, it is an education problem and it is like you said, these farmers wanting to to, and not necessarily farmers I'm not saying farmers, but there are people who just go by price and it has never been explained. Okay, you are going to pay, uh, you know, a thousand dollars a year for higher premiums, or you're going to pay $300,000, because the most I can give you is 75,000, you know, and you've got a three hundred and seventy five thousand dollar house.

Speaker 1:

Right.

Speaker 2:

You know which one do you want.

Speaker 1:

Limits. Issues often arise on auto claims on the liability side because a lot of carriers will sell you a policy with minimum statutory limits and those limits. In New York, twenty five,000 for a bodily injury claim so low yeah.

Speaker 2:

You know, and I tell, I tell my students I'm like all of y'all who have $1,000 in med, pay up it, because $1,000 is like an ambulance ride.

Speaker 1:

You know, not even the last bill I saw for an ambulance was $1,900.

Speaker 2:

Well, there you go. I mean seriously it's, it's, it's crazy, you know. So at least get five thousand.

Speaker 1:

Right.

Speaker 2:

At least, and this is the whole reason why Mr Roberts gets mad at me but I cannot get rid of my liability or my umbrella, I'm like, but I can't, and I would raise my limits on umbrella if I could. But the the carrier says oh, that's the biggest that we go, and I'm like seriously, it's OK, fine.

Speaker 1:

Well on on homeowners. We see low liability limits Also. I've seen as low as one hundred thousand liability, three hundred thousand liability, 300,000 liability. I mean we've seen claims. We've seen catastrophic injuries and deaths, horrible claims with limits like that.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Exactly what are you going to do? Um, so you know what this is? Kind of depressing.

Speaker 2:

Let's go to a funny one, maybe okay I just feel like, um, okay, so let's go to a funny one. So I'm never going to tell it, right, I'm gonna, because mr roberts says it funnier. But he talks about this claim that he had where there was a church it was like a spiritualist kind of church and it burned to the ground, the. The preacher claimed that he had, um, uh, precognizant, you know, like he could see into the future, uh, powers. And so Aaron, while doing the recorded statement, asked the preacher if he saw the fire coming. And the preacher did not think that was very funny. I did. I think that's funny, but I mean, you know, you know, I'm just saying why didn't you do something about it if you saw it coming? Um, apparently the preacher thought mr roberts was making fun of him, which, knowing mr roberts, he probably was.

Speaker 1:

But there you go, um, so um, funny claim claims are not that funny. It's hard to conjure up in my memory anything terribly hilarious about claims.

Speaker 2:

I've got another one.

Speaker 1:

All right.

Speaker 2:

I mean, I have some cray, cray people now. Okay, so this is another truck driver, not the same truck driver, but this truck driver woke up in the middle of the Nevada desert and he woke up, like what did he stop and sleep in his cab.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, it was a sleeper cab and woke up in the middle of the desert and, of course, you know, the engine all had sand in it, all the gas tank had sand in it and all this kind of stuff and he had to get it towed back. And we're taking a record on taking the recorded statement. And I say, okay, so like tell me what happened. And he said, okay, look, I went to sleep in the cab and all of a sudden I get paralyzed. I'm asleep, you know, and then I get paralyzed and these aliens, they break into my truck and they take it for a joyride but they can't, of course, drive an 18-wheeler and they end up, basically they didn't crash, but they ended up like getting stuck in the sand and everything out in the middle of the Nevada desert. And this is what happened. And I'm like dude.

Speaker 1:

I hate when that happens. I do too.

Speaker 2:

OK, I hate it when that happens, but I'm like you're not talking about like the illegal aliens, you're talking about extraterrestrial. He goes, yeah, yeah, yeah. And I'm like, can you describe them? Because now I'm fascinated and I've got the recorder going. So they were green men, big eyes, you know, long limbs, bald, no clothing, which is weird. I mean you would think that they be an advanced civilization, having flown here, would have clothing, but maybe they don't care. I mean, maybe that's not part of their culture or whatever. Anyway, beside the point, uh, I'm like, okay, they feel good in their own skin yeah, you know, maybe they do, maybe they're nudist aliens.

Speaker 2:

I have no idea. I you know, who knows. Maybe they're like from the military and they don't want to be like hiding guns or anything and that's why you got to go naked. I have no idea. Anyway, it's not for me to say I've never met them. Anyway, so I go. Oh okay, I mean, you know it's covered. There's like literally, no, it's covered.

Speaker 1:

Oh whoa, what's covered.

Speaker 2:

Getting sand all up in your engine and stuff.

Speaker 1:

Oh, is that covered.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, think about it Even from an auto point of view. That's not excluded, that is not It'd be under comprehensive. Yeah, there's really no exclusions.

Speaker 1:

But comprehensive. Has a list of perils, doesn't it?

Speaker 2:

I mean no Fire theft blood.

Speaker 1:

I thought it had a list of names.

Speaker 2:

Isn't that collision?

Speaker 1:

No, collision is your impact with an object or another vehicle, it doesn't matter.

Speaker 2:

I mean, this is a different problem. We're talking about making aliens now.

Speaker 1:

so the wheels are off the truck right now, Regardless regardless, there was coverage.

Speaker 2:

I mean there basically was no exclusions on this policy, right? And so I just keep coming back to I mean you know the guy's coming and every time he calls can you tell me just again what happened? And every time he'd be like and come to find out that he had taken Ambien because he couldn't sleep, because he has a hard time sleeping, and I'm like, ah, he probably slept, drove, is that? I don't know if that's a thing slept, he probably slept, drove.

Speaker 1:

Is that? I don't know if that's a thing slept drive.

Speaker 2:

Anyway, I'm sure that's what happened. And he, he got real upset. I mean like real upset that this is what I'm saying, and I'm like, dude, it doesn't matter, it's still covered. Like, tell me what happened, it's still covered. I don't care If you slept, drove your car out into the Nevada or your truck, your 18 wheeler, out into the Nevada desert. There's no exclusion for that. Everything is covered except what's excluded. And there's no exclusion in this particular policy Lloyd's policy, of course. And and I got real, real upset, and so upset, so upset that Mrs and she says, if my husband says that he got abducted by aliens and they're starting to drive his semi-truck trailer truck, then that is what happened, okay, and I'm like, oh, that persona comes way too naturally for you.

Speaker 2:

Well, it's because I'm from Arkansas and I'm just getting my Arkansas in. Okay, I'm just like like channeling my cousins and everything you get me anyway, I do.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, well, you know, this is a.

Speaker 2:

There's a lesson learned here, that don't, don't, don't sleep, drive in nevada it's.

Speaker 1:

It's better that you probed and found the the the truth of the matter than having the aliens probe this guy like we need to have nick.

Speaker 2:

Put the like the drum roll in right there I know, yeah, he's good, yeah, he is, yeah, he is. So, yeah, that's. That is like my, my one funny claim uh, the the, the alien one yeah, the the funny that that's pretty funny.

Speaker 1:

I'll give you that I've not had any well, I did have a woman who claimed that aliens were living in her attic for a period of time lizardman theory in, like our government and everything so maybe aliens were living in her attic? I could be. I mean, I'm just I'm just saying it had nothing to do with the cause of loss, it was just in um different conversations oh, so it wasn't like.

Speaker 2:

The aliens are taking the form of raccoons that are damaging her.

Speaker 1:

No, no, no, it was. She had a roof leak and the aliens did it. We? No, this was just in part of the. This is a woman. That was, would argue, everything to and, but we would spend hours with her because she just would ramble on. And I say we because she had a public adjuster. Oh, bless them, okay. And this public adjuster we met at the loss several times, but the one time we went outside and he just shook his head and he goes, he goes. This is not a customer that I want.

Speaker 1:

Oh, it's horrible he goes this is not a customer that I want. Oh oh, you got him. Now you got him, let's wrap it up yeah, oh, that's terrible yeah yeah, I still.

Speaker 2:

I think it would be funnier if the aliens would have done it done would have been, I didn't, you know.

Speaker 1:

I, I guess I could have changed the story for the, for the humor, yeah, like I mean, how, how, are we gonna know?

Speaker 2:

no, but this is the. The have changed the story for the humor. Yeah, like I mean, how are we going to know? No, but this is the aliens driving the story. He stuck to this to the very end. In fact. His wife was saying that how dare we make fun of him? You know, the cops didn't want to take the police report. You know, because he was saying aliens drove the truck off.

Speaker 1:

We're like damn cops, what do?

Speaker 2:

you do about that? I don't know.

Speaker 1:

There have been times where I've encountered people that you know were definitely not maybe fully mentally there, maybe they had mental issues, maybe they had substance abuse, and they were on display, but I've never seen a naked alien. I've never seen a naked policy holder. That's good, so things are going good. It's only been 30 years though. So who knows?

Speaker 2:

you know well you know, one of the other things that I had talked about in my article was the things that happen to adjusters too, and and this is not really anything that haunts me uh, I very rarely think about it, but I I think at least one of every one of us has received a death threat at any given point in time. Yeah, for for something, because the, the, the emotions huh not me oh well, just you wait, I know how to handle my claim?

Speaker 2:

no, that's just you wait just wait, maybe I'll get one on this podcast um but yeah so you get that's.

Speaker 1:

That's actually a really important point is, uh, safety for adjusters. And, um, when I talk to younger, newer adjusters, I always kind of warn them. They, they gotta have their head on a swivel when they're out and about, when they're in a house or a building with somebody, um, if it's just you two, you know, if you feel iffy about something, just get out. You know, and, um, you know, the best, uh, the best self-defense weapon that you have are probably your feet. Just run in the other direction. And, yeah, I, I know some when it comes to self-defense and you know, I know some adjusters are proponents of carrying weapons with them. I, I, that's. Whatever the laws are where you live, if that's allowed, use your judgment. You may be in violation of company guidelines if you do something like that, but it can be a dangerous job if you're going into the wrong places, and we all have heard stories about adjusters getting hurt on the job or killed on the job or you know killed.

Speaker 2:

Just about a year and a half ago, there was an agent who was killed by a policyholder, and it was because the policyholder wasn't able to get into the claims office. The claims office was locked and so the policyholder went over to the agent and shot the agent because they were upset that their claim had been denied. Nancy German, who is one of our six listeners. She tells a story about how her adjusters started taking their ladders up on the roof with them. Double pull, taking their ladders up on the roof with them because unhappy policyholders would knock them down.

Speaker 1:

Oh, oh, oh here. I thought you were talking about what's called a double pull, where you pull a ladder up and then you put that ladder on a lower roof to get to a higher roof.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, but what?

Speaker 1:

you're talking about is pulling the ladder up so nobody steals it. Yeah, what?

Speaker 2:

you're talking about is pulling the ladder up so nobody steals it. Well, not steal it. The policyholder would knock it down so that the adjuster, the field adjuster, the estimator, would be trapped up on the roof until they called someone to come and put the ladder back up. So because, because the policyholders is is is mad about something.

Speaker 1:

Right.

Speaker 2:

And uh, yeah, you know and that's and that has had to happen before. So there you go.

Speaker 1:

Confrontations on on roof claims seem to be more common than any other claim. Um, and you've, you've got roofers up there with you. Um, I did a podcast. One of the first ones was about videotaping adjusters and how you know they, these roofers and or public adjusters, or even policyholders you know they get in your face with a camera and they they egg you on to try and start a fight with you and that's a little bit underhanded, and it's um, so you got to watch out for that, uh, because that can give you nightmares, right?

Speaker 2:

They could you know what?

Speaker 1:

And they're going to go put it on YouTube.

Speaker 2:

Right and and you know what? That is an excellent uh thing to to an excellent topic for us to talk about sometime, because we can give people terms or phrases to use to deescalate the situation. And courts have now come down and said it's perfectly legal for someone to film on their property.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, oh, absolutely, you know you may not like it, but I have a. I have an opinion about it, and my opinion is that if you're an adjuster, you should learn to like that.

Speaker 2:

Yes, absolutely.

Speaker 1:

You should use it to your advantage rather than um, then use it or view it as confrontational, absolutely Um.

Speaker 2:

I totally agree.

Speaker 1:

If somebody gets in your face with a camera and it is upset, take the high road you know, be the nicest guy in that video, because that other person is going to backfire on them. If they're trying to egg you on, they're going to wind up looking like the idiot, not you, so don't be the idiot Be nice.

Speaker 1:

Educate them. Ask them questions so that they can you know. Show that you are doing your job to the best of your ability. Show that you are inquisitive and that that you're being thorough. Show them what you can do. Show be a professional and and put the you know. Put the professional's hat on and, yes, do your job as best you can. That's my theory. Theory about the the camera in your face.

Speaker 2:

I totally, I totally, 100% agree with you, 100%, and and, and I think, looking over, like all of these claims or even the ones that we were making fun of, it's it's really all about the people and about how adjusters, even though we're stressed, and we are human too, and we feel this stress and we feel for people, or we have nightmares for these people, or maybe because of these people, I don't know, but it's really all about people. It's not necessarily about the words that are on these four corners of the page, the, you know, the policy, so to speak, that contract.

Speaker 1:

Right, and you know a seasoned adjuster is less likely to get bugged about that kind of thing than a newer adjuster.

Speaker 2:

Yeah.

Speaker 1:

The newer adjuster, who maybe doesn't have the whole confidence, like oh my God, I've seen a homeowner's policy, I've read it, but I don't remember everything, and you know the art of adjusting.

Speaker 2:

There you go, amp up your experience level just by reading those pages. Yes, it doesn't work well on on spotify though.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, well, um, yeah, for the spotify listeners, she was just holding up her book, the art of adjusting, by chandelle roberts, available on amazon. Um, so, uh, the a younger adjuster, if you're listening and you're worried about that, or you come across a situation where somebody's got a camera in your face, you know, don't lose your cool, just treat it as another adjustment. Do your job, ask them more questions than they're asking you and you'll come out on top there. So yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2:

So I think in two weeks our next one. I'm kind of super excited about this. We're going to have a, a guest. His name is Chris Bran, and he and Fred Fisher, who we've had on podcast, did a webinar with the Academy of Insurance and they talked about the hard and soft market. Now, that doesn't necessarily impact our adjusters or adjusters themselves, but what is like the one question after what does my policy pay for that adjusters get? Why are my premiums so high? And we're always like, ah, you need to go talk to your agent. I don't know, but it's about this cyclical hard and soft market aspect of it and that's how prices are set and blah, blah, blah. And so we're going to have Chris come on and kind of explain that to us. I'm super excited about it.

Speaker 1:

Cool, yeah, That'll be a. It'll be a little less claims related and a little a little more insurance business overall related.

Speaker 2:

But it is tangential though, isn't it? I mean, I think that it is important for for adjusters to know and understand, because it's kind of like this thought that when we're in our heyday being the soft market, everybody's selling insurance policies and then the insurance companies are hiring right, because they've got flush with money, but then when we're in the hard market and prices go up, it's like, oh no, I'm not going to hire, I'm going to do this hiring freeze. And that's when everything gets kind of hard for the adjusters too, because people are dropping their price, you know, dropping their limits, like we were just talking about, and there's all these coinsurance issues, or people are underinsured and you have to tell someone who has had a catastrophic injury yes, they only have $25,000 limits, that's it, and it's hard on us. So it is kind of a tangential to what we have to do, and understanding that, I think, just makes us better at our jobs.

Speaker 1:

Yes, yes, and if you're getting into the claims business people will probably point you to some of the designations you can get, like the AIC and the CPCU. But the AINS is one that kind of wraps that whole industry up with a bow to teach you the how all of the parts work together in the business, and I would recommend that you start there.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, yeah, absolutely so. I guess that's it. So we'll see you in two weeks. Yes, take care, yes.

Speaker 1:

Thank you, take care, and this was a fun one.

Speaker 2:

This was a fun one, even though it was haunting.

Speaker 1:

Well, naked aliens always makes it fun.

Speaker 2:

It does, doesn't it? See you later.

Speaker 1:

Bye-bye. Thanks for joining us on the Art of Adjusting podcast, where we talk about life as an insurance adjuster. Hit that subscribe button real quick and tell all of your adjuster friends to check this out as well. For of your adjuster friends to check this out as well. For independent adjusting services, go to wwwautinclaims. And for anyone interested in working as an independent liability adjuster go to the contact us tab to join our roster.

Speaker 2:

So this wraps up another Art of Adjusting podcast. If you enjoyed this podcast or this episode, please give us five stars and a review. It does help the algorithm pick us up. In the meantime, you can contact me at theartofadjustingcom for consulting and training purposes.

People on this episode

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Chantal Roberts

Co-host
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Sandy Avina, MBA

Co-host
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William Auten

Co-host
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Nicholas Kearns

Editor