A pretty novel day. I shot a hail stone into asphalt shingles, participated in a “large loss” panel, and signed a bunch of Pay UP! and Mavericks and Merlins books while speaking with over a hundred attendees about various property insurance claims issues.
The hail stone shooting was fun and informative. Insurance educator Mathew Mulholland and structural engineer Robert Wright provided a narrative about “terminal velocity” of hailstones at various elevations and other esoteric scientific information. I was just concerned that I would not miss and shoot somebody. As you can tell from the video, this was a cannot miss type of deal since the hail gun and projectile were in a tube.
The large loss panel moderated by Scott Friedson was something I enjoyed because I learned a lot from my fellow panelists. Panelist Jack Hanks suggested that public adjusters need a great deal of sophistication to handle large losses. Hanks suggested that the requirements to obtain a license for public adjusting needs to be raised and much more difficult to obtain. I agree.
Gregg Kelly and Jon Pruit from Addison Riley are very experienced experts regarding construction. When asked if they could change one thing in the current claims environment, they agreed that stopping the claims expert gamesmanship on both sides needs to happen. They warned the audience that if opinions are not supported, it does little to help the insurer or policyholder by such “bullshit.” I agree.
Tiffany Snow of CMR talked about the need for contractors to plan well in advance of the catastrophe if they are going to accept larger loss remediation and repair jobs. She made the point that a contractor needs dependable subcontractors in many different trades, material suppliers, and a team to support large loss mobilization with agreements and coordination plans determined months before a storm. The prior planning should result in promoting an immediate response with detailed documentation and communications regarding the work done. I agree.
When asked what I wished for or could make happen by waiving a magic wand, I suggested that Florida needs an elected insurance commissioner. Many of the contractors and public adjusters in the audience are tired of what they perceive as systemic illegal insurance company claims conduct, which was exposed by the Washington Post but ignored by current insurance regulators.
I signed a lot of books today. I asked everybody how they were doing and if they had questions about insurance claims handling, which I tried to answer to the best of my ability.
One thing that resonated with me was that nobody had anything negative to say about AMICA or Chubb residential claims handling. My blog posts tend to be highly critical of insurance company claims handling. But for those in the management of residential claims involving those two companies and the property adjusters working for those companies, you are doing a lot better job of good faith claims handling than other companies. Cheers to you!
Thought For The Day
I believe that working with good people matters because then the work environment is good. If there is a sense of respect and belief among the people you work with, that is when good work is done.
—Ranbir Kapoor
