My mother, Alice Merlin, used to try to give me great life advice. One was:
Chip, who are your closest friends you are hanging out with? Do they represent your values and where you want to go in life? Don’t hang out with the bad kids.
Alice Merlin was right. She is still right today. I would suggest we all think about Alice’s suggestion.
If you hang out with hoodlums or people who are not transparently worthy, you are probably one as well. If you hang out with people trying to improve themselves and doing the right thing in life, you probably will escape a lot of problems in life. Your beliefs and values will change with whom you decide to hang out with and work with.
It does not mean you should not try to change the path of our brothers and sisters who are with affliction or need help. But you obviously should not join them.
The National Association of Public Insurance Adjusters has more public adjusters with a history of handling larger claims and having the best reputations in the public adjusting industry. Why wouldn’t public adjusters trying to better themselves join?
It is almost crazy not to be part of a group you can learn from and better yourself at the highest level. Yet, many do not. You can be a member of more than one public adjuster group.
Fifteen years ago, I wrote in NAPIA Has Many Special Members:
“The National Association of Public Insurance Adjusters (NAPIA) has some of the finest minds in the world regarding claims adjustment under property insurance policies….The level of discussion and debate over cutting edge claims handling issues made it one of the finest property insurance seminars I have ever attended.”
I have now been involved in three ten-figure claims involving and settling matters greater than a billion dollars, three nine-figure matters, and six in excess of eighty million dollars. NAPIA members were involved with all but two of those.
How many greater than eight-figure claims are you involved with? One public adjusting firm received an eight-figure fee check from our trust account. Do you want to learn from people with dedication and skill sets like that?
Today, we like to point out that there are a lot of pretenders growing in this public adjusting field which you can find on social media every day. There are not a lot of contenders.
So, if you like my mother’s advice and you are a public adjuster, she would probably ask you:
“If you want to be part of the team of contenders rather than pretenders and your business is public adjusting, why don’t you try to join NAPIA? They seem like the group you should try to learn from.”
I noted in Membership in Professional Organizations Helps a Small Public Adjusting Firm Achieve a Big Result, that the current outgoing President of NAPIA, Craig Morrison, long before he was in NAPIA leadership, said the following:
Morrison explains that even as a small operator of his own public adjusting firm, he found it very important and beneficial to be a member of professional educational programs. Morrison acknowledges the expense of being active in multiple associations, but explains his two reasons for going the extra mile and spending the extra dollar.
Number 1: ‘If you want to be successful in a field, you must associate yourself with people who are most successful in that field.’
Number 2: ‘If you endeavor to do something, you should strive to be the best.’
Craig Morrison got the message. If you are a public adjuster, how will you learn to be your best for your client? Who will you learn from?
Thought For The Day
Most mothers are instinctive philosophers.
—Harriet Beecher Stowe
