Adjusters And Their %&$^ Software

MJW

Have a hail claim with a customer. The adjuster uses powerclaim, we use Xactimate. There are two structures, a house & garage, and a separate garage/inlaw house. Both of them are 36 square each 10/12 pitch. The difference is that the house & garage has four dormers, 40 feet of valley, and 80 feet of step flashing. The separate garage is just a straight shot. Powerclaim puts these two structures in the same category, stating their per square price includes any valleys, flashings, etc. Now, why would a contractor do the house and garage (with the dormers, valleys, flashing, etc.) for the same price as the straight shot garage roof?

Their powerclaim estimate was pretty lame in comparison to my detailed Xactimate estimate, showing valleys, flashings, etc. Of course my estimate came in about $5-$6K higher. They stick by their software, but I feel my estimate is more fair, don't you?

I really hate this cheap estimating software these adjusters come up with that combines alot of labor into a lump sum. Anyone else having problems????

How do you deal with this?

MJW

Found this on an adjuster's forum.....................


I work regular losses for one vendor and the carrier requires xactimate. The vendor takes my PowerClaim estimate and converts it to xactimate to send the carrier and pays me 50% of the fee bill. On the carriers that will take Power Claim I get 60% and I do not have the expense of xactimate which is very expensive on a per file basis for about 25 to 30 losses per year and its too cumbersome for a simple roof claim.


Cheap %&^$ards

genecarp

try to talk some sense into the adjuster, if you cant, walk away, let someone else make all the big profits.

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thom

"fair" is not the correct concept. If the job gets done properly for the money they pay, the deal works.

MJW

Most of the time, they say "this is what we use and that's the price". Well, I don't care to lose money on these jobs, which are low ball estimates, and I don't want to walk out on the client. This insurance company used to be very good, but now their pricing is way cheap and they are tough on claims.

dougger222

After you try and try to get the "cheap" insurance companies to pay more they will tell you,

"We can find a contractor to do the work for what we are offering to pay".

I always say,

"Sure you can, there are plently of roofers out there with no warranties, no quality, no work, and illegals. The home owner came to me for my services, I did not go to them".

Most of the time I walk away from these claims. I tell the home owner the insurance company they are insured with are paying the absolute lowest prices in the industry and remind them what insurance companies pay good.

If the claim is for a friend or family sort of forced into doing it. Usually after the work is done they switch insurance to one I recommend. A month ago met with an adjuster on a claim for an insurance company who pays rock bottom prices. The adjuster asked me to bring an estimate so he could see what he could do. Not sure how he did it but the independant adjuster was able to get the insurance company to pay exactly what I wanted. If he wouldn't have been able to do that the payout would have been about $3-5K less than my bid price. What could have helped was the fact that he owned the independant company.

Talked to a storm chaser once and he said he was able to get the "worse" insurance company on the planet to pay Xactimate prices. After that he told the adjusters to look up the claim number so they would pay on the same pay scale.

What I have learned is the cheap home owners insurance means they use a cheap estimating program.

A lazy adjuster would love writing claims with the one Joe mentioned. Imagine how many claims he or she could write if the they only had a handfull of line items to write on a roof claim. Smart adjusters want to work on commision plus flat rate and write estimates in Xactimate or Simsol. Doubt there are any contractors using such an estimating software as the cheap insurance companies.

It's a good thing all the big insurance companies but one uses Xactimate. At least they want you to think "your in good hands"!!!

dougger222

Most insurance companies want the adjusters to not only use Xactimate but to also use Sketch. Anybody been able to draw a roof with Sketch?

MJW

Using Xactimate I have for some estimates, not all of them. It was a waste on one job because the adjuster didn't even want to see it. The job was for family, so we had to do it. Lost about $2000 on that one. On the same job, the adjuster paid ABC seamless whatever they wanted. He even added more for some fascia's that didn't "match", but wouldn't pay our I&W price or for two small sheds that had two layers on them. He wanted to pay by linear foot for I&W, not for square foot. The prices were much different. Said the same thing..."tired of you guys ripping us off.....We only pay what we can get it done for" We told him that makes no difference, this is our price and that's it. He whined and complained and finally paid for the sheds, but like I said the price was still $2000 low.

Our jobs are all referrals, so we deal with multiple different insurance companies. It would be much easier if we were all on the same page when it comes to pricing, but these fly-by-nighters, weekend warriors, and illegals make it tough for all of us.

MJW

Yes, with powerclaim this job was 75 square and he had less than one page of line items. My estimate has everything needed for the entire job. This is my first year using software and can write bids off site better than most adjusters can on site.

dougger222

All my leads are from referral except I guess the leads that come from either agents or adjusters. Those are still referral though from local adjuster and agents.

So far done claims for most of the insurance companies and each field and office adjuster can vary from day to day and from claim to claim.

The other day met with an adjuster for a VP of an insurance company. The company he works for is huge and never knew they did insurance until the other day. What was odd was the adjuster was an independant for a large outfit and pulled up in another insurance companies vehicle wearing a shirt and badge from the other insurance company. He paid for the roof then stressed the fact that the windows needed to be looked at on the house that just sold for $900K. Sure enough hail damage on the windows and now the claim is going up. Wrote the roof for $34K and the adjuster didn't flinch.

The adjuster told me he did re-inspections for the other insurance company and out of 180 re-inspects approved every one.

Last year met with an adjuster for an adjuster who got denied when all the other roofs around were getting paid via insurance dollars.

Gotten lucky this year. Of the 75+ claims I've worked all the estimates were paid on Xactimate but one which I won't be doing for a few years. With a 22sq roof and a $3,400 deductible the home owner won't be able to swing it for a while. The adjuster said he wrote the claim for as much as he could which came out to only $310 per square. He claimed the same roof in South West MN would pay $175 a square.

Got a claim comming up for the school teacher insurance company so will have to see if they pay Xactimate prices.

Most of my experiance with adjuster writing estimates off Sketch is either they are way low or way high. If you don't get the overhange and pitch exact the margin of error goes way up.

Nothing is better than faxing a diagram with the estimate.

dougger222

And a lot of the adjusters who write the claims on the spot make a lot of mistakes. Seen some of the numbers get really high when they are rushed.

MJW

Yes, exactly, and then they don't want to come back out. They sit in their office or hotel and wait for us to call. Then we do their work for them.

I don't understand why it is so hard to get these estimates correct. Have these adjusters never been in the field before? With some of them, a Roofer can look and guess at the squares and be closer than the adjuster who has his ruler and laptop.
I put this same complaint on catadjusters forum and I don't know why, but it is kind of making a stir. I wasn't trying to cause any trouble there. They just seem to be defensive.

dougger222

Joe,

Did your posts on the CADO forum cause some problems??? LOL!!!

What I've noticed is not only are the older more experianced adjuster willing to total out roofs more often than there younger counterparts they are also better at writing more accurate estimates.

If an adjuster can't figure who to write a roof claim how can he or she be trusted writing a fire claim? If 3-5 line items are missed on a roof how many would be missed on a large fire claim?

It would be safe to say 1 in 20 claims are done to my standards from the field adjuster. 1 in 8-10 adjusters copy my diagram and line item break down and still miss things the office adjusters cover later.

Just wrote a claim yesterday for an adjuster who had this for the roof with Xactimate,
Remove *** sq's
Ice and water (1/3 the required amount)
3 tab shingles on
Furnace vent
Metal fascia
Gutter/downspout

$9,400 when it should have been $15K+

MJW

Ya, had a few problems there, but it came out OK.

I was very happy today! Came home to an estimate in my email from an adjuster. The job included siding, roof, garage doors etc....($35K job on a small 30 square house). He was within $5 of my estimate using a different program!!!! Good for him!! Finally an adjuster who knows how to write estimates. He had every line item I had......I couldn't believe it!!

Ed the Roofer

What thread were you in and which subforum?

I looked and didn't see anything quickly.

Did you use a different posting user name?

Ed

edit:

I found it under your full name.

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