Insurance Claims

iceman61

Ok guys I need your help & input. I decided 3 years ago to take my business from part time to full time. When my business was part time I had a full time industrial project management job. From that time through present, business has been steady but I'm looking to grow.

This year with an area tornado & hail damage in a town 30 miles away, I picked up a few insurance claims, but only a small fraction compared to what was actually out there. I was also amazed at how one roofing & siding company (2 sales guys) swooped in and got what seemed like half of all the claims without any competition. (they are not a major company or storm chaser) The company acted as a liaison between the owner & the insurance company and in every instance I was aware of, nobody else was considered. The homeowners would say, “They have already done everything so I would feel guilty about not giving them the job.”

What am I missing besides alot more jobs? Anyone know how this is presented to a homeowner? This seems like something completely different that just selling the job & closing the deal. With the escalation of storm damage in my area, I want to be ready next time. Thanks ahead of time guys.

genecarp

not exactly sure what you are asking, but, if you have , or build a relationship with an insurance company, or public adjuster, you can be spoon fed those jobs, you will get the early info as claims come in.

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dougger222

My insurance leads do not come from door knocking or advertising.

My leads come from,
#1 Wife
#2 Past customers
#3 Workers at my lumber yard
#4 Insurance adjusters
#5 Insurance agents
#6 Friends
#7 Family
#8 Realtors
#9 Builders
#10 Other contractors who don't do roofing

This year my wife has generated over $150K in insurance leads alone with more leads comming in weekly. In 2007 and 2006 she brought my business over $200K in insurance work. She is very trusted and she runs the bar Thur-Sat night. People ask what I do for a living and they remember. She works in an upscale area which has been hit with hail in 07 and twice this year.
A happy customer is another ticket for more work. Done lots of neighbors, friends, family and co-workers of home owners.
My lumber yard people have gotten several insurance jobs this year. Last two were roofs that paid over $20K each.
There are a couple adjusters that use me on steep and high roofs which result in 4 out of 5 jobs sold. Local adjusters of course.
My agents sends me leads from time to time but my wife has a few regulars who are agents who send me leads.
My friends get me leads but when they want there roof done it's always time to make deals!
My family primarily my father who's roofed for 36 years brings in leads still to this day thanks mostly in part to keeping the same home phone number for the past 21 years. He's worked for me full time for a year in a half.
There are a few realtors who give my name out on a weekly basis. One is a very respected realtor in the area my wife works were the average home sells for $800K. He got me work before we even met in person. When we finally met he said, "I like your wife a lot, she is a good person and she speaks very highly of you. The only thing I ask is that you take very good care of my customers".
Have some builders for close to 9 years that get me insurance leads. They don't bother with insurance work so they give it to the subs. The sider stole a lot of work from me in 2006 but oh well. He don't get my siding leads anymore.
Have several contractors that use me for my experiance with working with insurance companies so they usually give me roofs for a very small cut in helping work the large claims. One does windows so we trade jobs. Say he gets a lead on a $25K roof I'll give him a lead on a window job. Most contractors know that a bad roofer can ruin their reputation in a hurry so rather than sub to a cheap crew they pay me what I want.


As far as a presentation to the home owner is concerned everybody does it different. I'm no salesman but knowing roofing fairly well is enough to secure the trust on most jobs. Some days I can nail the presentation other days would rather be out fishing or at home with my wife and dogs. As an owner operator you have to do it all. Been running the roofing business for about 10 years now and each year brings more leads which means more jobs.

If your area is hit with hail and there are few storm chasers you should be getting leads from most of the 1-10 listed above. You could try advertising but that can be hit or miss.

Good luck

J-Peffer

Does your wife have a sister?

MJW

I also get jobs from my wife. She has regular clients with her work and I have gotten every job she recommended us to. I even had one that paid me just for an inspection after her house was done by someone else(Builder mold job).

Don't worry so much about the storm chasers. Just make sure your job and jobsite looks better than theirs at all times(cleaned up, better products, no illegal workers). Have had plenty of homeowners catch us doing a job in their neighborhood and either gotten their job or they wish they had us do their job. Don't be a crook and you will go much further, and sleep at night knowing you are doing the right thing.

Hand Bangin

iceman - word of mouth is definately the best way for all of us to make our living.

I have 3 offices here in Texas and I find that door to door advertising (door hangers, fliers or even direct mailers) is the best way to get the h.o. to call us......we advertise in just about every different way you can think of.......tv, radio, yellow pages, internet, billboards you name it.....door to door is our biggest bang for our buck........i have over 30 estimaters and each of them have adjusters, agents, real estate agents that they get referrals from all the time......this didn't happen overnight....it all takes time.

60% of my business is insurance claims and it's all about getting the customer to feel good about the services you provide.

dougger222

Yes, she is very attractive much like her sister!!! Actually my wifes sister owns the steak house my wife works at. Finally after talking my sister in law into filing a claim for hail damage on her roof she did. 45sq 5/12 four pieces two layers of white three tabs torn off and Burnt Sienna istalled. She couldn't stop talking about it for weeks after we finished. The one thing she didn't like about the crew was that they didn't haggle her enough. Some pretty woman like to be reminded all the time I guess.

She was at a graduation party this Spring and commented on how nice the roof looked next door. It was an 11 year old house made to look 100 years old which we tore off Horizons and installed Hunter Green Landmark Premiums last Fall. We doubled the Shadow ridge and put all black vents on it. 45 sq 10/12 hip roof with wrap around 4/12 porch. I recall the home owner handing me the first installment from the bank of $14,500 and he made the comment that this was a big check to give to some one he barely knew but since he knew and liked my wife it was all he needed to know! This Spring when he came to my wifes 30th birthday party he asked if golf ball sized hail was bad for his roof. Told him a 50 year green roof will really take some hail to damage enough to take pictures to total.

Word of mouth really is the key. If you do a great to exceptional job on every job you do the word will get around. Most commonly we hear how clean we were and how we took great care in the process of roofing the house. My crew consists of 4-5 installers on average with a combined 80 years of roofing experiance. Every roof we do with Landmarks we put a four star warranty on.

Most of my customers are long term home owners that are planning on staying in the house for a long time. So far this year almost every out of pocket job was sold but of course being highly recommended helps.

dougger222

I think so far every one of my wifes leads has turned into a sold roof. One reason why I would rather her not quit her job. Poor girl is going to school and working full time. Perhaps soon she'll pick up leads from college!

Sadly enough not all my leads turn into sold roofs. Of course we can't do every roof.

iceman61

Thanks guys for all the advice. Alot of it I'm already doing & the points that you made where I'm not currently taking advantage of, I will be now. Thank you for the pointers.

Actually what I was wanting to know was what this other company's sales pitch is with the customer. I did a little investigating today & found out they are actually "storm chasers." You know, breeze into town, rent a house or office space, get a couple of cell phones with local numbers so they appear local on the outside.

Whatever sales pitch they made to most of the home owners worked. The homeowner would tell me "I don't need an estimate because I've already talked to Joe-Blow Roofing & they are going to talk to my insurance & get me a new roof" This was 3 days after the storm damage & way before the insurance adjusters were even out. I'm sure since they are storm chasers they had their crap together but dayum I was surprised they could rap it up & nobody else got the chance to bid.

Ed the Roofer

First off, know your competition.

You obviously had them figured out wrong from your first post to the most recent one.

Maybe you should apply for a job with them and work their routine and learn from it.

Ed

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iceman61

Your exactly right Ed. I usually try to know my competition, but these guys slipped right by me. I guess the fact that they were using immigrant labor, getting 40sq plus, 12/12, 2 story roofs done in a day should have sent a huge flag up when I first saw it. That scene does not have quality in it anywhere. Also, I bet if there is any kind of warranty issue, there is no way the homeowner could get them to come back once they leave town. The thought of me operating my company that way makes my stomache turn.

Since starting my own company 4 years ago, I've worked storm damage in my area 2 of those years. Last year I talked to the local insurance companies & got on their contractor lists. I've gotten 98% of the roofing jobs that I've bid on. Only 5 out of all the storm damage jobs I've worked have actually shown me their adjuster estimates which got me to wondering how much money I might be leaving on the table.

Ed the Roofer

I wasn't inferring that you should operate your production portion of your company the same way, just weasel in and get to know the marketing and storm tracking methods they used to close out an entire neighborhood before you even got out to it.

You may be leaving money on the table or maybe not. It depends on how correct and detailed the adjusters scope was and if they included the current pricing data base.

Why not just ask for the insurance paperwork.

It's not a poker game.

The only way to ensure they are getting what they deserve is to compare it and see what they missed or what you are missing.

Ed

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iceman61

Sorry if I misread you Ed. Alot gets lost in the translation in forums. Every job that I have bid, I have asked to see the adjusters scope & most of the homeowners act like they are looking for the lowest bid below the adjusters scope. I guess they are thinking they will have enough left over to buy a new flat screen.

Ed the Roofer

That is how they start out to act, but you need to build up a level of confidence from them, in your abilities to decipher the insurance line item estimate.

They typically will try to short the customer from anywher to 25% to 50%, whether it be accidentally overlooking some necessary items or intentional to save their company some claim money.

Tell them that if the insurance company has a few thousand lawyers on staff and that the adjusters actually represent the insurance companies best interests, not the customers, and you need the information to verify the amounts that they neglected to include for the most complete and proper scope of remediation work to be done for them.

You have to show that they should trust You more than they trust Their Insurance Company.

Click on the gripe sites for some evidence on the tactics the insurance company gets away with and make a presentation based on the pitfalls of not having an experienced insurance contractor on their side.

Ed

Ed

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Hand Bangin

iceman - i think you are getting to the h.o.'s too late after the storm or approaching them the wrong way......if you are there a few hours after or even the day of it makes such a huge difference.....instead of giving them all estimates you should be giving them assistance in filing their claim and assessing the damage before and with the adjuster......there are all different types of contracts that can be signed with the h.o. before the ins company assesses the damage(whether it be a consultation and assisstance agreement or a scope of work with no dollar amount identified except for the fact they are paying their deductible and nothing more).

hope all this helps.

MJW

Storm chaser^^^^^^ Take the advise if that's what you want to be.

There is no sense trying to compete if you are local. They all have immigrant workers and shady contracts. Wait until HO's call you and you can also get the repair work for following years from these guys that are in town for a summer. Like I said if you want to be a storm chaser, the info above is correct. If you want to be a real contractor that is local, don't bother playing their games. Most legalities and state references go against everything the storm chasers push on people. I am in an area where storms have hit in recent years. The people and inspectors are tired of dealing with the chasers. That is why they go city to city. Sooner or later this BS is going to stop.

Hand Bangin

MJW - no storm chaser here my friend........at the same time i know how to make the most out of every storm in my area.........why let someone come into your backyard that is not from anywhere near your location and out sell you???? i have been doing this for a long time and there are a handful of other local guys that do the same......we do well whether there is a storm or not, but when there is a storm you have to be on the same playing field as your competetion......we sold more Certainteed 5 Star warranties than any other contractor in the u.s. last year and are on track to do the same this year.

MJW

What area? What is entailed in the 5 star warranty?

Have you dealt with a warranty claim yet? Offering a full 5 star warranty is very tough to do when people have to shell money out of pocket after a storm.