We love hearing about restorers overcoming challenges and we are always here to support you. Last year, over 7000 restorers attended our virtual events and you had some great questions for us. We sat down with CR Kris Rzesnoski and asked him to weigh in on your top questions from the year!
Your property restoration questions, answered.
How to handle adjuster objections in property restoration
Question: What are the top strategies for handling adjuster objections? Especially if theyre opinion-based.
Answer: One of the top strategies I used was actually providing some of the evidence that you need to support your argument not so that you can come at it from an aggressive standpoint, but more to help educate the other side.
You have to understand, if youre dealing with a junior adjuster or an adjuster that maybe wasnt dealing with property restoration, its to give them some education. Make it a safe place for them to ask questions of why you did something, and then go back and refer to standards and explain how it worked in your job or why you had to apply certain techniques to your job.
Thats usually the best way to avoid a serious confrontation in property restoration; sometimes youre going to have to elevate that up to a senior adjuster or manager to further the conversation. But that was my best strategy, and its the one that worked the most for me.
What makes an incredible report
Question: What does a great report look like? Whats the list of things a property restoration report should always include?
Answer: You get this question a lot, how do I get a great report? And the best reports that you see out there are going to cover off the basics, which is: do you have the cause of loss or source of loss covered off. Thats big because thats answering the question of is there coverage and does the coverage apply?
And then inside every affected room, you want to have the overview photos, pre existing conditions, resulting damages to contents, and resulting damages to the building. Any of the information that you need to provide such as video, or photos, or 3D imaging you want to make sure you get to the adjuster so that you have that report telling the entire story of what happened on the loss, what did the property look like before the loss, and how are you going to be handling it.
Fixing missing documentation when the job is already complete
Question: Are there best practices for fixing missing documentation if the job is already complete?
Answer: If youre missing information on a property restoration job, thats one of the tough things; theres no good way to go back and create that information. A friend of mine, Noris, says if you do it before, its an explanation; if you do it after, its an excuse. And it really looks that way when you start to document things after the problem has occurred.
Normally its theres a problem, and thats why youre going back and having to fix the documentation and answer questions that you didnt collect in the beginning. The best way you can fix that is to put really good processes in place so that on all your property restoration jobs going forward, youre actually collecting the information you need to answer those questions.
Documenting your way to better profits
Question: How can documentation help you be more profitable on a loss?
Answer: If you look at the difference between restorers that are making money and restorers that are struggling to make money, it has to do with the documentation that youre doing on a property restoration job. Its the story youre telling, its the explanation of what did you need to do, why did you do it, and then what was the outcome that came from that.
Everytime that you go and apply equipment to a job and then you get questioned on it, you need to have that supporting documentation to be able to hold your ground to explain what you were trying to do. Especially when youre dealing with an adjuster thats inside programs, youre going to have to understand how those documentation practices apply, and then how it will be impacted by the rules of a carrier.
Saving time while documenting
Question: What are the best time saving tips when youre documenting a loss?
Answer: Trying to save time on a job isnt as intuitive as you would think, but thats because the technology hasnt been there like we have now. In the past, it usually was the project manager that would document every room, and they were responsible for gathering all that data.
But now with todays technology, especially within 91心頭, you can have multiple people documenting the job at one time. This means you can spend less minutes on the job site and still get the same great results, or even better results, because you have multiple people documenting rooms. Now your project manager can focus on the customer, and not on doing the administrative task of taking photos and explaining the loss.
Save even more time by training with 91心頭U.
Final thoughts on property restoration in 2023
Question: Closing thoughts as we move from 2022 to 2023?
Answer: In 2023, with the recession looming and potentially coming or already here, youre going to see a lot of pressure downward on you. This is because the insurance companies arent making their money on investment income theyre going to have to make it in claims income. And at that point, thats going to put pressure on your property restoration business.
Youre going to have to do your due diligence of really documenting your jobs, making sure that you can justify all your charges. But the result should be that youre delivering a better product, youre delivering a better service, and youre helping the adjuster do their job."