Latest / The Art of Adjusting® Podcast / Episode 107: Negotiation Lessons From 10,000 Insurance Claims

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Episode 107: Negotiation Lessons From 10,000 Insurance Claims · The Art of Adjusting® Podcast

• 0:06
  William Auten: Hello, I'm Bill Auten of Auten Claims Management.
• 0:09
  Chantal Roberts: I'm Chantal Roberts of CMR Consulting, and welcome to the Art of Adjusting Podcast.
• 0:14
  William Auten: Today we're going to talk about life as an insurance adjuster from the perspective of property, auto, liability, or workers' compensation adjusters.
• 0:22
  William Auten: Our goal is to bring interesting topics in the world of claims adjusting to people who are working as an adjuster now and to people who are considering a career as a claims adjuster.
• 0:31
  William Auten: Hi, Chantal.
• 0:32
  William Auten: Hi, how are you?
• 0:34
  William Auten: Good.
• 0:35
  William Auten: Good.
• 0:35
  William Auten: I see you got some curly hair today.
• 0:37
  William Auten: I love it.
• 0:38
  Chantal Roberts: I do.
• 0:38
  Chantal Roberts: Thank you.
• 0:38
  Chantal Roberts: Thank you very much.
• 0:39
  William Auten: Yeah, we uh You know, I was thinking about doing that with my hair too, but I just I can't.
• 0:43
  William Auten: I don't I don't think it would frame your face.
• 0:46
  Chantal Roberts: Yeah, no, I don't think it would frame your face well, you know, because I mean some people can carry it off.
• 0:50
  Chantal Roberts: This is I I'm actually a naturally curly person, so it's you know, um, so it it it it looks good on me, but I'm not I mean I love you, but I I'm only telling you this because I love you, right?
• 1:01
  Chantal Roberts: You know, it's um you gotta make sure you're not looking bad.
• 1:07
  William Auten: Don't hurt my feelings.
• 1:08
  Chantal Roberts: Yeah.
• 1:09
  William Auten: I I got I'm pretty sensitive guy.
• 1:11
  Chantal Roberts: I know you are, yeah.
• 1:12
  Chantal Roberts: I know you are.
• 1:13
  Chantal Roberts: Yeah, Amy and I talk about it all the time.
• 1:15
  Chantal Roberts: Um, so you know, today uh what we're gonna be talking about is these negotiation lessons uh from that we've learned over our lifetime as as claims adjusters.
• 1:29
  William Auten: Um you know, and and these don't tiptoe around the title here.
• 1:34
  William Auten: It's negotiations from 10,000 claims.
• 1:37
  Chantal Roberts: Absolutely.
• 1:38
  William Auten: How did I come up with 10,000 claims?
• 1:40
  William Auten: How did you come up with 10,000 claims, Bill?
• 1:42
  William Auten: I don't know.
• 1:43
  William Auten: I I'm I'm sure I've handled that many in my career.
• 1:46
  William Auten: I I have to have.
• 1:48
  William Auten: So, but anyway, uh that that's the that's the title.
• 1:53
  William Auten: And whether or not we have actually handled 10,000, I bet you between the two of us.
• 1:58
  Chantal Roberts: I was gonna say between the two of us, but if you think about it, um even hurricane claims, uh if we got a thousand claims a year over 10 years, wouldn't that be 10,000?
• 2:12
  William Auten: Uh-huh.
• 2:12
  William Auten: Mass checks out.
• 2:14
  Chantal Roberts: Yeah.
• 2:14
  William Auten: And I've been doing it for 30.
• 2:16
  Chantal Roberts: So yeah, and I've been doing it for like 25.
• 2:18
  William Auten: I mean, I think I think we're there.
• 2:20
  Chantal Roberts: Yeah.
• 2:20
  Chantal Roberts: But we're not going to be talking about like these gimmicks or the pressure tactics or uh whatever.
• 2:27
  Chantal Roberts: We're talking about a strong investigation, which we've always been talking about.
• 2:31
  unknown: Yeah.
• 2:31
  Chantal Roberts: And how this will lead you to having a real strong negotiating position.
• 2:39
  William Auten: Yep.
• 2:39
  William Auten: Yep.
• 2:40
  William Auten: Um, what's the song?
• 2:42
  William Auten: Uh, kind of know when to hold them, know when to fold them.
• 2:45
  William Auten: Yes.
• 2:45
  William Auten: And what's the third thing?
• 2:47
  Chantal Roberts: Know when to walk away and know when to run.
• 2:52
  William Auten: These four things.
• 2:53
  Chantal Roberts: But you never count your money when you're sitting at the table.
• 2:58
  Chantal Roberts: Okay.
• 2:59
  William Auten: Oh, you're gonna sing for us.
• 3:00
  William Auten: I don't think you ever sing for us.
• 3:03
  Chantal Roberts: Yes.
• 3:04
  William Auten: I can see the numbers climbing climbing right now, yeah.
• 3:09
  Chantal Roberts: Or it would be declining.
• 3:10
  Chantal Roberts: I don't know which.
• 3:12
  Chantal Roberts: Um, yeah.
• 3:15
  William Auten: So monitor snapping off exactly like exactly.
• 3:19
  Chantal Roberts: Yeah, everybody turns off their their sound.
• 3:21
  Chantal Roberts: Are are they talking now and she's not singing anymore?
• 3:24
  Chantal Roberts: Okay, I'll turn back in.
• 3:26
  Chantal Roberts: Okay, so after so many claims, uh, what have you learned about negotiating that like I guess a textbook can't really teach?
• 3:38
  Chantal Roberts: This is something from your own background.
• 3:40
  William Auten: Yeah, and I I brought up the song because that's kind of the way it works.
• 3:45
  William Auten: You have to know when it's time to actually have those t discussions with somebody, um, when it's not necessarily appropriate to have those discussions and um when to to hold the line.
• 4:00
  William Auten: You know, when you're at a certain number and and you're very confident that that your number's the the number that should settle the claim.
• 4:09
  William Auten: And um, you know, there's a lot of uh posturing and puff puffing up that uh people do on both sides, uh I've noticed.
• 4:20
  William Auten: And you have to kind of uh sip through that and um you have to be a little bit of a stoic sometimes.
• 4:30
  William Auten: Um but it yeah, and it's hard to articulate that into a textbook kind of um diatribe.
• 4:39
  William Auten: I I would say that knowing when to engage and knowing when to stay put can't be boiled down to just a simple um set of rules, I would say.
• 4:52
  William Auten: But you do kind of know.
• 4:55
  William Auten: And one of the things that we are engaging in here uh is educating adjusters who don't have as much experience as I do.
• 5:05
  William Auten: And we have some that have many years, but in different uh different uh aspects of insurance claims.
• 5:14
  William Auten: So when it comes time to begin negotiations, the question is, well, what's this what's this injury worth?
• 5:22
  William Auten: You know, what's that type of injury worth?
• 5:26
  William Auten: Well, we settled one for X amount of dollars, but we had a same the same injury last year that settled for twice that.
• 5:34
  Chantal Roberts: Right.
• 5:35
  William Auten: It it it's tough because there's no science.
• 5:38
  William Auten: I always tell people there's no book that we can open up and just go down to say, oh, this injury is worth this much in that jurisdiction.
• 5:45
  Chantal Roberts: I do want to point out though, this isn't necessarily about bodily injury.
• 5:50
  Chantal Roberts: I know that that's where you focus on a lot because you do a lot of liability and I do a lot of property, and that's one of the reasons why we balance out so well.
• 5:58
  Chantal Roberts: Because a lot of times we do have to negotiate on a roof or on the total settlement of a house or negotiation of the remediation or something to that effect.
• 6:13
  William Auten: And look at depreciation alone.
• 6:15
  William Auten: I mean, you could spend hours negotiating just how much you're gonna depreciate something.
• 6:21
  Chantal Roberts: Yeah, absolutely.
• 6:22
  Chantal Roberts: Absolutely.
• 6:22
  Chantal Roberts: I would say that there are some a couple of hard rules, in my personal opinion, on that, but that's a whole different podcast.
• 6:31
  Chantal Roberts: Um, you know, so yeah, I think you're right.
• 6:35
  Chantal Roberts: Sometimes it's really hard because uh as the name of the podcast in the book says, it's really kind of an art, yet it is also there's some science behind it.
• 6:46
  Chantal Roberts: Um when we're talking about bodily injury.
• 6:50
  Chantal Roberts: I know that I used to use, and I don't know if you use uh if you use it or even if it's still around, um, I'm gonna try to remember the name, uh, jury verdict research, I think is what the the product was called.
• 7:03
  Chantal Roberts: And you would type in your like zip code or your your jurisdiction, and you would say, okay, I've got a sprained ankle, woman 35, whatever, you know, and they would spit out some of the most current jury verdicts for something like that.
• 7:19
  Chantal Roberts: And that was a good way to look at what that particular injury was going for in that area.
• 7:29
  Chantal Roberts: Uh, but there you go.
• 7:32
  Chantal Roberts: That's part of the preparation, I would think, of getting ready to do the evaluation and the negotiation is your preparation and your investigation.
• 7:45
  Chantal Roberts: I think that's that's your leverage, isn't it?
• 7:48
  William Auten: Yeah.
• 7:49
  William Auten: Um yeah, because knowing the value of a claim uh uh so we always look at how do I start this?
• 7:58
  William Auten: We look at first of all, we look at general damages and special damages.
• 8:03
  Chantal Roberts: Right.
• 8:04
  William Auten: And the the special damages are pretty easy because that's a mathematical function that's just adding up all the um hard costs, uh out of pockets and medical bills and whatever expenses that that can be documented.
• 8:19
  William Auten: Um the general damages are those wishy-washy ones like pain and suffering, that loss of consortium.
• 8:26
  William Auten: What's that worth?
• 8:28
  William Auten: Um and we don't use uh we don't use any websites or databases or um for for court verdicts and things like that for a couple reasons.
• 8:38
  William Auten: Um most of those that you find are within big metropolitan areas that we don't always play in.
• 8:46
  William Auten: Right.
• 8:46
  William Auten: And um, you know, in a in rural upstate New York, a case can settle for a very different number than it might in Queens, you know.
• 8:57
  Chantal Roberts: Jurisdiction does matter.
• 8:58
  Chantal Roberts: And and adjusters do need to be aware of the jurisdiction.
• 9:02
  Chantal Roberts: And and if you don't know what a jurisdiction is, that's just where your court happens to be.
• 9:08
  William Auten: Yeah.
• 9:08
  William Auten: We have a really good database though of just of the claims that we've settled.
• 9:13
  William Auten: And that database is getting bigger and bigger every year, uh, because we do settle a lot of claims.
• 9:19
  William Auten: And um we there are some attorneys that don't like to negotiate with us for whatever reason.
• 9:27
  William Auten: Um, but most in most cases we can get something settled.
• 9:31
  William Auten: And um we are off, you know, we are always governed by our our clients' authority.
• 9:37
  William Auten: And if uh if we just don't get enough authority, there's not much we can do.
• 9:41
  William Auten: But you know, if if everybody's being reasonable, uh we get signed releases uh almost every day we get a release in here of some sort, whether it's property, injury, um, you know, you name it.
• 9:56
  William Auten: So uh just because of that, we do have uh uh we have a good database of of information that can help guide us when we're negotiating.
• 10:06
  William Auten: Because if the attorney says, look, I know this claim is worth X amount of dollars, I can say, well, you know, we just settled four of those in the past year, uh, and we know how much that is actually worth.
• 10:18
  Chantal Roberts: Right.
• 10:19
  William Auten: And one thing I am not gonna do today is talk about specific types of injuries or specific values uh that we have settled claims for because a lot of reasons.
• 10:30
  William Auten: Um one of the most important things, I think it's just it's proprietary information for for us, uh for one thing.
• 10:37
  William Auten: And um I also don't want to give a false sense uh to somebody listening who might be in a different jurisdiction.
• 10:45
  William Auten: Well, my claim, if Bill says he settled for this particular injury for this amount of money, then I must deserve that much too.
• 10:53
  William Auten: Or exactly or maybe they could get more than what we settled it for because we happen to be in a different rural area or something like that.
• 11:02
  Chantal Roberts: And it and it does matter.
• 11:03
  Chantal Roberts: And uh one of the things that of course I always want to come back to is the investigation and the documentation and talking about our claim file when when either property damage or bodily injury, when you're getting ready to negotiate, what you what you as the adjuster need to do in your file is state why you are settling for this amount of money.
• 11:31
  Chantal Roberts: You it would be uh general or excuse me, specific damages, $1,000, you know, because that's all of the medical bills.
• 11:40
  Chantal Roberts: General damages, X amount of dollars for total settlement range of X to Y or whatever.
• 11:49
  Chantal Roberts: And the reason is because of XYZ.
• 11:53
  Chantal Roberts: Um, and then that you know, they treated for four weeks.
• 11:57
  Chantal Roberts: It was a sprained strain, it was a low impact claim, it um it is a roof that we can repair rather than replace.
• 12:06
  Chantal Roberts: You we can remediate rather than tearing out all the carpet or or something to that effect.
• 12:12
  Chantal Roberts: Um, you need to list your reasons why, because a, it will help you if you do get into a lawsuit later.
• 12:20
  Chantal Roberts: But B, when you're trying to negotiate with someone, you can list the reasons why, because I I'm sure you'll go ahead and talk about this, Bill.
• 12:30
  Chantal Roberts: Again, a lot of people, when you're negotiating with them, are very close to the incident, you know, the claimants, and I mean first party and third party.
• 12:43
  Chantal Roberts: And so they automatically think, no, my pain and suffering was a lot more than what you're giving me credit for.
• 12:50
  Chantal Roberts: And so I want $50 billion or whatever.
• 12:53
  William Auten: But if you can say, I understand that, but you only treated for four weeks and you had a sprained ankle, you you know without the uh without the factual information that you get during the investigation, your premise for whatever uh stake you put in the ground is simply that because I say so.
• 13:15
  Chantal Roberts: Exactly, exactly.
• 13:16
  William Auten: And that's not really a position.
• 13:18
  Chantal Roberts: No, and and that is that is fantastic.
• 13:21
  Chantal Roberts: Thank you.
• 13:21
  Chantal Roberts: That's a great summary for what I was rambling on about, is you definitely want to have those facts behind you.
• 13:30
  Chantal Roberts: And when you are negotiating with that claimant, either the first party or the third party or their attorney or their public adjuster or whomever, you give those facts.
• 13:41
  Chantal Roberts: This is the reason why I'm doing it.
• 13:43
  Chantal Roberts: And of course, those facts are also in your claim notes.
• 13:47
  William Auten: And it's not just this is the reason, it's going to be these are the reasons that I am holding this position.
• 13:54
  Chantal Roberts: Yes.
• 13:54
  William Auten: Um because there are multiple factors.
• 13:57
  William Auten: These claims are are not, you know, it's it's not just a matter of the severity of the injury or necessarily whose fault the claim was.
• 14:08
  William Auten: Um it's almost never 100% somebody's fault.
• 14:15
  William Auten: Right.
• 14:16
  William Auten: Sometimes it is.
• 14:17
  William Auten: You know, we do have cases where somebody just really screwed up and um, you know, somebody got got hurt because of it.
• 14:26
  William Auten: Uh, but in I would say most of the cases that we have, there's some shared liability.
• 14:31
  Chantal Roberts: You know, uh I would say that there uh a thorough investigation would always uh uh facilitate your your negotiation, but I don't think it ever becomes unnecessary.
• 14:43
  Chantal Roberts: Uh what do you think about that?
• 14:46
  William Auten: Uh that an investigation becomes unnecessary?
• 14:50
  Chantal Roberts: No, no, no.
• 14:51
  Chantal Roberts: That a thorough that that a thorough investigation would make negotiation unnecessary.
• 14:57
  William Auten: I'm sorry.
• 14:58
  William Auten: I guess I get cut off.
• 15:00
  Chantal Roberts: I oh I'm sorry.
• 15:01
  Chantal Roberts: Um my question was can a thorough investigation uh ever make negotiation unnecessary?
• 15:07
  Chantal Roberts: I guess is the best way to answer that question.
• 15:11
  William Auten: Oh, I see what you mean now.
• 15:12
  William Auten: Um I was trying to be witty.
• 15:17
  William Auten: It certainly can yeah, it well, it certainly can um it can uh speed up the negotiation process because I you know I've so many times I've I've beg begun negotiations and stated my reasons for our position, and the other side just was not aware of that.
• 15:38
  William Auten: They're like, oh, I I didn't know that.
• 15:40
  William Auten: And uh, you know, shame on them.
• 15:43
  William Auten: Um, you know, they should be digging into the claim as much as we are to find out the facts.
• 15:49
  William Auten: Um there are other times where the same thing happens to us where they have information that we would never be able to know unless we talk to the directly to the claimant, which is why we always ask for an opportunity to do that.
• 16:03
  William Auten: But when they deny us that, they are holding information that would probably grease the wheels to a settlement if they would just open up and let us talk.
• 16:14
  William Auten: But a lot of times they don't because reasons.
• 16:17
  Chantal Roberts: To be fair though, we're asking the other side, and I can hear all the attorneys screaming at us right now who are listening.
• 16:26
  Chantal Roberts: We're asking the other side to also investigate the loss, but we don't let them speak to the insured, you know.
• 16:32
  Chantal Roberts: So there is there is a little bit of of not being fair in in this scenario.
• 16:40
  Chantal Roberts: Um, so for us to go, oh well, did you know XYZ and them going uh no?
• 16:46
  Chantal Roberts: But uh the burden of I see really is is really on the claimant, yeah.
• 16:54
  Chantal Roberts: Yeah, absolutely.
• 16:56
  William Auten: So I and I do I do think that that's significant.
• 17:00
  Chantal Roberts: Oh, absolutely.
• 17:01
  William Auten: If you are if you are making a claim holding your hand out to pay me money, um, you should be in a position to tell us why, all of the reasons globally why.
• 17:11
  William Auten: Right.
• 17:12
  William Auten: Um other than I said so.
• 17:14
  William Auten: Other than I said so, right.
• 17:16
  Chantal Roberts: Because then you're getting into someone uh like me as the the adjuster going, well, I'm not gonna pay you that because I said so.
• 17:23
  Chantal Roberts: And then the claimant saying, Well, you need to pay me that because I said so.
• 17:26
  Chantal Roberts: And this is how we end up in court.
• 17:28
  Chantal Roberts: When really we could be having an actual discussion, and that's why it's called negotiation.
• 17:34
  Chantal Roberts: We give them and take a little bit, uh, because our demands are not positions, you know, they're not conclusions or the the the demands are positions, but they're not conclusions, I guess I should say.
• 17:45
  Chantal Roberts: And uh it is, I think there's been a change in in the way insurers handle claims.
• 17:55
  Chantal Roberts: And I don't know if I'd necessarily agree with it, but this is maybe my old schoolness coming back to haunt me, is that we sit around and wait for the claimant or the plaintiff attorney or the insured, you know, to make a demand before we will respond.
• 18:15
  Chantal Roberts: And if um, you know, it's a non-represented claimant or it's a property damage claim, even though it is the claimant's first and third party job to put forth their claim, if I've got all the information I need to settle this claim, I'm gonna go ahead and pull that trigger and call the claimant up and say, you got about 15 minutes.
• 18:42
  Chantal Roberts: I also need you to have a piece of paper and a pencil.
• 18:45
  Chantal Roberts: We're gonna go over some things.
• 18:47
  Chantal Roberts: And and I start the negotiations right there by making an offer.
• 18:55
  Chantal Roberts: And I think nowadays it's kind of twisted where the carriers want to wait until the claimant makes a demand.
• 19:03
  Chantal Roberts: And if they're represented fine, they know to do that because the attorneys do that all the time.
• 19:10
  Chantal Roberts: But I don't think an unrepresented claimant knows to do that.
• 19:15
  William Auten: Well, I would say with unrepresented claimants, we are always we are often uh the ones to make the first move on that.
• 19:24
  William Auten: And the reason behind that is uh we we know more about these claims than they likely do.
• 19:31
  William Auten: And uh most often um we'll we'll get to a settlement with an unrepresented person.
• 19:43
  William Auten: We may not have the same idea at the outset of what the value is, um, but we're never so far apart that we can't, you know, reason and and come.
• 19:54
  William Auten: I I wouldn't say never, because there are cases where the demand is just ridiculous.
• 19:59
  William Auten: And uh we would prefer that they go get an attorney that can explain to them.
• 20:04
  Chantal Roberts: I was just gonna say, can we just take a little side trip over to the fact where I have literally told claimants, please go get an attorney when they threaten it.
• 20:14
  Chantal Roberts: Yeah, I'm gonna go get an attorney.
• 20:16
  Chantal Roberts: Oh, I think you should.
• 20:17
  Chantal Roberts: Okay.
• 20:18
  Chantal Roberts: I think you should.
• 20:19
  Chantal Roberts: Um, yeah, I think that would be a good idea.
• 20:22
  Chantal Roberts: Um, you can never tell a claimant not to get an attorney.
• 20:26
  Chantal Roberts: You can never do that, never do that.
• 20:28
  Chantal Roberts: But I have literally told a claimant, multiple claimants.
• 20:33
  Chantal Roberts: Yeah, I I I think that would be a good idea.
• 20:36
  Chantal Roberts: I I think you should talk to someone about this.
• 20:39
  William Auten: I've had I've had at least two cases in my career where they threatened to get an attorney, and I said, that'd be fine, just let me know.
• 20:48
  William Auten: And I don't encourage them, I don't say, Oh, yeah, please please do that right now.
• 20:51
  Chantal Roberts: When I hang up here, let me let me give you some people to call.
• 20:56
  William Auten: But what I do is um that that is fine.
• 21:00
  William Auten: Um, I won't be able to discuss this directly with you anymore, but please uh if you know who they are now, I'll take their name and number.
• 21:07
  William Auten: If you don't know yet, um please give them my information.
• 21:11
  William Auten: I will be sitting here waiting for their call.
• 21:13
  William Auten: But I've had cases where I've done that.
• 21:16
  William Auten: They went to the attorney, the attorney called me and said, This person's crazy.
• 21:21
  William Auten: Um I'm not sure if I can represent them.
• 21:27
  Chantal Roberts: Yeah.
• 21:28
  William Auten: And then eventually they drop the case and we go back to handling directly with the claimant.
• 21:33
  William Auten: And um, and then it gets settled for you know a fraction of the amount that they were asking for.
• 21:41
  Chantal Roberts: Yeah, and thank you for the attorneys who are being honest with with the claimants, too, by by saying, Yeah, the this is not off, you know, you're you're not gonna get you know five million dollars for this sprained ankle or whatever.
• 21:56
  Chantal Roberts: Um, you thank you for for giving them the a A realistic frame line.
• 22:02
  Chantal Roberts: And I think one of the things that I would like to talk about when we're talking about demands or offers being positions.
• 22:13
  Chantal Roberts: And I I would like to say this.
• 22:15
  Chantal Roberts: I've always been taught that the insurance company offers a settlement and the claimant always demands a settlement, just so that we have that terminology correct.
• 22:29
  Chantal Roberts: But I sim I tend to talk about a demand, you know, back and forth like globally, but regardless.
• 22:36
  Chantal Roberts: That's not that we're lowballing.
• 22:53
  Chantal Roberts: Um, and I've always thought of it as being like a speed limit kind of deal.
• 23:00
  Chantal Roberts: Every once in a while you'll see those speed limits that say minimum speed 45 and maximum speed 60 or whatever.
• 23:07
  Chantal Roberts: Do you know what I'm talking about?
• 23:08
  Chantal Roberts: Yeah.
• 23:09
  Chantal Roberts: That's kind of the way that I think about it, is that there's a range right there.
• 23:13
  Chantal Roberts: And just because I'm going 45 miles per hour doesn't mean I'm going so although I'm going slow.
• 23:20
  Chantal Roberts: Um, and just because I'm going 85 in a 65 doesn't mean I'm speeding, although I'm speeding.
• 23:27
  Chantal Roberts: Please don't arrest me or write me tickets, officers.
• 23:31
  William Auten: Um well, I I would say that uh the thing that bugs me about, and here's the only time I'm gonna talk about numbers as um from from an example standpoint.
• 23:42
  William Auten: When an attorney makes a demand of a million dollars and the company's first offer on that same claim is $20,000.
• 23:50
  William Auten: Um that does not automatically mean that that is a lowball situation.
• 23:56
  William Auten: Right.
• 23:56
  William Auten: And the and the insurance company their first offer is always scrutinized under that lowball kind of moniker.
• 24:05
  William Auten: The ridiculous high million dollar demand doesn't have a a comparable term.
• 24:12
  Chantal Roberts: Exactly.
• 24:12
  Chantal Roberts: Yeah.
• 24:13
  William Auten: Um it's just, you know, there's no criticism when they demand something that is clearly absurd.
• 24:22
  William Auten: Um but there should be.
• 24:24
  William Auten: And I don't think highball is the the proper term.
• 24:29
  Chantal Roberts: No, because that's a drink, isn't it?
• 24:31
  William Auten: It is, it is.
• 24:32
  Chantal Roberts: Yeah, so maybe we want that.
• 24:34
  Chantal Roberts: I don't know.
• 24:35
  William Auten: I'm just I'm just gonna say but I think that the uh that that there should be some recognition that um that there are ridiculous demands made that tend to muck up the process rather than grease the wheels.
• 24:54
  William Auten: Um I think there's a probably a faster way to get things done.
• 24:58
  William Auten: We're always accused of delaying things, but you know what?
• 25:02
  William Auten: When someone's demanding uh a million dollars against a $20,000 offer, things aren't gonna go really quick.
• 25:10
  William Auten: You know, there's obviously some some problems there.
• 25:13
  Chantal Roberts: And let's also talk about real quick, if a demand comes in for a million dollars, and let's say the policy limit is $50,000, for example.
• 25:25
  Chantal Roberts: You as an adjuster, of course, need to call the insured and let them know that there has been a demand over policy limits.
• 25:35
  Chantal Roberts: And if they have some kind of umbrella or excess policy, they need to be putting those people on notice.
• 25:41
  Chantal Roberts: And then you need to notate your file that you've called the insured and told them this, and you need to send a letter.
• 25:47
  Chantal Roberts: And I'm talking about a letter, you can send it in email form, but actual letter attached to an email, not just an email, because we tend to we tend to ignore those emails sometimes.
• 25:59
  Chantal Roberts: And and I would even snail mail it, quite frankly, just to make sure that everybody's on the same thing.
• 26:08
  Chantal Roberts: When we're also talking about demands and offers, some states, such as Texas, for example, require you as the adjuster to let the insured know of every offer and demand.
• 26:22
  Chantal Roberts: So every time the insured or the claimant, third-party claimant comes back and says, I want a million dollars, or I want $25,000, or I want one dollar, whatever, you would say the claimant has asked for X amount.
• 26:38
  Chantal Roberts: I have offered Y amount.
• 26:40
  Chantal Roberts: I am waiting for, you know, them them to accept it, or I'm doing additional research into this, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
• 26:48
  Chantal Roberts: I'll keep you informed.
• 26:49
  Chantal Roberts: FYI, know your state rules.
• 26:52
  William Auten: Yeah.
• 26:53
  Chantal Roberts: I think it's a good idea to do it anyway, regardless of state rules.
• 26:56
  William Auten: But um, so I can make arguments for and against it.
• 27:01
  William Auten: And my argument against it is that um when when you've got the noise of a policy holder and their potentially their agent or their broker, yeah, um, confusing things, the risk that you wind up with a policy holder or an agent or broker contacting the other side to try and, you know, could you imagine um the the chaos that would ensue if you're trying to negotiate with an attorney who's making a ridiculous demand and your insured calls them up and say, what are you doing?
• 27:39
  Chantal Roberts: You know, I that okay, a uh insureds, you're not allowed to do that.
• 27:45
  Chantal Roberts: Um, you know, because it's against policy.
• 27:48
  Chantal Roberts: It says that you're not allowed to settle the claim with without you know uh our permission.
• 27:53
  Chantal Roberts: So don't do that.
• 27:54
  Chantal Roberts: Don't, don't, don't, don't, do not do that.
• 27:56
  Chantal Roberts: But I have seen it where it you're, I mean, you're absolutely right, it does create some problems because I have seen where the insured or the agent, especially if the claimant happens to be a best friend, a neighbor, a cousin, or something like that, where they go, I want you to settle this.
• 28:16
  Chantal Roberts: And now you've got the insured saying, I want you to settle this for X amount of money, whatever they're asking for.
• 28:22
  Chantal Roberts: And you're like, that's not the way it goes.
• 28:25
  Chantal Roberts: And so now you've got it in your file.
• 28:28
  Chantal Roberts: So there is some, you know, back and forth uh pros and cons.
• 28:33
  Chantal Roberts: I think the pros outweigh the cons, but that's just me.
• 28:37
  Chantal Roberts: But I know in, for example, in Texas, you gotta do it.
• 28:41
  Chantal Roberts: So there you go.
• 28:43
  William Auten: There's a lot of emotions involved in insurance claims, uh, both from the claimant side and the policy holder side.
• 28:50
  William Auten: Uh, for the adjuster, we have no emotions, so we're fine.
• 28:53
  Chantal Roberts: But yeah, we're heartless.
• 28:55
  Chantal Roberts: We've been sucked dry.
• 28:57
  William Auten: But the uh um uh a case that well, I've had several cases like this over my career where somebody gets hurt on the property, let's say insured um claims you look, this is fraud.
• 29:11
  William Auten: I know this guy's lying.
• 29:12
  William Auten: I know it didn't happen this way.
• 29:14
  William Auten: Don't pay this guy a dime.
• 29:15
  William Auten: It's ridiculous.
• 29:17
  William Auten: Then uh they get an attorney or they have an attorney.
• 29:21
  William Auten: The attorney makes a demand for policy limits, and all of a sudden the insured is like, whoa, good, and they get their excess letter, you know.
• 29:30
  William Auten: And uh are you what are you doing?
• 29:32
  William Auten: Are you gonna settle this claim or what?
• 29:34
  William Auten: You know, um, well, you sir, you told me that this was fraud and that we shouldn't pay a dime.
• 29:40
  William Auten: Uh, but now you want us to pay our your policy limits.
• 29:42
  William Auten: So which is it?
• 29:44
  Chantal Roberts: Which is it?
• 29:45
  Chantal Roberts: Yeah.
• 29:46
  William Auten: And uh But that's because the emotions are there, you know, exactly.
• 29:49
  William Auten: And and um, you know, attorneys know that that there is a uh a non-emotional buffer in the adjuster uh between there, but they they you know it's their job to maximize things.
• 30:04
  Chantal Roberts: Their clients, yeah.
• 30:05
  Chantal Roberts: That that is that is something to to to be thinking about.
• 30:09
  Chantal Roberts: And I have been thinking about just FYI having like a defense counsel on.
• 30:14
  Chantal Roberts: We've already had a plaintiff counsel on talking about what it's like to be a plaintiff counsel.
• 30:19
  Chantal Roberts: And I think it would be good to have another plaintiff counsel on as well.
• 30:22
  Chantal Roberts: But uh thinking about next year maybe having a defense counsel on and talking about what defense counsel needs from us.
• 30:29
  Chantal Roberts: Regardless, let's continue on.
• 30:31
  Chantal Roberts: Like when do we when do we know when to negotiate and and when not to?
• 30:36
  Chantal Roberts: And I I think you'd said it, you know, pretty well.
• 30:39
  Chantal Roberts: You you you kind of learned this.
• 30:42
  Chantal Roberts: And my theory is as soon as I've got enough information, like I call the claimant, if we're talking bodily injury, I call the claimant up or their counsel and they say, yes, you know, they finished treating.
• 30:56
  Chantal Roberts: If I have a uh a med auth, I've started already collecting their medical records uh and their lost wage records and that sort of thing.
• 31:07
  Chantal Roberts: Um if it's a council, you know, represented kind of deal, I usually let the plaintiff counsel gather all of that up and then I'll wait for the demand package.
• 31:20
  William Auten: Yeah, so that is all claim process stuff that um I mean the the there's a kind of a scheduled life of the claim that we go through, but but there are signals that tell you when they're actually ready to negotiate with you.
• 31:40
  William Auten: And it's not just the demand letter, the demand letter uh may be um their position, like you said, uh that's it's just them throwing out their number to kick things off.
• 31:53
  William Auten: Um and that probably is a pretty good signal that it's time to start negotiating.
• 31:58
  William Auten: But um, but if that demand and your your valuation of the claim are very, very far apart, then you may have a conversation about that distance.
• 32:08
  William Auten: And um you will know then if they want to continue negotiating because you're gonna get calls.
• 32:15
  William Auten: They will continue to call you and get a all right, let's let's see if we can do something here.
• 32:21
  William Auten: And um, if they go silent, they're probably building their war chest and uh to prepare for a lawsuit.
• 32:28
  William Auten: So um and and when I say go silent, um I don't mean they they have quieted down because they're waiting for meds, you know.
• 32:39
  William Auten: They'll we have those discussions.
• 32:41
  William Auten: I'll call them for a status, they'll say, hey, we we they're still treating, so it's gonna be a while.
• 32:46
  William Auten: They've got surgery in two months and recovery after that.
• 32:50
  William Auten: So you're probably not gonna talk a lot for a few months or several months.
• 32:55
  William Auten: Um but if that demand letter comes in and you've made a you've made an offer against that demand that they don't particularly like, and then they just go quiet and they don't return your phone calls, that's probably a pretty good sign that's into litigation.
• 33:13
  William Auten: But if they are keeping that dialogue alive, then it's important to make sure that you have your your strategy uh outlined about uh how you're going to approach the negotiation and how you're going to explain your position with all of those reasons why your number is what it is.
• 33:32
  Chantal Roberts: Exactly.
• 33:32
  Chantal Roberts: So let's talk real quick about what it looks like on the property side, because we see a lot of this with public adjusters, for example, um, or contractors, for example.
• 33:46
  Chantal Roberts: So again, usually what I want to do is have my independent appraiser or adjuster, my field adjuster to go out at the same time as the contractor or the public adjuster, because I want both of them to walk through the, let's just say roof, let's just call it a roof together and figure out what the damage is, the scope of damage is so that we're not quibbling about it later.
• 34:12
  Chantal Roberts: If it doesn't work out that way, where my guy goes out first, we get an estimate in, I send it off to the insured, and the insured's like, I don't think I can get this repaired for this.
• 34:24
  Chantal Roberts: They get a contractor, and the contractor comes back with a vastly larger number.
• 34:30
  Chantal Roberts: Think of that in terms of an offer of us sending out our estimate and the demand coming back with the contractor's or the PA's estimate.
• 34:41
  Chantal Roberts: And so you still have to respond to that, adjusters.
• 34:44
  Chantal Roberts: You still need to take that seriously.
• 34:47
  Chantal Roberts: Uh, hopefully they've got an exactimate and you can go line by line looking at what the differences are.
• 34:53
  Chantal Roberts: For example, um, maybe you have your price list wrong.
• 34:57
  Chantal Roberts: That could be it.
• 34:58
  Chantal Roberts: I mean, maybe they have their price list wrong.
• 35:00
  Chantal Roberts: I don't know.
• 35:01
  Chantal Roberts: But there has to be a reason why they're getting more or larger number, other than they're adding it to the roof or something like that.
• 35:10
  Chantal Roberts: Um, so that's when, again, you start that negotiation aspect of it.
• 35:18
  William Auten: Estimating is um a skill that takes, I think, a long time to develop.
• 35:23
  William Auten: And um you could look at a contractor's estimate that will have three line items in it for a $100,000 loss.
• 35:33
  William Auten: That's so the three, you know, fixed kitchen, fixed roof, fixed house.
• 35:38
  William Auten: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 35:39
  William Auten: Well, the exact domate estimate's gonna have six hundred lines, you know, and and you may be w way far apart.
• 35:48
  William Auten: Chances are um I wanna I don't want to say chances are, but that there's there's a possibility that your exact domain estimate has six hundred lines, but it actually needs eight or nine hundred lines.
• 36:01
  William Auten: You missed some you missed a lot of procedures that have to happen in order to get all this stuff done.
• 36:07
  William Auten: Um I mean, just think about on commercial losses of one that gets very expensive very quickly is scaffolding and sidewalk protection on a storefront.
• 36:19
  William Auten: Um you may be required by the municipality to construct this thing in front of the store so repairs can be made behind the scenes that protects the pedestrians below.
• 36:33
  William Auten: Have you ever seen those?
• 36:35
  William Auten: They're expensive.
• 36:35
  William Auten: They're this the they're big complex, you know, um aluminum steel structures.
• 36:41
  William Auten: So exactly uh and they they're they're not cheap.
• 36:45
  William Auten: And that can account for a very, very big discrepancy between two estimates.
• 36:50
  Chantal Roberts: One of the things as one example, yes, and and one of the things that I see that contractors and public adjusters do, uh, which is great, and I don't see it so much with the insurance uh estimates, and I think it's because of our different interpretation of the word quote incurred end quote, is the idea of um code upgrades and uh debris removal and you know all of these fees and things that these additional coverages that are available to the insured, but not until it is incurred.
• 37:34
  Chantal Roberts: And I wish more carriers would put it on a line and the estimate that just says TBD to be determined, so that the insured doesn't think that we've forgotten it.
• 37:47
  Chantal Roberts: And I think that's one of those that's that that could be a reason why some of our estimates are not matching because the public adjuster or the contractor have it in their estimate and they're counting it now.
• 38:01
  William Auten: What I'd like to see with Xactimate is to keep that as a separate coverage line.
• 38:07
  Chantal Roberts: Yeah.
• 38:07
  William Auten: And then all the items that would fall under there get put under that coverage line.
• 38:11
  William Auten: So it's a separate, you know, breakout at the end of the estimate.
• 38:15
  William Auten: Um and I think totality does that as well.
• 38:21
  William Auten: Oh, cool.
• 38:22
  William Auten: They may have a box that you check.
• 38:24
  William Auten: I I forget now.
• 38:26
  Chantal Roberts: Um but anyway the the point being is that as as property adjusters, when you see this, this is the same thing as bodily injury, as getting a demand letter from the plaintiff attorney as bodily injury or whatever.
• 38:41
  Chantal Roberts: They've got a different viewpoint, and so now we need to investigate that viewpoint.
• 38:46
  William Auten: Um yeah, and and you're you're not only negotiating on damages, but um the the discussion is always also going to surround scope.
• 38:57
  William Auten: And you know, they may be writing to do work in a a section of the building that wasn't damaged, and you don't owe that.
• 39:06
  William Auten: And they may say, well, it doesn't make sense to not do it, or you know, whatever.
• 39:12
  William Auten: Yeah, but having those uh the again it comes back to the reasons.
• 39:16
  William Auten: Yes, if they've got reasons for their position, you as the property adjuster should have reasons for yours, and it may be a coverage thing, it may be a scope thing, it may be a depreciation thing.
• 39:27
  William Auten: Like I said before, depreciation is a whole other negotiation kind of a strategy.
• 39:32
  William Auten: Um especially uh if you come across it, an ACB policy, which they still write out around here, by the way.
• 39:39
  Chantal Roberts: Yes.
• 39:39
  Chantal Roberts: Yes.
• 39:40
  Chantal Roberts: Um, yeah, and and so when you make that offer, like you said, and all of a sudden the claimant or the public adjuster or the plaintiff attorney goes silent, this should be kind of a red flag to to you as a as a uh as an adjuster.
• 40:00
  William Auten: You can call it a red flag, but it's not like a bad red flag.
• 40:04
  William Auten: It should just be a so far apart that that you're not gonna, you know, just know that this is probably where it's gonna go.
• 40:12
  Chantal Roberts: Yeah.
• 40:12
  William Auten: And you know, and if you're if you're accurate in your position, um then it may be that that litigation works in your favor.
• 40:21
  William Auten: I mean, we've had policy limit demands where we, you know, valued the claim a lot l for a lot less and we come back with a summary judgment.
• 40:29
  William Auten: And then they get nothing, you know.
• 40:31
  William Auten: Um and that's a shame, but uh because in in a case like that, we would have paid something, you know, but instead it went to defense attorney.
• 40:43
  William Auten: And uh anyway, and the same thing can happen on property, on the property side where um, you know, things do go silent.
• 40:54
  William Auten: Um I I would say most public adjusters though will give you kind of a signal if they're gonna if this looks like it's gonna be a uh um a litigated matter.
• 41:05
  Chantal Roberts: I did think of something on on the pub on on the property damage side, it's a little bit different.
• 41:10
  Chantal Roberts: I do want to um remind our adjusters, our carrier adjusters, or or um even well, I guess carrier adjusters, yeah.
• 41:20
  Chantal Roberts: Um, that we need to pay what we owe when we know we owe it.
• 41:24
  Chantal Roberts: So if there is an honest to goodness coverage or scope dispute, and I say that I owe $5 and the public adjuster or the contractor says I owe $100, I need to cut that check for $5 less the deductible or whatever.
• 41:41
  Chantal Roberts: Uh, instead of holding that money back from the insured, because we're talking about a different kind of coverage.
• 41:50
  Chantal Roberts: We don't want to be withholding the insured's money in an attempt to force a settlement or whatever.
• 41:59
  Chantal Roberts: That goes against good uh unfair claim settlement practices, by the way.
• 42:04
  Chantal Roberts: So FYI.
• 42:06
  William Auten: And it's it's unfair too, because it is if um if they have a duty to mitigate, but if they're depending on that insurance money to to begin mitigation, they can't do much.
• 42:17
  William Auten: So it's best to get and you know, issue in advance, folks.
• 42:21
  William Auten: I mean, if they're serious damage, and you know it's it's you you pretty much have a sense of if it's a fire in a house, you can give them a five thousand dollar advance for most fires, you know, yes, um, or even more, depending on how bad it is.
• 42:39
  Chantal Roberts: Give them five thousand for the the property remediation, give them, I don't know, a thousand or even five hundred to to buy some underwear if you're gonna have them live in in a hotel for just a little bit, you know, and prepay for a week in the hotel.
• 42:55
  Chantal Roberts: Um, you can give some advanced payments, absolutely.
• 42:59
  William Auten: One thing that I've never been a fan of is to have an insurance company assign a contract or through a referral program or something like that.
• 43:08
  William Auten: But um my mind changes a little bit on the mitigation because you know, if you can get a company in there right away to dry the place out and get rid of the the the nasty stuff so that the repairer can come in and put it all back together.
• 43:26
  William Auten: Um you know, I think you're you're doing everybody a favor because you're eliminating limiting the amount of damages that can that are going to take place because things stay wet or stay whatever.
• 43:40
  William Auten: Um so in general, I don't like the idea of assigning a contractor because I think the insurance companies should stay out of the repair business.
• 43:52
  William Auten: But I do feel like mitigation companies, um, that's a different story.
• 43:58
  William Auten: But that takes a lot of Management too.
• 44:00
  William Auten: I think it takes some babysitting and some monitoring and that kind of thing.
• 44:04
  William Auten: Otherwise, it's kind of like a blank check in some cases.
• 44:08
  Chantal Roberts: Yeah, absolutely.
• 44:09
  Chantal Roberts: So what do you think new adjusters should be learning from us at this time?
• 44:20
  Chantal Roberts: Um, what happens when an adjuster works up a file or transfers from someone senior, like, hey, we started this, now we want you to learn from it, you know, kind of deal.
• 44:32
  William Auten: So my recommendation for this kind of question would be directed to managers and supervisors.
• 44:39
  Chantal Roberts: Yeah.
• 44:40
  William Auten: Um and uh and the the large loss people or the the more advanced people.
• 44:46
  William Auten: So if an a claim comes in and let's just say it's a a run-of-the-mill slip and fall, and it goes to adjuster A, and it very clearly becomes uh a claim that's valued outside of their general authority, so it goes to someone else.
• 45:03
  William Auten: And which plaintiff attorneys love that, by the way.
• 45:07
  William Auten: They love it when you take a file and give it to somebody else because in their mind it immediately doubles the value of the claim.
• 45:15
  William Auten: So it's to be avoided.
• 45:18
  William Auten: Uh in my recommendation is is to try and avoid that for two reasons.
• 45:23
  William Auten: One, the the dynamic I just described, and two is because that adjuster who has lower settlement authority and less experience, needs to get that experience.
• 45:36
  William Auten: So let them finish that claim out with the help of a mentor along the way, rather than just handing it over to Joe down the hall, who's been here for 35 years.
• 45:49
  William Auten: Right.
• 45:50
  William Auten: The other thing I would say is if you have that model set up and that's what you do, make sure Joe down the hall comes down and talks to the new guy and explains to them what the settlement actually was, because otherwise they're working in a vacuum.
• 46:05
  William Auten: They don't know that this type of claim commanded that kind of money at the end of the day, unless it's communicated throughout your staff.
• 46:14
  William Auten: Exactly.
• 46:15
  William Auten: So I think there should be a lot of open discussions about um what happens to claims, uh, not just that gets settled by the adjuster, but which go to the litigation and settle through either um uh mediation or a um a jury trial.
• 46:32
  Chantal Roberts: Yeah.
• 46:32
  Chantal Roberts: You know, a lot of these carriers now have like litigation units where once a claim goes into litigation, it goes over to these litigation units and maybe the adjuster uh has taken the bar exam or has gone to law school and knows a little bit about uh the legal system.
• 46:54
  Chantal Roberts: It's kind of the same thing though.
• 46:57
  Chantal Roberts: Uh why why do this?
• 47:00
  Chantal Roberts: You know, these other adjusters who are not handling litigated files need to know what is going on so that we can avoid litigated files.
• 47:11
  Chantal Roberts: I mean, it's well, maybe avoid litigated files.
• 47:14
  Chantal Roberts: And I'm not saying avoid them as an like it's a bad thing, but it's expensive to litigate files, even for the insurance company.
• 47:20
  Chantal Roberts: So let's put me as an expert witness out of business and settle those claims if we can.
• 47:27
  Chantal Roberts: And if we've got a righteous denial, then we will go all the way, right?
• 47:33
  Chantal Roberts: But if it's, oh, if I would have only done XYZ, or if I would have given a little here and taken a little here negotiation, then we would have avoided this situation.
• 47:46
  William Auten: Yeah, uh communication across different uh different areas of a claims department is so important.
• 47:53
  William Auten: And I think it's also important to have good communication with underwriting too, which is a whole other podcast.
• 47:59
  William Auten: But um but I would say that if you're the type of adjuster that once a claim gets into litigation and goes to the litigation unit and you you're of the opinion, well, it's not my problem anymore, um maybe maybe try and adjust your thinking and and and keep your head in that that file and maybe talk to that litigation adjuster.
• 48:22
  William Auten: Um, I I think there should be some s systematic ways for everybody to stay involved because uh otherwise the knowledge gets lost.
• 48:33
  William Auten: And um, you know, you you what's the what's the phrase?
• 48:38
  William Auten: Um definition of insanity is keeping it.
• 48:41
  William Auten: Yeah, it's keeping from the same thing, mistake and and uh I think that's what happens when you've got uh a group of adjusters who are not familiar with what happens down the line.
• 48:51
  William Auten: Exactly.
• 48:52
  Chantal Roberts: Um so I totally agree.
• 48:55
  Chantal Roberts: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 48:56
  Chantal Roberts: Uh anything else that we need to let let people know about?
• 49:02
  William Auten: I've got one announcement to make.
• 49:05
  William Auten: We have a new listener.
• 49:07
  William Auten: Oh yay! Yes, yay, Elvis Dale Wilson contacted me on LinkedIn.
• 49:12
  William Auten: Hi, Elvis.
• 49:13
  William Auten: Hi, Elvis.
• 49:14
  William Auten: He he uh he said that um he founds finds our uh podcast and YouTube channel absolutely interesting.
• 49:23
  William Auten: And um he said that he was on episode 24 and like two days later he was up to 42.
• 49:31
  Chantal Roberts: So Elvis, wow, you did are you sleeping or are you just having it on a loop and you are sleeping, like you're putting us like we're putting you to sleep?
• 49:41
  William Auten: Well, I appreciate the uh the sentiment, uh Elvis, and uh I hope you're listening to this one and and that we're providing some valuable information.
• 49:51
  Chantal Roberts: So super exciting, yeah.
• 49:52
  Chantal Roberts: And be sure to get in contact with us via YouTube, Spotify.
• 49:57
  Chantal Roberts: I'm very bad at responding to YouTube.
• 50:00
  Chantal Roberts: I don't think they give me a notice, really.
• 50:03
  Chantal Roberts: And like I'll find out two weeks later.
• 50:05
  Chantal Roberts: So I'm sorry, but I will I will respond to you.
• 50:08
  Chantal Roberts: Um, so yeah, let us know.
• 50:10
  Chantal Roberts: Drop us a note uh via YouTube, Spotify, that that you like it, that you don't like it, what topics you want to hear about, because uh in two weeks, we're going to be talking about for those independent adjusters, building a claims operation that does not depend on one person.
• 50:27
  Chantal Roberts: So if you're a solo practitioner and you feel like I need some more people, you know that this is going to be the podcast for you.
• 50:37
  William Auten: I might learn some things.
• 50:39
  Chantal Roberts: Yes, you might.
• 50:40
  Chantal Roberts: Who knows?
• 50:40
  Chantal Roberts: Yeah.
• 50:41
  Chantal Roberts: So uh we will see you in two weeks.
• 50:44
  Chantal Roberts: Yes.
• 50:45
  William Auten: Yes, ma'am.
• 50:46
  Chantal Roberts: Okay, see you later.
• 50:48
  William Auten: Bye-bye.
• 50:49
  Chantal Roberts: Bye.
• 50:49
  William Auten: Thanks for joining us on the Art of Adjusting Podcast, where we talk about life as an insurance adjuster.
• 50:55
  William Auten: Hit that subscribe button real quick and tell all of your adjuster friends to check this out as well.
• 51:00
  William Auten: For independent adjusting services, go to www.autin.claims.
• 51:04
  William Auten: And for anyone interested in working as an independent liability adjuster, go to the contact us tab to join our roster.
• 51:12
  Chantal Roberts: So this wraps up another Art of Adjusting podcast.
• 51:16
  Chantal Roberts: If you enjoyed this podcast or this episode, please give us five stars and a review.
• 51:22
  Chantal Roberts: It does help the algorithm pick us up.
• 51:24
  Chantal Roberts: In the meantime, you can contact me at theartofadjusting.com for consulting and training purposes.