steve g
Member
last night I get a call for a kitchen fire, I chose my words carefully and managed to set up an appointment for this morning (sat) I didn't say oh this should be covered by your insurance or anything, a couple hours later I get a call from the people canceling my appointment, what happened is they called to make a claim on their insurance and the claims office told them they needed to use their vendor. I barely talked the people into looking at it anyways telling them they had no obligation and a second opinion would not hurt etc, now I have gone from job in hand to probably no job, anyways I check it out and determine my profit would be about 8k, but I can kiss that goodbye, I can't tell you how many times this has happened, I have no problem with the insurance company recommending a vendor however if the customer has already called someone they should leave it alone.
I have even had farmers tell the customer right in front of me to have our company leave and that they would pay a service call to us. and to wait while service master comes. The claims office said they would not pay for the work if they had us do it, had a similar situation with an allied claim, on that one I told the customer if they refused to pay our bill, the job was free.
I am getting pretty fed up with the games that are played these days and have been taking every action I can to avoid it, however some are just unavoidable. some things I have done.
1) avoid talking about insurance coverage unless I am actually on the loss, I don't want them calling to file the claim until I have been on the loss.
2) get to the loss as fast as possible
3) get an authorization with seperate mitigation and repair clauses,
4) prep the customer for the onslaught by the insurance company, they will face it initially when they have us do the mitigation and also when the reparis are to be done, the classic thing is for the adjuster to weasel his guys in for the repairs
5) be on the job when the adjuster shows up, this prevents them from manipulating the customer, to use their people.
6) be roadwise and know which insurance companies will give you trouble with vendors, also it helps to know which adjusters will not mess you around.
7) of course build as good a relationship as possible with the customer
what else am I missing,
is it illegal for the insurance company to tell the customer they have to use the vendor or they will not pay the bill?? what if something like this was caught on recording??
I have even had farmers tell the customer right in front of me to have our company leave and that they would pay a service call to us. and to wait while service master comes. The claims office said they would not pay for the work if they had us do it, had a similar situation with an allied claim, on that one I told the customer if they refused to pay our bill, the job was free.
I am getting pretty fed up with the games that are played these days and have been taking every action I can to avoid it, however some are just unavoidable. some things I have done.
1) avoid talking about insurance coverage unless I am actually on the loss, I don't want them calling to file the claim until I have been on the loss.
2) get to the loss as fast as possible
3) get an authorization with seperate mitigation and repair clauses,
4) prep the customer for the onslaught by the insurance company, they will face it initially when they have us do the mitigation and also when the reparis are to be done, the classic thing is for the adjuster to weasel his guys in for the repairs
5) be on the job when the adjuster shows up, this prevents them from manipulating the customer, to use their people.
6) be roadwise and know which insurance companies will give you trouble with vendors, also it helps to know which adjusters will not mess you around.
7) of course build as good a relationship as possible with the customer
what else am I missing,
is it illegal for the insurance company to tell the customer they have to use the vendor or they will not pay the bill?? what if something like this was caught on recording??