How to Score Months Long Auto Desk Deployments

Every adjuster dreams of landing those long-term deployments that offer stability and consistent income. The secret? Auto desk deployments – but not just any desk role will do.

In this eye-opening episode, I share insights from my experience during Hurricane Sandy, where I witnessed firsthand the crucial difference between short-term field deployments and months-long desk opportunities. Drawing from both personal experience and knowledge gained from family members who became supervisors in the industry, I reveal why total loss adjusting positions are the golden ticket to sustained deployment work. While field auto adjusters typically wrap up their catastrophe work in 1-3 weeks, total loss adjusters often remain deployed for months, earning $400-500 daily.

The industry faces a significant training gap in preparing adjusters for these specialized roles. Most firms offer woefully inadequate preparation – some as brief as five to seven minutes – which explains why many adjusters get sent home early from what could have been long-term assignments. I walk through exactly what total loss adjusters do: negotiating settlements with vehicle owners, determining accurate valuations, managing salvage, verifying liens, and processing titles. These responsibilities require specific knowledge that goes well beyond basic adjuster training.

Ready to position yourself for these coveted long-term deployments? I share exactly what you need to do – from acquiring the right licenses to seeking specialized training that will help you succeed where others fail. Whether you're looking to diversify your adjuster career or find more stability in this volatile industry, this episode gives you the roadmap to scoring those elusive, lucrative auto desk deployments that keep you working when others are sent home.

Chapters

• 0:00 Welcome and Industry Update
• 1:32 Understanding Auto Desk Deployments
• 2:49 Hurricane Sandy Experience
• 3:35 Scoring Long-Term Deployments
• 4:38 Total Loss Adjuster Role Explained
• 6:20 Training Resources and Course Offer

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:19

Hey guys, welcome back to the Independent Adjuster Podcast. This is your host, chris Stanley. So glad to be back with you guys and hope you guys are doing amazing in your journey. This has been a crazy year for the industry for a lot of people I've talked to and I've been having a lot of questions about desk auto deployments.

Speaker 1: 0:37

Now, desk auto deployments has not always been something I talked about a lot, because I only did one auto desk deployment in my career and that was for Hurricane Sandy. But it lasted over a month long and I had friends who last six plus months on that deployment. I opted out to leave after about a month. The desk was driving me crazy. I'm a field guy. I opted out to leave after about a month. The desk was driving me crazy. I'm a field guy, I'm very energetic, so like sitting in a cubicle all day didn't fit me. But there's a lot of people who want that kind of deployment. So I thought today I'd talk a little bit how to score those months long auto desk deployments. And now these deployments typically Unlinked Field, tends to be like a one to three week long deployment. If you land an auto total loss deployment or a liability deployment, you're going to be working months, if you're any good right, that's what a lot longer stay than if you would get a field deployment and you're making 400 ish dollars, maybe up to 500 a day depending on the way you deployed, the role you're in and your licensing and all that fun stuff.

Speaker 1: 1:47

And so I went to hurricane sandy. I went initially as a field adjuster. Within a week it was just so insane, so crazy to see us total loss in cars, sight unseen from the hotel room. Just oh, you can't find your car. It floated off in the ocean. Okay, we're going to total loss it. What kind of options did it have? Nothing to go off of, right, we were just like checking boxes and shoving them into total loss. Then, about a week in, I got shifted to total loss and I got to see the process behind the scenes for the next month of what it actually looks like to be a total loss or an inside adjuster. And it really changed the way I saw how I did my job in the field, because our job sets up those desk adjusters, those inside adjusters, for good or bad when they get that claim from us. And so I, like I said, only did that for about a month, but my in-laws they stayed that for a long time. They ended up becoming supervisors, managers and trainers for a very large IT firm you would know, for a long time, and so they ran teams, trained teams, managed them, and so I've gotten a lot more exposure to it and they've been teaching our past students and grads and we just did a big presentation about it and so I've been reacquainting myself with all. That's allowed me to feel like I can talk with confidence about some of this.

Speaker 1: 3:13

And a big way that you score these auto total loss deployment is with licenses. So if you have the right licenses you can get called to this. But a lot of times what will end up happening is you'll get sent home really quickly if you don't understand how to do the process and very few people do. There's not really any trainings on it. We went out there and we checked the IA firm level and to see what trainings they had offered remotely to see if we could send people to those Seven minutes long. Five to seven minutes long. You can't learn that role five to seven minutes. So that's why we went and did a presentation on it, built a course on it and are embedding it in our certifications here in the near future but getting a role in auto total loss or auto liability if they're available. Those are the auto desk deployments that keep you for months at a time.

Speaker 1: 4:03

If you land an auto field or auto damage deployment, that typically doesn't last very long because you might be on a desk writing behind the scenes for a hail company or running some estimates for those field guys who were out there for only one to three weeks and then you're done. The whole goal of the field is to knock that thing out and get it gone as quick as humanly possible and get that work to desk adjusters to handle it for the foreseeable future. Auto damage is not typically where you're going to get a long catastrophic deployment. It's when you get into the total loss adjuster. A lot of times what you hear it as it's the same job that a staff adjuster does at a carrier. So when we field are handling claims, adjuster is basically handling the claim. A lot of times the total loss adjuster sometimes bodily injury and liability and all that as well, but they're handling the total loss. Once we submit all the paperwork to them, they're getting a settlement with the owner, getting in a basically an agreement with them hey, this is how much we're paying you on your vehicle and there's nothing that we missed, and that this actual cash value is based in something of reality, based on the options, the vehicle, the mileage, et cetera. So what we do in the field is what prepares them for that. But they're the ones actually talking with the owner, settling that all up, wanting any other comparable salvage value, all that fun stuff. And then writing the check to the owner, checking the lien holder, making sure that the owner actually has the title or, if they do have a lien, that they can get a letter of guarantee, and all that fun stuff. So that's, if you're looking for long auto desk deployment, that's the type of role you're looking for.

Speaker 1: 5:49

It. Auto total loss or an auto liability deployment Liability right now is not very big in the independent industry. There's not a ton of those opportunities that I have seen, but auto total loss is still very big in the independent industry. There's not a ton of those opportunities that I have seen, but auto total loss is still a big part every time there's a major catastrophe. So if that's what you're looking for, look for auto total loss deployments, let the firms know that's what you're looking for and if you wanna learn it, hey, head over to IAPath.

Speaker 1: 6:12

It'll be a part of our level two certification. We will have a total loss certification here available really soon and if you jump in really quickly, we have a course that we're releasing for a week only about total loss you can buy. That's not a part of a certification at all, it's just the information that we put together, the training about two hours long that teach you the process of this claim. So when you do get one of those deployments at $400 a day, you can stick with it. But you can head to trainingipathcom to find that. Probably the even easier way is just to go right to ipathcom slash total loss. You'll be able to find it there, but that's only for this week, so that it'll be in our level two certification. All right, if you're looking for a long-term auto deployment, that's what you need to look for an auto total loss deployment.