Which Adjuster Licenses Will Get You Hired for Auto Desk Work

Strategic licensing is the key to landing auto desk deployments, with firms prioritizing adjusters who hold multiple state licenses for maximum claim-handling flexibility. While most experienced desk adjusters eventually acquire 20+ licenses, you can gain an advantage by strategically selecting which licenses to obtain first.

• Firms filter deployment candidates by looking for adjusters with licenses in all affected states
• Weather patterns should guide your licensing strategy (Midwest states for hail season, Gulf states for hurricane season)
• Hard-to-obtain licenses like South Carolina appraiser's or New York adjuster license make you more valuable
• States requiring special appraiser's licenses create barriers that can help you make the "short list"
• Having licenses in frequently hit states increases your chances of being selected for deployments
• Knowledge and competence remain essential—licenses alone won't help if you can't do the job

Keep walking your path and claiming your life!

Chapters

• 0:00 Introduction to Auto Desk Deployments
• 1:52 Why Multiple Licenses Matter
• 3:27 Strategic Licensing by Weather Events
• 5:15 Getting Hard-to-Obtain Licenses
• 7:56 Final Thoughts and Recommendations

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:17

Hey, pathfinders, welcome back to the Independent Adjuster Podcast. This is your host, chris Stanley. Today I want to talk about the best adjuster licenses to land auto desk deployments. Now we've kind of been in this little mini series of podcast episodes talking about these auto desk deployments. I typically am an auto damage guy. I'm not sitting at a desk doing claims. I'm not, uh, you know, doing remote work running assets, although I did for a time I worked auto total loss for a month during hurricane sandy and when I started up I I wrote auto damage claims remotely for a firm that has what I like to call a ghostwriter. Nobody knew I was writing them, I didn't put my name on them, but I was writing for them, helping them process these claims and get them done on their behalf. And so many people want to work these types of deployments and one of the biggest things other than knowledge knowing how to do the job which we help with our certifications knowledge, knowing how to do the job which we help with our certifications helps you actually land these deployments or the adjuster licenses that you have, and many people I know who have gotten these opportunities have gotten them because they had the right licenses and that was it? They had no idea what they were doing. They show, show up to a deployment and panic, and you know, within a week they're saying, hey, I'll go home if you're taking volunteers, because they don't want to get stopped from coming back because they get a bad report about being incompetent, right. So make sure you know what you're doing, first and foremost. But other than that, you need to get the right licenses. And so I want to walk through some ways to think about this critically, think about this to help you pivot in your career and get the right licenses.

Speaker 1: 2:08

Now, ideally, most desk adjusters or, you know, deployed remote workers or working auto desk things they really have 20-something licenses by the end of their first deployment. And you might be like Chris, that's crazy, I can't afford 20 adjuster licenses. I get it, I get it. You might not be able to afford the 2000 ish dollars to take your one license and go get reciprocity and all the other states that you can spending a hundred to $200. But I think it's important to realize that that's what the firms value. And maybe you can't get all 20, but maybe you can get more than one. Sure, you have your home state or your designated home state license and that's a requirement to get any type of deployment work. Okay, you're going to have to have that. But if you're like, how do I increase my odds of getting these desk deployments? Have that, but if you're like, how do I increase my odds of getting these desk deployments? There are a few things that you can, a few ways you can think about this, that are going to increase your odds.

Speaker 1: 3:08

The first thing I would think is what is likely to get hit. What states are likely to get hit with a large event, large weather event? Right, if you think hail during hail season, which is March to August, you're talking the Midwest, primarily. So Texas, oklahoma, even Minnesota, indiana, kentucky, those are great states to have adjuster licenses. And you might say well, chris, you skipped a bunch of states there that get hit Kansas, nebraska, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, they don't have adjuster licenses. That's why. So getting licensed in the ones that do have licenses sets you up for success. And the ones that do have licenses sets you up for success.

Speaker 1: 3:58

And, to put it into perspective, when someone goes to dispatch for one of these large events and to staff a desk deployment, what they're doing is going okay. We currently have claims coming in for Oklahoma, for Texas and for Indiana oh, and we just had a Minnesota event they put in those four as filters and they run a search for everybody who has all those licenses, because then they know those are the most valuable to them right now. They can handle all the claims that are coming in. You're the most useful. And so those are the people who get called first and then they go through all those, then they go down and they remove Minnesota or whatever, and they do that. And then by the end they're looking at individual states, usually the ones that are harder to get. So lots of people have Texas. So that's not super valuable most of the time, but Minnesota, not as many people have Minnesota. So if you have Minnesota, you're more likely valuable in that specific deployment scenario than someone who just has Texas. Because hey, we can easily get Texas for this person with their Minnesota license, but not as many people have Minnesota. So let's grab this person first before somebody else does.

Speaker 1: 5:06

So this is the process that's going on. You're in a process of elimination until you are finally on the list. So if you're with Texas or Florida, you're at the bottom of the list in terms of how valuable you are most of the time just because process of elimination, they have no idea if you know how to do the job. So all they're judging on right now is literally your licenses. So in a hail event think in hail season, look in the Midwest, those kind of states and now it's a hurricane season, so July to October, november Then you need to be looking at the goal states. So Texas, alabama, all the way through Florida, georgia, the Carolinas those are going to be the states that are most likely going to hit with the hurricane and suffer an event. So then you want to have those licenses because you're more likely to qualify for one of those lists that they pull.

Speaker 1: 5:59

Now the other thing you can use to help you figure out how to gain an advantage here is just go get states that are hard to get. If you can't afford all 20 something states that are reciprocal, then maybe you just go get one or two that are hard to get because most adjusters don't. If it's easy and you can only get one state and you're like, hey, I'll just go buy my Oklahoma or my Florida license as using the reciprocity from Texas, lots of people have done that right. It's the money. It's quick, it's easy, it's a few clicks and you're done. But not as many people have gone and gotten their South Carolina appraiser's license or their New York adjuster or appraiser's license or their Pennsylvania motor vehicle damage appraiser's license.

Speaker 1: 6:46

Because if you're handling auto total loss or auto liability or auto damage from a desk, you have to have an appraiser's license in the states claims are coming in for. So if a state has an appraiser's license, you're required to have that to handle those claims. And so all of a sudden, when they run that magic list we talked about and you're one of the few who have a South Carolina appraiser's license you just made a short list Even if you only have Texas license and a South Carolina appraiser's license, hey, we could get this other adjuster license you might need with the reciprocity from Texas. But you already got appraiser's license which isn't reciprocal, which requires a knowledge, auto test and take some time to get. So just by going and getting harder to get licenses you can make yourself more valuable, increase your odds of getting you know auto desk deployments of any kind. So those are some things to think about. I hope that helps you land some deployments this year. So next time keep walking your path and claiming your life.