Own Your Claim Pt 1 - Know Your Choices

Don't we all just love dealing with our Insurance companies when it comes time to file a claim with them? We sat down with Daniel Robosky to share with you the tips and tricks to make sure you are prepared to deal with your insurance - before you need to file a claim!

Transcript

I guess just our culture, our world now is like, I'll just call my attorney.

And I think it's also important to hire the correct attorney because just because they're attorney like, if they're good at divorces, they're probably not any good at insurance claims. The doctor theory. Right. Like your pediatrician might not know how to do spinal surgery.

Welcome this edition of the Hoel Truth podcast. Today, our special guest is Daniel Robosky. Did I did I say that right? You did. Daniel, take a second and introduce yourself.

My name is Daniel Robosky. I am the founder of Robosky Consulting, which is a PA firm. And then we have a fractional operations company called Quantify Partners that I am also the founder of. Let's, for the purpose of our guest, let's kind of talk about that PA firm. What what you do, because there's some value that you've actually already helped us on a couple claims, and some values that maybe customers need to understand because insurance is insurance and, you know, long days of, you know, contractors, right.

Just getting it approved prohibitively easy. And, you know, now there's a lot more legal loopholes and that kind of stuff. So this is kind of where your expertise come in. Yeah. There's a lot of there's a lot of nuances in all of that. Right. So I actually got into the public adjusting side for the exact same reason you just kind of listed was I work, was working for a contractor, and we were struggling to get our invoices paid.

And it was right about the time that a lot of these states implemented the, unlicensed practice of public adjusting laws. And so we had we were walking up to this line where we we could argue up to. The carriers knew where that line was as contractors and they said ‘cool. kick rocks.’ And so I said, you know what?

I'm going to go get my public adjusters license. And knowing nothing really about it at the time, except that I knew that I could argue more, on the behalf of contractors and could carry these in and actually get these invoices paid. What I learned after that was that nobody knows what the heck a public adjuster is, and people treat property insurance claims the same in their head as they do automobile claims.

Those are the two biggest issues that we're we're constantly competing with. So the the down and dirty easy answer is that a public adjuster is your advocate. So they are going to fight for you against your insurance company to make sure that you're properly indemnified. That's where it gets messy because people are greedy. Right. And so a lot of PAs for years were going around anywhere in the country and be like, we're going to maximize your claim.

We're going to get stuff bought, and they owe you for this whole thing. And, you know, even if they didn't offer the whole roof, or maybe it was just literally just collateral damage or whatever it was, and these guys were going out trying to get everything bought. So they gave our side of the industry a really bad name.

But they also weren't taking any time to educate the insured. And so we have a lot of people, even to this day, geographically, it's it's massively different. Right. And how we approach people. But the amount of times that I have to have the conversation of, well, no, your, your rates not going up because you're filing a claim, it's not your you're not your you didn't wreck your car.

Right. So rates are determined by zip code in the amount of perils that happen in that zip code. And they're gauging their risks and all that. But the whole point of bringing in a public adjuster or even an attorney in most cases, because and that's another kind of misnomer, too, is that people think if they bring in an attorney, it's going legal, an attorney is going to treat the claim the same way that we do, unless it needs to go to litigation, which very rarely does that happen.

Educating people on what we can do is really just more about saying, we're going to take all this off your plate so you don't have to stress over the carrier's going to try and put you in a position where you don't, you know, the answer the question, or you're going to over talk it or you're going to get nervous.

You'd be like, well, that I've seen that leak there for months, and, you know, they're going to find a way to not pay. So it's good to have advocates on your side, especially advocates that work well with contractors. So that's a very long winded answer to, what should be a simple question to to be answered. But unfortunately it's not.

So just so the people they're not real familiar public adjuster we as a roofer, I call it a PA, you know, because when you do have a claim, the insurance company is going to send out their own claim adjuster. So, like you were saying more, somebody's in your corner. Now, as a company, we try to. Do everything we can to help the customer, make sure the documentation is proper, all that kind of stuff.

But there is times that it does come out to where the public adjuster, you know, quite frankly, has to take it over. But we're at the process where you're at, like, where do you where where is the spot where a PA should help a customer with the claim compared to an attorney? Because sometimes, I guess just our culture, our world now is like, I'll just call my attorney.

And I think it's also important to hire the correct attorney because just because they're attorney like, if they're good at divorces, they're probably not any good at insurance claims. The doctor theory. Right. Like your pediatrician might not know how to do spinal surgery. Yes, yes. So from a just from a claim handling perspective, a PA and a lawyer are essentially the same.

The fees are generally the same, the capacity for arguments the same, the way they structure their argument may be a little bit different, because they'll use some legalese and things like that, because they can, we think of PA is like, policy experts where the lawyers or the league legality side of it. So they're looking at everything from a legal perspective, and they're always prepping a file in the event that it has to go to litigation.

They're prepping it from the beginning like that. We're we do the same, but we're just doing it from a different angle. So we're focusing very, very heavily on policy interpretation and policy language where they're looking at the legality from state statutes and things like that. Not that we don't look at those, but we don't we don't weigh in as heavily on those things, but essentially they're the same.

And it's more so about who's available to you. Right? Because to your point, a lot of people know a lawyer, but it doesn't mean is there a first party insurance claim specialist. Right. That's that's a pretty niche thing. And every public adjuster that's their specialty. And in which the interesting is we take the same exam in most states as the adjuster on the carrier side.

So because they're in and I'd probably to expand that a little bit, the carrier has the ability to have their own in-house adjusters. And then they have TPA. So they'll have third party adjusters that are for a different firm. And you've seen him, Sedgwick and Angel Martin and who have EFI global just insert you know, a hundred.

So those guys are usually in the same boat that we are, but they're going to get fed from the carrier and they're working on the carrier's behalf. Where we are always working on the insurance behalf are our entire we can't you can't be dual licensed, so you can't be licensed to work on the carrier side and the insured side.

You have to pick one or the other. So we always on the side of the insured because we like advocating for people. Right, right. So in what what is good and what is bad, I guess, about the Indiana law that is beneficial to either is it more beneficial towards a homeowner or the insurance company? The carrier definitely in Indiana is probably one of the worst states, and not necessarily in the way that the policy's written.

But so you take a state like Texas or Florida, where the they have what's called bad faith statutes. And essentially it's exactly what it sounds like if the carriers acting in bad faith, you have a legal ramification for that. And most states have a list of 20, 30 things that can fall under what is considered bad faith, you know, negligence on the carrier's behalf, improper investigations.

The, bullying of a client. You know, there's a really long list. Indiana's three, and they're so hard to prove. One of them is blatant, blatantly. And I'm going to word it wrong, but the the essence is the same. Blatantly denying a claim where there should be a claim. But again, that becomes super subjective, right? The bullying thing exists here as well, where it's like they're they're trying to force uninsured into taking a settlement, even though they know there's more.

And off the top of my head, I'm drawing a blank on the third one. But it's they're super, super hard to enforce here because they're worded so very specifically and they lack ambiguity. So every insurance policy in the country has a has verbiage in there that says ambiguity is supposed to on the side of the insured at all times.

If there's a question, it should on the side of the insured. Indiana's bad faith laws remove the ambiguity out of the conversation and lean it towards the carrier. So you guys are there. The carriers can always stand on that going well. They can push all they want. They have no way to prove bad faith because there's only three qualifying factors in the state.

So it's tough. It's tough here. Well okay. There's only as a matter of fact I think there's only like five lawyers in the entire state that will take on bad faith claims in Indiana that are local to Indiana. Right? Yeah. Right. So it's it's a mixed bag, man. It's tough because again, you can only argue so far. Right.

You know. And then there's there's states where representation isn't even legal. Like we can't from a PA perspective. Like we can't practice in, Arkansas and Alabama. So you have to hire a lawyer to do it. And a lot of lawyers don't want to mess with it, because the way the laws are written. So while there is a national entity that oversees all this stuff, the states have the ability to manipulate it at their own level, and a lot of states get it right.

But you have a handful of states that, make it really, really hard on the insured to get indemnified appropriately. So what what are some steps that a homeowner or a good contractor can take? When you're dealing with a claim, kind of, I guess early on, just to set the customer up for the highest level of success, the best chance, I guess, to be successful.

Train your guys to understand what is actual storm damage, not just damage. Right? Because and what I'm about to say is going to seem counterintuitive, but just because it's damaged doesn't mean it's the carrier's responsibility to pay for it. Correct. And that's a that's a thing that's really hard for a lot of contractors to get through their their training process to their guys.

Because also a lot of these sales guys, their livelihood depends on selling a roof. Right. And so they'll go out and they'll find one that's got 15 year old damage, but a six month old hailstorm. They may have done some damage, but not not enough to warrant a claim. And they're going to sell it as a claim. Right.

So it's overcoming a lot of those obstacles. But documentation is always going to be the number one thing. The the more you document it, the better you structure your argument and understanding where you fit into the process to right where the carrier can't deny you saying, I believe that this is damage based on my years of experience, and this is what it would cost for me to fix it.

If you live in that bubble, you're fine all day long. It's when you start arguing code and ordinance. It's when you start arguing, well, the policy should say this and but you're not allowed to legally interpret the policy. So training your guys on on identifying appropriate damage, how to set the right expectation with the homeowners and then having some sort of ancillary in their back pocket, whether it's a public adjuster or a lawyer, like knowing that it can go, they're not just being so stuck in their head of like, oh, I want to handle this on my own.

A good PR lawyer will tell you, hey, send this email and let's see what happens. I'll help you write it. I don't need to be involved in this. I don't need to get paid for sending one email. Right. So it's about working together and having good, good pieces of, of the puzzle that all fit together to, to properly take care of the homeowner, but not putting those blinders on where their rent's due.

And they're like, I gotta sell this roof, right? Yeah. So. Well, and I mean, and that's one thing that roofing contractors have, we've done it to ourselves where we think that every single roof ought to be paid for by the insurance company and like, oh, we should swap stories for our books. It's just the amount of roofs that I've got on that said, hey, so-and-so said it was hail damage.

And I'm like, I've been I've been in this neighborhood multiple times and never found any hail damage. Then I get up there and I see where the heaviest trafficked area up the roof is. And I was like, did they show you any of these pictures? So yeah, I did. I was like, yeah, they did. I was like, yeah, that's literally from people climbing right here.

Like, that's right along the gutter. That's a steep pitch right there. They're grabbing that gutter, climbing up there on that peak and then climbing up the next. And they're like, no way, you know? So no, I mean that's and that's one thing that, that I train my guys on. But the worst part is then everyone smile. You have an insurance adjuster that'll come out from a carrier and just approve a roof from the ground, because there's a dent in the gutter that was from a kid throwing a rock.

Well, and yeah, there's different types of adjusters to. Right. And so I had a large claim in Ohio just last week that I called the contractor and I said, listen, the kid that's coming out here, and I say kid because he's I never met him, but he just sounded young on the phone. I was like, this, this kid's coming out here.

And you understand he's a he's a third party adjuster. He has no authority to buy this. I said, so when he tells you, hey, I'm going to take care of this. Don't take it as the gospel. Right. And to your point, there are times that carrier adjusters, not TPUs, will come out and they'll look at a roof and be like, yeah, okay.

They there's no rhyme or reason to it. Right? And like, I tell a lot of people like I'm a disabled vet, dealing with homeowner's insurance is like dealing with the VA. Like it really just depends on who answers the phone, who gets assigned to your thing. Because what time of day is it because he may be a little more amenable first thing in the morning than he is on his sixth or eighth roof?

It also depends on if it's a storm and they're sending in cat adjusters, because if they're cat adjusters that they literally put jobs on and be like, do you want to make 50 grand this year? We'll train you up in two weeks. And these people don't even know what shingles are. Yes. You know, and so you get a kid.

I mean, I being a contractor first helps me a lot on the side because I understand I don't practice it every day. So there's a lot of things that have changed over the last 10 or 15 years that I'm not aware of, but general means and methods I get. And also we live in IRC and IBC, so much the like work where at least aware of a lot of these changes, the amount of adjusters that we've coached.

I mean, I've walked down roofs, flat roofs. The guys were like, oh, this, tpo, this, this, this, this, this. And the whole time we're saying you're looking at it, go and this is ePDM or PVC or not, the roof system that you said we're standing on. And then they don't understand what the levels are as like as a dense deck and then ISO and then metal decking.

Or is it like they are willfully unaware because the carrier knows that if they send somebody ignorant out and they commit to something, they can always fall back on, oh well, that person doesn't have the the level of experience or credential to make that commitment on our behalf. So they do that on purpose. But that's to your point, is that it's happened because for the last ten years, every contractor in the country has been like, every roof needs to be bought and paid for by the insurance.

So it's a constant battle. What? So just so the homeowners are kind of aware that are watching this. So you have your independent adjusters. So like some of those some of the carriers will send out somebody that works directly for them nationwide, you know whatever that looks like. And then State Farm around here does both where they send out an independent.

And like you said, pretty much the independent is just taking notes. Most of the time your field adjuster is literally just doing that. There's a picture taker, the desk adjusters, the one that's going to be the one that makes a decision unless until you get into like an EGA. So they have executive general adjusters, and those guys usually have a fiduciary amount that they can write for you.

But if exceeds that dollar amount for them, then it's going back to a desk adjuster. I so well, the crazy thing is like when I got in this business in like 16, State Farm used to have printers and their and their vans. Yep. And they would write checks. Yeah. There's, you know, what we call scope of office, but the estimate to the homeowner.

But fill that out. Cut a check. Yep. And heck, I've got to know some of them that they would say, hey, if the customer will sign a contract, we'll release all the money right now, all of it. Yeah. That's how I was when I started. I loved it back. Yeah. And like, you know, and I would team the homeowner up and they're like, oh yeah, we're using you.

You've been out here three times or whatever, you know, and as a sales guy, that was great because I was collecting practically all the money. Sometimes I'd go ahead and get the deductible right then. So yeah, the job was paid for before we even started it. You know, but actually that now I ran into one a guy like that last year.

Really? I said, do you have a printer? And he goes, yeah, I do. So that was I was surprising. So I didn't know if State Farm, was going back to that. There's an there's still again, it's some of it's tenure. Right. Some of these if it's a, if it's somebody who's been there, but they're working a lot of those guys out because they're they cost more right now.

Like I know a lot of a, a carrier adjusters who are moving over to the PA side because the money's good on the side. And if anybody tells you it's not, they're lying right. Like, everybody's in this business to make money. Right. So every every state has a different fee level. But we we started our firm in Texas, which was capped at 10%.

So we charge 10%. And that's the low. There's some states to go up to 30. There's a couple states with no cap. And I think you guys are 20 or 25 here, but we don't charge over ten no matter where we work in the country. If I have $1 million claim, I make 100 grand on that. And we have people that work for us that make hundred and 50, 200 grand and they go, I'm cool.

And they go, screw off for the rest of the year, right? If people tell you they're not in for the money, you're crazy. The reason I say all that is because a lot of these carrier adjusters who have been working for State Farm all state, the big five for the last 10 or 15 years are at 150, 200 grand a year, and they're going we can get a better result out of somebody.

We're paying 50 grand a year by cycling in new blood and getting rid of some of these old timers, and so they're doing that lot of these guys are getting along that way. But I think those guys still exist. I haven't run across a guy with a check burner in a long time. I've had guys who have the ability to commit to a check on site, but they're usually on commercial claims.

But I have not seen one with the check printer in their in their van in a long time. I also haven't seen a State Farm band in a long time. Yeah, yeah, ran around here. We had a bigger claim, a tornado damage house. And, that was a State Farm claim, and I think it was six different adjusters that we dealt with.

Oh, yeah? Yeah, the last one was end up being somebody from, Richmond. Centreville area. And because the first, of course, one was a cat adjuster. Catastrophic. We're like you said, they they pump a bunch of people in this area. They just to get through the claims, you know, and, yeah, just, what I where I work, a lot of we've worked hurricanes every year for.

I think I've done 13 or 14 hurricanes now. And if you think it's bad when a tornado rips through a small town in Indiana, right. Go to Naples, Florida, after a cat foreheads, and then watch it flood with these kids. Who? And as a kid, I'm just being disrespectful, I guess. But these young adjusters who have them, who just got their name, badge and business cards.

Yep. And two weeks ago, we're working at a hair salon or whatever. Like I, I kid you not, I hired a job. I hired estimators after, was it Irma? Last big one that hit New Orleans. And because I, we we got hired to do the entire Catholic diocese and just estimating and so I was I put out solicitations for, for estimators.

And I had these two girls that come in and they're like, one was changing tires at a tire shop two weeks prior to that. And then one had, she was to work. No kidding. Working in a hair salon saw an ad for Allstate, or somebody went through their training and then didn't get assigned to anything. So she was just kind of sitting on her thumbs.

And so I hired her to come in and just just scope. That's all I needed to do is go take pictures and stuff. But that's the type of people that they're bringing in. Is not that those people are bad people. They're just they're not the expert that you when you you get this false sense of security when somebody gets out of a truck and they're in a State Farm shirt or whatever, you're like, oh, this person has my best interest in mind.

They don't, unfortunately, because one of the first few things that they teach the carrier and same thing on our exams, the law of large numbers, right. If we can, if we can deny 80% of claims or undervalue. Yep. Most people are going to go, okay, that's what I get. And that 20% that might actually fight, I might have to pay out.

And 5% of those, playing the numbers game. And it always works to the house houses advantage. Right. They're they're in this to make money. And you know that's that's something that we fight with all the time, especially on, on the public adjuster side is these guys. We're like well I know my agent Jim, he's been he's been in the community for 50 years.

And Jim has no bearing on whether your claim gets bought or your rate. He gets a set list of rates based on your zip code that he can offer you, and then you get to pick and choose. Do you want to pay for a larger deductible or a smaller deductible? But he he also his he gets a bonus based on how many people don't file claims.

So he's he's interested in you not filing claims. Unfortunately, I, I had a very honest, agent, and I won't say what town, because we're in small towns, but it was, Greensburg got smoked. I won't say the agent. Greensburg. I smoked with, hail a few years ago, and it was like August, September, and, you know, like season.

Hell, yeah. So some people, especially by the time you circle through that stuff, you know, I had a guy call me and say, hey, Bob, I know you're working with so-and-so and if they have a claim worthy of file. And he said, would you? They said, would you please file it this year? He goes, Because I've lost my ass this year.

He goes, I'd like to make money next year. But I appreciate that person because they didn't. Yeah, they didn't say not the file. He just said, please get it on the books from this year. You know, fortunately and good on him. Right. But a lot of times the agents don't even know it's in their policy half the time.

Yeah. The policies that they're selling. Right, right. You know, and so like like you said there was an August September hailstorm. There are times that these events happen and time goes by before the insurer even realizes if something happened and they're like, oh, I can't call it a claim down. You can write your policy says within a reasonable time frame, usually related to discovery.

So the point that you notice there's an issue is equally as important to the point that it happened. Right. And that's something that gets lost. And then the whole idea of this is probably a nugget that if I could leave one and walk away, you getting three bids does nothing for your insurance claim process, right? It gives the carrier the ability to pay for the cheapest one.

Right? If you're paying for cash out of your own pocket, by all means, go get all the bids in the world. But if your carrier is paying for it, and the amount of times I've had this argument with homeowners drives me bananas, I have. We have a claim right now. I'll give you example in Utah to $1.2 million claim to convert condo complex.

Right? The carrier committed to 1.2. The guy who's like the head of everything, the HOA out there goes, oh, I can get this done for three, 400,000. I'm like, I don't care. You have to spend 1.2 and he's like, well, I just don't think these guys should charge that much. Doesn't matter. The carrier saying, I'm giving you 1.2 to do this, you have to pay 1.2.

And if you don't, you have to give the balance back, meaning you may not physically do it. They just going to reissue it on the back of it. But if they say it's a million bucks, it's a million bucks, right? Pay a million bucks. They want you to go get bids so they can say that's 300,000, right? So if your adjuster ever tells you to go get three bids, just go pick a contractor, right?

And just stick with that one and be like, I'm not getting three bids because there's nothing in your policy. Any policy I've ever read rate read in my career has ever said you're required to get three bids. That's just the carrier's way of because that's what happens with cars, right? Like they go, you can take it to Gerber collision.

You can take it to, you know, 3 or 4 of these other ones, and whichever one's the cheapest is who they're going to pay. You know. So don't get three bids. Just pick a contractor and move on. I was going to say one thing. I try to tell homeowners, if they want to interview a few contractors and feel which one is going to represent them, the best are do the best quality, because that's another thing I used to talk to, you know, homeowners like, yeah, if the insurance is paying for it, you got to pay your deductible no matter what.

You might as well pick a reputable contractor. You might as well pick a contractor with maybe the best warranty in your opinion. You video the one that has this is make sure they have insurance. It's that one. Yes, yes. That's that's it. Yes. In case you guys. Well you guys actually have contractor laws here. Like you go over to Ohio.

There's no contractor laws. So that guy who's up there doing your roof may have been a painter last week, right? Right, right. Like I'm a huge fan of regulatory agencies in the capacity of saying if somebody's going to come do work on something electric, Hvac, construction, whatever it is, like, I want that person to be licensed because I want to be able to hold them liable if they make a mistake.

Right. And there's so many states that have no license requirements for general contracting, which is crazy to me. These people go put up a house, they can build you a house and not be licensed to do it. That's nuts. They may have all the experience in the world, right, but I can't. There's nothing that says that they ever learned the trade that I'm asking him to do.

And so when I saw your video and I remember looking back at it going on, this is these are really good points because it's right. You may not mesh with every contractor that sets foot under your doorstep, but they also don't need to give you a dollar amount if your insurance is paying for it. That's huge. That's a that's really good advice.

Well, you know, I had a customer one time that the neighbor's house caught on fire. Okay, so here's vinyl siding. I mean, this is in a neighborhood. The houses were much more further apart than us, and kudos to that. It was a State Farm claim. He told. He told the customer, go interview a couple contractors, whichever one you like, have them send you an estimate.

And, and, fortunately, the guy picked, you know, picked me and everything, but I mean that honestly, that is that is a hurdle that, you know, we try to, you know, we try to, you know, jump over. But also one thing that I try to do on the roofing contractor end is I try to have train guys out there.

There's too many people on our end that, you know, they were changing tires last week and now they're out there representing, you know, how many times I would I could get a job to represent somebody because I was like, here's my experience, here's what I've done, here's the customers I've helped make sure whoever you're talking else to ask them what their experience looks like.

Right. Because, I mean, there's noone guys that tell everybody there's hail damage. And I feel like a third of my job sometimes was going out saying, actually, there isn't the hail damage. I said, this is wind damage. But I said, this isn't hail damage, you know, now speak a little bit on that. So Indiana, you got hail.

And when they're kind of your two main claims and you guys keep them separate. Yes. Yeah. So, because I've had adjusters because what I always ask homeowners, I always tell homeowners to call in is storm damage. Yeah. So it's a little vague, because I have been on a roof before, and the adjusters say, well, there's there's not enough wind damage here to buy this, but if you would have called it in as hail, I would have bought it on hail.

Now, they now now they got to go file a separate claim. Yeah. So we can get a new adjuster and everything. New adjuster, new deductible. So because of the way Indiana keeps them separate. So there are states that there's hail claims, there's wind claims and then there's wind and hail claims. Okay. Why anybody would file a wind or a hail when wind and hail collectively exist blows my mind.

But, the claim process for those is essentially the same, right? It should be for for any covered peril. But to wake like what you're just saying is, if you call it in under wind, then they're going to come and treat it as such. If you call it or hail, they're going to treat it as such. The homeowners never expected to be educated.

In the meantime, methods of construction or meteorology, let's just call it what it is. Right? So if they were they they probably do that as a profession. So there's a again this is where the ambiguity conversation comes in. If the if the expectation is that you're not educated on what a shingle looks like when a 60 mile an hour wind hits it, or what type of shingle do you have on your roof?

Do you have a three tab or a 30 year or an impact resistant whatever? Like if you don't know, then you can't be faulted. Like this is one of those times in life where being ignorant could actually work to your advantage. We enjoy that too. There's a lot of times we'll leave the description of loss blank on a contract and send it in.

And when the carrier calls, sometimes they'll just open their mouth and be like you, calling about the September event? Yes, we are, as a matter of fact, because if they already have it in their brain that they're coming out to inspect something that's related to an event that caused damage in other places, you're in a little bit of an advantage.

But what we don't want to have happen is the the insured put their foot in their mouth. We don't want the insured to diminish the potential value of what their their claim is, because they're saying something that may be relative but might not be accurate. And so it's not bad practice necessarily to just write storm damage. Because which part of the storm damage to your house was it the rain?

Was it the hail? Was it the wind? Was it did you get struck by lightning? Yes or no? So it works to the advantage of the homeowner to to kind of be as ignorant and let somebody with the experience and expertise kind of lead that charge. But I think that's also where a lot of these guys get kind of screwed by their carrier too, is they're they're just going they want to make sure, especially men, we just have that thing where it's like, well, I have to know.

I gotta know how to change the oil on my car and fix this and do that. And I should be able to climb up on the roof. You, me, homeowners I've seen get up on roofs in boots like this and I'm like, you should get down there, right? Right. You're on an eight, 12, three tab, like you're going to slip and fall and hurt yourself.

And they're like, no, no, I got it. I'm like, you need to get your own ladder then, because I'm not letting you get on this roof on my ladder, you know. But there's that machismo about it and like, well, I have to handle this. Be like Austin. Sometimes just knowing what you don't know means worlds and worlds of difference.

So well. And especially around here, when there's a tornado, there's there's almost always hail, within so many miles of a tornado. So you genuinely could have, you know, hail and when, you know, damage. Yeah. Let them come out and determine which which is the worst that happened to your home. Right? I mean, it's there's no fault in that.

Yeah. We get we get again back to hurricanes like tornadoes come in statistically right after hurricanes, almost every hurricane that's ever come and hit landfall within 24 hours. There's tornadoes that follow it. Nobody knows that because everybody's dealing with the damn hurricane, right? Hailstorms. The same thing when when tornadoes come through, they almost always produce some sort of hail because of just the way that the barometric changes.

And we spend a lot of time going on that because we have, partnerships with, like the Building Experts Institute down in Nashville. And those guys are phenomenal when it comes to dissecting how these things happen. Yes. And some of the conversations that I've got to sit in and I'm just sitting there like, like in a candy store, like I'll probably never use some of that information.

But if in the event I need it, I'm like, look at this thing I've got, it's not the burden of proof is not on the insured. The burden of proof is on the carrier. And so making them make the determination is where what you want to do, but it also has to be within the confines of what the policy says.

And that's where that's where it gets a little bit muddy. But that's where, again, if you're a contractor, very few contractors do I know that don't have a PA or a lawyer that they can at least call, can have a conversation with whether they actually ever use that person or not. It's a completely different story, but it's always good to have those people in your pocket so you can call and be like, hey, what if what if this happened?

Or hey, I got this weird thing and like, and I haven't, I may take this calls all the time and I'm like, just send this email, call him back and tell him X, Y, and Z. And then depending on how they respond, will, you know, gauge our next step. But having that information is great. 
 
Come back soon for Part 2!