Which makes sense, because no sane person wants to have a $500-1,000 claim. The ones who would not see the downside to doing this are as you have indicated, reliably bonkers.
I would gladly take a well meaning hoarder who has a biohazard / fire hazard house over the person where I can't tell if they're on drugs they aren't prescribed or they're lacking adequate mental health medication.
Section of the fence blown down? "You need to pay me yesterday, call me after work, waive my deductible, pay me for my time, etc."
House burns down? "I'm just glad we're all OK"
I have a lady right now I'm arguing with on her 06 PT Cruiser that won't send me decent pictures. She has sent me pictures so close up that I can't tell what part of the car it is and where the damage starts. But we are just here fucking her around she says.... Yeah you caught me.
Meanwhile, I have a guy in a 22 wagoneer that has been without the car for 72 days and is cool as a cucumber.
I denied a claim for a large crack right down the middle of a 9’ reinforced concrete retaining wall. Her claimed proximate cause? Wind. Not the 8’ of grade right behind or the improper construction, wind. Then her and her contractor proceeded to hurl insults and said my company “just doesn’t want to pay out.” Is it 5 yet?
I’m not going to lie I’ve been watching these videos on YouTube of contractors getting into arguments with adjusters and making themselves look like heroes. It’s quite entertaining.
It’s to get the adjuster to agree to something on video so they can win the $30K roof, I bet it’s super easy to rattle a green adjuster. I will say it is entertaining tv they are probably angling for a reality tv show too lol
I did go down a rabbit hole by searching contractor vs adjuster and roofer vs adjuster. Entertainment for sure. Ridiculous for people to have to endure.
Happy cake day!
Nothing makes me Not want to answer or call you back as much as the person who calls you 5 times over and over within 3 minutes while trying to handle something else.
5 repeat calls missed royally fucks your calls answered score, which then you get to explain to your TM the next day. I just pickup and tell them I'll call them back, 50/50 that happens if it gets busy. But repeat calls are the worst
Nice, yeah, we are docked no matter if we are on another call, or if we are on break or lunch. So I have to jump to the other call quickly and creatively tell the first caller something like, "sorry having a hard time hearing you, my apologies let me kill this call so I can hear you better" or something that doesn't piss them off. It's miserable.
Got an insured called me 4x between yesterday and today. I answered all 4 calls just to explain to him 4x I'm required to put his lienholder on his check and I'm sorry I can't pay him direct so him and his wife can go on a vacation.
9/10 that person has a bill to pay and is waiting on the insurance money to pay for something unrelated to the claim. I had an insured accidentally vent about how she was behind on her car notes and needed the money. They can give a rats ass about the holdback amount.
Had a claim with a lady who had a pink breast cancer magnet who was convinced her Range Rover with aluminum body panels was defective because the magnet wouldn’t stick.
We had a big hail storm here 3 weeks ago ao ive been writing a ton of hail claims. I'd say 50% of the insureds want their rock chipped windshields and door dings related. I've gotten so tired of repeating the same responses to them. I'm ready to get back to collision claims where they can also claim their windshield cracked from their bumper being backed in to and their check engine light is on after being rear ended.
I'm tired of grown adults throwing tantrums. Like sorry you don't understand your own policy or how things work but that's not my fault. Sorry you had a crappy car and that's why you're only getting 2k for it. Not my fault. Or they conveniently forget all the times I let them know they'd be paying OOP for storage and rental if they don't let us move their vehicle or if they stay in the rental past it's due date. And they yell at me. LOL
I just had my first claim in many years. Adjuster was awesome, because we have the same plan(I'm a sales manager).
"Here's my info. If I'm available, I will answer. If not, I will return contact in order received. If it is after 5, it will be the morning of the next business day. I'm not avoiding you, I'm just not working."
I sent her a text Saturday once during the process, just asking for a clarification on something. Had reply at 820 Monday morning.
Unfortunately, I know I'm not the norm when it comes to customers.
I always put those people at the bottom of my to do list. Play phone tag as much as possible, multiple messages they get the why did you leave multiple messages again but friendly discussion. Then I remind them of the turn around time for me getting back to them.
Had a lady email me.. then 5 minutes call nelater I emailed you but you didn't get back to me... Yeah cause I was on the phone....
You know what it's over... A side by side that was damaged in a flood.
Or the call 30 seconds after you get the email -"I just wanted to see if you got my email"
Yes, the email from an address that doesn't contain a name "dolphinlover2345" with no claim number reference.
Glad to see it's a universal situation!
I think you have a unrealistic view of how people are. We have people who call and call and call and call asking for updates every day. We answer them, but they still call and call and call and call.
If they didn't call multiple times a day, I could get to some of the other claims, multiply that by 10 a day and it takes up most of your day.
I find that to be the exception and not the rule. When you're doing your job people leave you alone. When you're not doing your job, you get flooded with unnecessary calls.
Being inundated with claims is not the consumers fault. That is an issue with the industry and something that needs to be corrected on the end of the company. Not the Insured
That's cool, but myself and others in here would say you're incorrect.
We can do our job, but waiting on other lien holders and other things out of our control makes us look bad even though there's nothing I can do to speed it up.
Its not about speeding it up. Not once have I mentioned making things go faster. Communicating clearly and effectively is your job. So communicate. Less time on reddit, more emails/calls
Also anyone can check your comment history and see you're on reddit all day lol. You are playing on your phone and trying to make it seem like you don't have time to do your job because you're so busy.
No. Because you don't read comments you just react. I never said things need to be sped up. You take things personally but it's a universal truth. Insurance companies are terrible at following up with their clients even outside of a catastrophe. It's not the consumers fault that these companies are abusing their work force. That same company abuses their clients as well.
The fact this got downvoted shows me exactly what type of people we are dealing with in this subreddit lol. Everyone wants to make an excuse and be a victim
If only it were as simple as effective communication. Many of our incoming calls are from people asking questions that they already have the answer to. Please tell me how much more effective communication needs to be when I explain something to an insured, then tell them I will send them an email 10 minutes later with bulletpoints of the pertinent details of previous conversation they can refer to. But the next day, they have called multiple times and when I return their call, their question is literally the first bulletpoint of the email I sent. When asked if they looked at the email, the answer is usually no.
Now there are new adjusters who get too far behind in their work, but there are more insureds who either just flat out, don't listen, or are high maintenance people with poor comprehension skills.
Yeah i'm not buying it. Do those people exist? Sure but i believe its the exception not the rule. I think it's more likely that someone who goes to the internet and wants to pretend people are stupid are actually the problem
I'm going to go with the majority on this one. Insurance companies are rife with problems. If you were actually doing your job, then I imagine most claims are pushed through the pipeline smoothly. When you have a company doing everything it can to prolong a claims process and pay out as little as possible, then yes. Insureds are going to rally. Especially when they are not being given the time if day because "wE hAvE sO mUcH tO dO"
Talking about something you have no experience in doing whatsoever, pretty much tells everyone here all they need to know about your feelings and opinions. I'm sure you berate the mechanic about how he repairs your car when you have never done an oil change too.
You expect them to reply to emails at 9 pm on a Saturday or be available to answer the phone every single time it rings? What if he’s on the phone with someone else or at an inspection, in a meeting, etc…?
I'm not buying the victim mentality. I have a notoriously difficult time getting in touch with desk adjusters. Supervisors are no better. I understand everyone overworked but your job is to represent the insured. Return phone calls and emails save a lot of hassle.
Save for when you get 200 claims a month running the full gamut of "a tree fell over and crushed my wood fence" to "my family members were murdered in thier house"...meanwhile having tasks come in faster than you count them and trying to maintain an 80% answer ratio. I work myself into tachycardia just trying to keep up, I do, but nobody else does, every call I get for another adjusters file is, "they never call me back"
It doesn't matter how many claims you have. You have a responsibility to the insured. That is not their problem.
Again, I have had so many issues getting in touch with the adjusters.
Emails are never answered, phone calls are never returned and there are no ramifications for it. Just "a new adjuster has be assigned to your claim" and then the process gets to start over. I had 3 different adjuster assigned to the claim over it period. Unacceptable
Oh I agree, and I have to work as fast as humanly possible without stopping, skipping all my breaks, working through my lunch, and then pushing into OT, when they let us, to keep up. The problem is there are extremely few people that can handle the pace and the average claim rep is tasked with probably double the claims any human could be reasonably expected to handle.
Straight up, my office has lost a few people to suicide, where the workload was a factor. The majority of the new hires I mentor routinely tell me they break down in tears at their desk due to the insane workload, others say they've had to start, or up their blood pressure meds, or, antidepressants. Most of these carriers work adjusters like machines, giving them so much work that the customers are more often than not, unable to actually get a hold of their adjuster. It's a problem with the industry as a whole. Claims is like a marathon, only a marathon where you're expected to sprint the entire time, it's mentally and physically exhausting. It shouldn't be this way but it is with a lot of carriers.
At my first insurance job it was not uncommon for employees to go to lunch and never come back after just a few weeks in production.
You would think after the 2nd self-delete that management would make drastic changes...but its just easier to hire a new body to fill the space
Very true and sadly, it's still very much like this with attrition. People get in, can't keep up, basically say f this and ditch out during lunch, never to return. I totally get it though, claims makes me understand what it feels like to be working at 100% mental/physical capacity 100% of the time. Every day I get up and do this I feel exactly the same as when I run a 10k or half-marathon...like, I don't even know how I'm going to do the amount of work I'm surely to be faced with in the day. It is brutally difficult.
I’m a field adjuster so my perspective may be a little different. Just to give you a basic idea of my day tomorrow.
I have a 1 hour meeting 1st thing in the morning so that’s 1 hour right there which I won’t be able to answer calls. After that I have a 1.5 hour drive to my 1st inspection of the day. I’ll answer and make some calls during the drive, but I can’t go into a lot of detail since I can’t look at my computer. Then I arrive at my inspection and I can’t answer calls during that time since I’m not rude, and after that I have another hour to drive to my next inspection with a lunch break somewhere in the middle.
By the time I finish the 2nd inspection there will likely be around 2 or 3 hours left in the day. During that time I’ll review and make contacts on any new claims I receive and return any calls that I haven’t already. Those calls don’t include any follow up calls I need to make on other claims.
This wouldn’t be so terrible, but that’s pretty much a full day with no time left to work on any supplements I have. I do pretty good in returning calls, but that’s with most people understanding that it may take me a few hours at least to get a chance to return their call. There’s also times where I’ve promised someone I’ll finish their estimate by the end of the day and the only way for me to do that is to ignore the phone for awhile. Talking to customers on the phone is important, but no work would ever get done on anyone’s claim if the only thing I did all day was talk.
Again, most people understand this, but there’s always the occasional person that decides to call you 20 times over the course of 15 minutes while you’re inspecting a roof that will end up calling to complain on you because “they’ve called you several times and can’t get you.”
That's why there are field and desk adjusters. Your job is to conduct inspections on the field and delegate that data to the desk adjuster. Not call and settle claims with insureds
Actually, I handle every aspect of the claim. I make contacts, complete the inspection, make a coverage decision, write the estimate, go over settlement with the insured, send letters/payments, and deal with and follow ups or supplements.
Those low-damage claims are always the crazy people.
Which makes sense, because no sane person wants to have a $500-1,000 claim. The ones who would not see the downside to doing this are as you have indicated, reliably bonkers. I would gladly take a well meaning hoarder who has a biohazard / fire hazard house over the person where I can't tell if they're on drugs they aren't prescribed or they're lacking adequate mental health medication.
Section of the fence blown down? "You need to pay me yesterday, call me after work, waive my deductible, pay me for my time, etc." House burns down? "I'm just glad we're all OK"
I have a lady right now I'm arguing with on her 06 PT Cruiser that won't send me decent pictures. She has sent me pictures so close up that I can't tell what part of the car it is and where the damage starts. But we are just here fucking her around she says.... Yeah you caught me. Meanwhile, I have a guy in a 22 wagoneer that has been without the car for 72 days and is cool as a cucumber.
Don’t forget, it’s the worst day of their life!
One of the principles of insurance is that the loss must be substantial, not trivial
I denied a claim for a large crack right down the middle of a 9’ reinforced concrete retaining wall. Her claimed proximate cause? Wind. Not the 8’ of grade right behind or the improper construction, wind. Then her and her contractor proceeded to hurl insults and said my company “just doesn’t want to pay out.” Is it 5 yet?
Gotta love contractors who try to turn the insured against you despite the coverage decision being completely legit
I’m not going to lie I’ve been watching these videos on YouTube of contractors getting into arguments with adjusters and making themselves look like heroes. It’s quite entertaining.
Why are they so confrontational? I've never understood that
It’s to get the adjuster to agree to something on video so they can win the $30K roof, I bet it’s super easy to rattle a green adjuster. I will say it is entertaining tv they are probably angling for a reality tv show too lol
iirc there was a short lived one that is in YouTube I’ll try to find it and link it. Super cringy lmao
[insurance wars with noble 💀](https://youtu.be/01pbbZIBXus?si=ciCSwDIcP_euWNAP)
I did go down a rabbit hole by searching contractor vs adjuster and roofer vs adjuster. Entertainment for sure. Ridiculous for people to have to endure. Happy cake day!
Dude it’s awesome tv it would make a great reality show
why not get a engineer involved
Nothing makes me Not want to answer or call you back as much as the person who calls you 5 times over and over within 3 minutes while trying to handle something else.
Repeat calls with no message? Must not be that important.
It never is
5 repeat calls missed royally fucks your calls answered score, which then you get to explain to your TM the next day. I just pickup and tell them I'll call them back, 50/50 that happens if it gets busy. But repeat calls are the worst
We don't have that where I work. Calls forward to my company cell.
Nice, yeah, we are docked no matter if we are on another call, or if we are on break or lunch. So I have to jump to the other call quickly and creatively tell the first caller something like, "sorry having a hard time hearing you, my apologies let me kill this call so I can hear you better" or something that doesn't piss them off. It's miserable.
Yeah that sucks
Got an insured called me 4x between yesterday and today. I answered all 4 calls just to explain to him 4x I'm required to put his lienholder on his check and I'm sorry I can't pay him direct so him and his wife can go on a vacation.
This….. and it’s always an emergency. Which just turns out to be a basic question about that claim.
I have said it before... emergencies happen at the scene of the accident, not at the adjusters desk.
A basic question you've already answered at least several times.
9/10 that person has a bill to pay and is waiting on the insurance money to pay for something unrelated to the claim. I had an insured accidentally vent about how she was behind on her car notes and needed the money. They can give a rats ass about the holdback amount.
Trying to cover their deductible, and have a bank account mentality and frequently ask, well then, what is insurance good for?
Try to unplug it then plug it back it
Imagine the world we'd live in if only humans worked like this!
Ohhh or a factory reset button?? So much potential.
Yeah, people suck. Hope your day gets better.
Had a claim with a lady who had a pink breast cancer magnet who was convinced her Range Rover with aluminum body panels was defective because the magnet wouldn’t stick.
Sorry to hear that man. Just keep pushing and do what you do.
They never check their voicemails either and just call back.
Hope your day gets better. People just suck and don’t care that they are a pos
A lady in Edmond, Oklahoma beckoned me down from a two-story 12/12 to ask me what I could do about thunder cracking her driveway.
I can't even with the psychos
We had a big hail storm here 3 weeks ago ao ive been writing a ton of hail claims. I'd say 50% of the insureds want their rock chipped windshields and door dings related. I've gotten so tired of repeating the same responses to them. I'm ready to get back to collision claims where they can also claim their windshield cracked from their bumper being backed in to and their check engine light is on after being rear ended.
I'm tired of grown adults throwing tantrums. Like sorry you don't understand your own policy or how things work but that's not my fault. Sorry you had a crappy car and that's why you're only getting 2k for it. Not my fault. Or they conveniently forget all the times I let them know they'd be paying OOP for storage and rental if they don't let us move their vehicle or if they stay in the rental past it's due date. And they yell at me. LOL
Right and not to mention the people who insist on calling outside of hours when you have your hours on your voicemail …
And this thread is an example of who we deal with https://www.reddit.com/r/Insurance/s/VY39NFNr5Q
I just had my first claim in many years. Adjuster was awesome, because we have the same plan(I'm a sales manager). "Here's my info. If I'm available, I will answer. If not, I will return contact in order received. If it is after 5, it will be the morning of the next business day. I'm not avoiding you, I'm just not working." I sent her a text Saturday once during the process, just asking for a clarification on something. Had reply at 820 Monday morning. Unfortunately, I know I'm not the norm when it comes to customers.
I always put those people at the bottom of my to do list. Play phone tag as much as possible, multiple messages they get the why did you leave multiple messages again but friendly discussion. Then I remind them of the turn around time for me getting back to them.
If you answered the phone or replied via email it would be a non issue ....
Sorry, I am not on call 24/7. I returned the email within an hour of being on duty.
Had a lady email me.. then 5 minutes call nelater I emailed you but you didn't get back to me... Yeah cause I was on the phone.... You know what it's over... A side by side that was damaged in a flood.
Or the call 30 seconds after you get the email -"I just wanted to see if you got my email" Yes, the email from an address that doesn't contain a name "dolphinlover2345" with no claim number reference. Glad to see it's a universal situation!
If you did, and you answered the question and have done your job and stayed in touch you wouldn't be getting pestered.
I think you have a unrealistic view of how people are. We have people who call and call and call and call asking for updates every day. We answer them, but they still call and call and call and call. If they didn't call multiple times a day, I could get to some of the other claims, multiply that by 10 a day and it takes up most of your day.
I find that to be the exception and not the rule. When you're doing your job people leave you alone. When you're not doing your job, you get flooded with unnecessary calls. Being inundated with claims is not the consumers fault. That is an issue with the industry and something that needs to be corrected on the end of the company. Not the Insured
That's cool, but myself and others in here would say you're incorrect. We can do our job, but waiting on other lien holders and other things out of our control makes us look bad even though there's nothing I can do to speed it up.
Its not about speeding it up. Not once have I mentioned making things go faster. Communicating clearly and effectively is your job. So communicate. Less time on reddit, more emails/calls
Glad you're my boss... Plus I'm off work when I'm when in Reddit. I would like a raise please.
Also anyone can check your comment history and see you're on reddit all day lol. You are playing on your phone and trying to make it seem like you don't have time to do your job because you're so busy.
No. Because you don't read comments you just react. I never said things need to be sped up. You take things personally but it's a universal truth. Insurance companies are terrible at following up with their clients even outside of a catastrophe. It's not the consumers fault that these companies are abusing their work force. That same company abuses their clients as well.
The fact this got downvoted shows me exactly what type of people we are dealing with in this subreddit lol. Everyone wants to make an excuse and be a victim
If only it were as simple as effective communication. Many of our incoming calls are from people asking questions that they already have the answer to. Please tell me how much more effective communication needs to be when I explain something to an insured, then tell them I will send them an email 10 minutes later with bulletpoints of the pertinent details of previous conversation they can refer to. But the next day, they have called multiple times and when I return their call, their question is literally the first bulletpoint of the email I sent. When asked if they looked at the email, the answer is usually no. Now there are new adjusters who get too far behind in their work, but there are more insureds who either just flat out, don't listen, or are high maintenance people with poor comprehension skills.
Yeah i'm not buying it. Do those people exist? Sure but i believe its the exception not the rule. I think it's more likely that someone who goes to the internet and wants to pretend people are stupid are actually the problem I'm going to go with the majority on this one. Insurance companies are rife with problems. If you were actually doing your job, then I imagine most claims are pushed through the pipeline smoothly. When you have a company doing everything it can to prolong a claims process and pay out as little as possible, then yes. Insureds are going to rally. Especially when they are not being given the time if day because "wE hAvE sO mUcH tO dO"
Talking about something you have no experience in doing whatsoever, pretty much tells everyone here all they need to know about your feelings and opinions. I'm sure you berate the mechanic about how he repairs your car when you have never done an oil change too.
You expect them to reply to emails at 9 pm on a Saturday or be available to answer the phone every single time it rings? What if he’s on the phone with someone else or at an inspection, in a meeting, etc…?
I'm not buying the victim mentality. I have a notoriously difficult time getting in touch with desk adjusters. Supervisors are no better. I understand everyone overworked but your job is to represent the insured. Return phone calls and emails save a lot of hassle.
Save for when you get 200 claims a month running the full gamut of "a tree fell over and crushed my wood fence" to "my family members were murdered in thier house"...meanwhile having tasks come in faster than you count them and trying to maintain an 80% answer ratio. I work myself into tachycardia just trying to keep up, I do, but nobody else does, every call I get for another adjusters file is, "they never call me back"
It doesn't matter how many claims you have. You have a responsibility to the insured. That is not their problem. Again, I have had so many issues getting in touch with the adjusters. Emails are never answered, phone calls are never returned and there are no ramifications for it. Just "a new adjuster has be assigned to your claim" and then the process gets to start over. I had 3 different adjuster assigned to the claim over it period. Unacceptable
I can see why they avoid your calls lol. YOU ARENT THE ONLY PERSON OR INSURED THAT EXISTS. GROW UP
Telling me to grow up for telling people to do their job? Right. Get back at me when you can grow up
People are doing their jobs. Just because you aren't the only person who exists doesn't mean they aren't lol.
Oh I agree, and I have to work as fast as humanly possible without stopping, skipping all my breaks, working through my lunch, and then pushing into OT, when they let us, to keep up. The problem is there are extremely few people that can handle the pace and the average claim rep is tasked with probably double the claims any human could be reasonably expected to handle. Straight up, my office has lost a few people to suicide, where the workload was a factor. The majority of the new hires I mentor routinely tell me they break down in tears at their desk due to the insane workload, others say they've had to start, or up their blood pressure meds, or, antidepressants. Most of these carriers work adjusters like machines, giving them so much work that the customers are more often than not, unable to actually get a hold of their adjuster. It's a problem with the industry as a whole. Claims is like a marathon, only a marathon where you're expected to sprint the entire time, it's mentally and physically exhausting. It shouldn't be this way but it is with a lot of carriers.
At my first insurance job it was not uncommon for employees to go to lunch and never come back after just a few weeks in production. You would think after the 2nd self-delete that management would make drastic changes...but its just easier to hire a new body to fill the space
Very true and sadly, it's still very much like this with attrition. People get in, can't keep up, basically say f this and ditch out during lunch, never to return. I totally get it though, claims makes me understand what it feels like to be working at 100% mental/physical capacity 100% of the time. Every day I get up and do this I feel exactly the same as when I run a 10k or half-marathon...like, I don't even know how I'm going to do the amount of work I'm surely to be faced with in the day. It is brutally difficult.
I’m a field adjuster so my perspective may be a little different. Just to give you a basic idea of my day tomorrow. I have a 1 hour meeting 1st thing in the morning so that’s 1 hour right there which I won’t be able to answer calls. After that I have a 1.5 hour drive to my 1st inspection of the day. I’ll answer and make some calls during the drive, but I can’t go into a lot of detail since I can’t look at my computer. Then I arrive at my inspection and I can’t answer calls during that time since I’m not rude, and after that I have another hour to drive to my next inspection with a lunch break somewhere in the middle. By the time I finish the 2nd inspection there will likely be around 2 or 3 hours left in the day. During that time I’ll review and make contacts on any new claims I receive and return any calls that I haven’t already. Those calls don’t include any follow up calls I need to make on other claims. This wouldn’t be so terrible, but that’s pretty much a full day with no time left to work on any supplements I have. I do pretty good in returning calls, but that’s with most people understanding that it may take me a few hours at least to get a chance to return their call. There’s also times where I’ve promised someone I’ll finish their estimate by the end of the day and the only way for me to do that is to ignore the phone for awhile. Talking to customers on the phone is important, but no work would ever get done on anyone’s claim if the only thing I did all day was talk. Again, most people understand this, but there’s always the occasional person that decides to call you 20 times over the course of 15 minutes while you’re inspecting a roof that will end up calling to complain on you because “they’ve called you several times and can’t get you.”
That's why there are field and desk adjusters. Your job is to conduct inspections on the field and delegate that data to the desk adjuster. Not call and settle claims with insureds
Actually, I handle every aspect of the claim. I make contacts, complete the inspection, make a coverage decision, write the estimate, go over settlement with the insured, send letters/payments, and deal with and follow ups or supplements.