Adam Bensman (the Roof Strategist) teaches roofing contractors how to explain insurance-claim supplements to homeowners to avoid confusion, lock in more deals, and prevent surprise bills. He recommends addressing supplements early (at color selection or when taking the deposit), breaking the homeowner's emotional attachment to money by reframing the conversation around an objective "assessment," and explaining that Xactimate (a third-party estimating platform) controls pricing. He advocates documenting missing items (code, manufacturer requirements, discovered damage) and submitting a supplement packet to insurance with photos and spec documentation so homeowners get a complete, code-compliant roof without unexpected costs. The video uses role-play, an anecdote about vents and ice-and-water shield, and an Amazon Prime shipping analogy to show why setting expectations early prevents distrust and negative reviews.
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How do you explain supplements to homeowners? Because when you're dealing with an insurance claim and then you do all this work, the insurance may not have paid appropriately. There's a supplement at the end of the day, the homeowner doesn't really know what it is, or they want to keep it. They don't understand why you have it. They might even think that you're trying to come after their insurance company for more money. Hey, I've seen it all. I've heard it all. And in this video, I'm going to be teaching you my simple method to explaining supplements to homeowners, but also doing so in a way that allows you to lock in more deals and to flip the script around. And what I mean by that is, so many homeowners are concerned about their deductible cost, right? And they think that the supplement is like free money. So instead, I'm going to be teaching you this method so that the homeowner looks to you as the leading expert and you are here to keep them safe. More on that in a minute. Hey. First, I want to say welcome or welcome back. My name is Adam Densman, the roof strategist, and I'm really glad to have you here. My mission, with everything that I do, is to help you and your team smash your income goal and give every customer an amazing experience. And part of that amazing experience is understanding what's coming next, how this insurance process is going to work. Because if we don't do this the right way, we risk not collecting money and bad reviews, neither of which we want. So when we do this effectively and you start explaining supplements straight out of the gate, and I'm talking about when we are picking colors so they know what can come, we're going to have raving fans who collect, who give us good reviews, and homeowners who are happy to send us referrals. All right, last free offer for you. If you haven't yet done it, I want you to head on over to the roofstrategist.com right now and get a free copy of my pitch. Like a pro roofing sales training video library. There are thousands of people who've downloaded this, many of which have sent feedback that you can see here on this page. When you just enter your name and email, I'm going to send you to a website. That website will have a link with the most up to date version because we update it pretty, pretty much every other week. So that way you have access to binge at your heart's content at the category that you want, and it becomes a really great and free tool for you to use. So if you like these videos, you're going to love this. It's available for free@the rootstratedge.com and you can download a free copy in the link using, excuse me, the link inside the video description below. All right, let's talk supplements. First things first, when do we explain supplements? In my opinion, we want to explain this when we're picking colors at the latest. So picking colors or when we get our deposit check for us. We did the deposit check when picking colors. Some companies might go over this when signing the contingency agreement, which you can do, but at the absolute latest, you want to address this when picking colors. Now why do we want to do this? So the homeowner will actually pay us and so they're happy. All right, and now is getting into the nitty gritty, which is what we do. First things first, what we need to do when educating the homeowner is break the emotional attachment of money. So homeowners view money very emotionally, it's personal. And they don't understand how this whole thing works, how supplements work, how xactimate works. So they just see, oh, you were negotiating with the insurance company. They feel like we basically just called the. The insurance said, I think I can rake you over for a few more thousand dollars. They don't understand it. So what we need to do is completely break down this emotional attachment and instead focus on this, which is my favorite word, assessment. Which is more emotional to you, money or an assessment? Money, duh. So what is an assessment? An assessment is a wholly objective analysis, an objective analysis of what's damaged. So this is how we can explain to a homeowner, Peggy, my job here is to not be concerned about the price of your roof. And I'll be honest with you, frankly, I don't care about the price. Now, the reason I can say that, Peggy, is that we use a third party estimating platform, and it's the same one that the insurance companies. In fact, that's why we use it. And it's called xactimate. And when we use xactimate, all that they're concerned about is the material type and the quantity. So what we can do is say, hey, your roof shingles are damaged and there's X amount, the quantity. And then we type in a code. So it's going to say RFG 300, for example, which means nothing to the average person. And then the quantity, how many, and that measurement will be in squares or per hundred square feet. And as we assess the damage, it's not only what building products are there, but how we need to get that roof installed. Very similar to your vehicle. If you needed to do some work on your transmission, there might be other things they need to disconnect or you know, remove the transmission or sometimes even take the entire engine out to access the transmission before they can drop it. So anything to get from point A to point Z, all those steps along the way must be documented. So our job is to properly assess not only the building products, but factoring in what, what items are code, meaning what building code requires, what the manufacturer requires, and including anything that we may discover along the way that wasn't documented by the insurance adjuster at the very beginning. And the reality is, Peggy, many of the customers we serve, probably most, there are items that are left off. And it may not be ill will or neglect from the insurance company. It just so happens that they're here only one time. So our job is to document all this in xactimate. And here's why I say the price means nothing. This quantity, excuse me, the building material type. And then the quantity is all that matters because every month Xactimate controls its fixed pricing model. It's a third party pricing model where that number gets spit out based on material costs and labor costs that fluctuate monthly. And especially right now in today's times, we're seeing material increases of 7 to 12% per quarter. So they're in charge of making sure that everything is handled appropriately. Alright, so that's kind of the. Again, the first part is breaking the assessment versus price, explaining how xactimate works. Now we're going to do, and I'm pausing, my role play here is we're going to move into telling a story. So Peggy, let me tell you a story about this last roof that I installed. We got into the roof and the insurance company wasn't originally planning on replacing their ventilation. They said, hey, you can reuse it. The vents, we're not paying to remove and replace those. They can be reused. Well, the reality is you can't. They're soft metal, they get damaged. We're when you pull things off. And the other thing is, they did not compensate appropriately for the amount of ice and water shield, which is code to install on the roof. And the ice and water shield has some criteria to keep your home protected. How many inches inside the heated wall where it should be applied. And we simply documented that on behalf of the homeowner. What this does is it Protects you. Protects you from financial surprises, okay? Because no one likes financial surprises. And the truth is we. One of the biggest complaints about contractors, besides poor communication and taking too long, is it costs more than I expected. And what we don't want to happen is that exact thing. We don't want surprise bills falling on your shoulders. So what we do on your behalf is prepare what is called a supplement, meaning it is a proper documentation with all the photographic evidence in the exact software that the insurance company needs. We submit that to them on your behalf to say, hey, guess what, guys, you missed X, Y and Z. Here's all the supporting literature, whether that's code items or photographs, or manufacture installation paperwork. And that entire packet of evidence gets submitted and the insurance company says, okay. And by the way, it might require some back and forth from us, but then they end up compensating that and it doesn't change a darn thing for you. This ensures that we can give you the best possible roof, everything you deserve, without any financial surprises. Alright, so you see. Just a quick summarize what we did there. We broke the emotional attachment to money. We focused on assessment, not price. Totally objective, using xactimate, third party. Then we told a story about how this has happened in the past. And then it's incredibly common. And then we talked about protecting that homeowner from financial surprises. And when you explain the supplement this way, homeowners know it's coming. Everybody wants to know what to expect. So let's play along. Play along with me. Are you an Amazon prime member? Most folks say yes. If you're not, think of the last thing that you ordered online. Did you check shipping? Yeah. See what I mean? Especially my Amazon prime people. You know it's coming in one to two days, yet we check shipping. I just did the same thing the other day. And the only reason I share that story, and if it's not Amazon prime, we know it's on the way. But we want to know what happens next. When am I going to get it? Humans need to know what happens next. So your homeowners are the same. When we lay that groundwork out of the gate, they know it's coming. Otherwise it's a surprise they didn't know about the supplement. They create all these stories because humans are funny creatures. If we don't have a narrative in place to make sense of something, we go ahead and we make it up. And if you don't start that narrative or that story first, your homeowner thinks you're a slime ball. A sleazeball, greedy, negotiating with the insurance, trying to take them money that they deserve. Whatever the case may be, you've probably experienced it, haven't you? If you have a funny story on that, drop a comment below. So now you know how to explain supplements to homeowners and when to do it right? When you pick up your check and you select colors. Hey, thanks for joining me in today's video. If you liked this video and you want more, I highly recommend you hop into this playlist. I've done some more and interviewed some really great people who are really good at supplementing and code items and making sure that your insurance claims are covered appropriately and fairly for everybody. And if you haven't yet done it, I'd love to have you as a member of the community, click that subscribe button. You're in good company. If you like the video, give it a thumbs up. Hey, that's all for this one and I'll see you on the next video.
