Ep 040 - Smarter Home Insurance Claims - Advice from a World-Renowned Adjuster

Welcome to Be a Smarter Homeowner Podcast, where you'll discover strategies to save money, save time, and be better organized in managing your largest financial asset and biggest expense, your home. Your hosts, John Bodrozic and Beth Dodson, who are co-founders of HomeZada, have been supporting homeowners for over 20 years. They are here to share with you their tips and suggestions, as well as interviews with industry experts, with the goal of helping you become a smarter homeowner.

Now, here's your hosts, John and Beth. Hello, and welcome to Be a Smarter Homeowner Podcast. I'm Beth Dodson, and today, John's not with us. We've got a guest with us, and her name is Chantel Roberts. Let me tell you a little bit about Chantel and why we have her on this podcast. So, Chantel is a claims consultant, expert witness, professional and professor and author with over 25 years of experience. She specializes in claims handling standards and litigation support. Chantelle is also a Bankrate expert contributor, writer about insurance in a clear, relatable way. She teaches at BMCC-CUNY. We're going to talk about that a little bit. And the institutes, and is the author of Art of Adjusting and Once Upon a Claim. So we are here with a world-renowned expert on adjusting.

Thank you.

What better way to have you here? Thank you so much for joining us.

Thank you for having me. And I love the fact that I'm world-renowned, at least in my mind.

That's all that matters.

I am the center of the world in my mind.

That is all that matters. So obviously we've talked in previous podcasts about John and I's journey about having our own claim. And we've talked coincidentally to other customers using Humzada that have also gone through their own experiences. So I wanted to bring on somebody who understood the world of adjusting and understood the insurance side of things, the adjuster side of things, as well as the homeowner side of things, and how we can better bridge those gaps to help us all understand how to work together better. Now, Chantal, one of the first things— I'm going to look down at my notes, sorry.

Go ahead.

One of the first things we talked about is, tell me a little bit more about your experience And what you see as the role of adjuster in a claims process?

Yeah, that's a great question. So I started in claims 25-some-odd years ago or what have you. And my dad was an adjuster. And when I was growing up, you know, I would hear him on Sunday afternoons taking recorded statements or 8 PM at night or whatever. And I'm sitting there thinking, God, You're boring. It's boring. I am never going to get into insurance, whatever. And I remember being in like a dead-end job and Dad saying, hey, you've got the personality to be an insurance adjuster because as an insurance adjuster, you have to have some walls built up.

Right.

And I think we're going to talk about that in just a little bit because a lot of insureds or claimants may feel like your insured doesn't, or your adjuster, excuse me, your adjuster doesn't care about you. but we have to have some walls built up.

Yeah.

But anyway, Dad was saying, you know, you've got this personality for it. Why don't you just go and interview? I did. I got the job. It paid more than what everything else did. And I realized that I got to help people. And so I'm like, this is a great job. I don't understand why people aren't lining up for this job. So that's kind of how I got into it.

That's awesome.

Yeah. And then, I think your second question was like, what do adjusters actually do? Yeah. What do they do? Yeah. So this is also a fantastic question is we are there to help facilitate the claims process. I know that almost 99% of your listeners just said, uh-uh. Nuh-uh, I want to tell you about this one adjuster that I got. I'm gonna give you her name or his name or that insurance company's name. No, I hear you. I hear you. There is a systemic issue within insurance, and that is that your adjuster actually, I, you know, hand on Bible kind of deal, probably has 300 claims.

Yeah, we were talking about that.

And, and that means 300 emails coming in. What's the status of my claim? With 300 other emails coming in from the field appraiser saying, here's the estimate. So that's 600 emails that that one person has to look at. And then you've got like the claims manager breathing down their neck. And so while our job is to help facilitate, it sure doesn't feel like that. But hopefully you and I can give some pointers and help.

Yeah.

You know, get that grease going so the wheel starts moving so that we can just settle claims because a settled claim is a good claim.

Yeah. And it sounds like your role too. So I've been in partner roles in my career as well. And the partner roles have always been, I represent the partner, but I also have to represent my corporation because I work for that company. And it's kind of that balance. So sometimes I have to fight for my partners against my colleagues and my bosses. And then sometimes I have to fight against my partners in behalf of, or what it appears to be against my partners for my company, when in reality I'm trying to find the balance and negotiate that best serves a win-win-win-win-win versus you lose and you win, because it doesn't work that way. And we have to have a long-term relationship together in order to do that. So it sounds like you're kind of in that same role, which—

It is. Exactly that. I'm sorry for interrupting.

No, no, no.

But yes, it is exactly that. And nowadays, so much from even when I was coming up through the adjuster ranks, nowadays there's so much key performance indicators, KPI, like how much time do you spend on the phone? You've got to spend like 10 hours a week on the phone, or you have to return emails within 24 hours. There's no way you can return 600 emails within 24 hours. And, you know, I'm being a little facetious because you're not going to get 600 emails in one day. But you are. And I have a podcast myself where I talk to adjusters and I try to encourage the adjuster to say, look, you know, you got to go up to your team leader and say, this just— we've got to do something else. You know, you're literal title is adjuster. Adjust the claim. Literally, I mean, you know, if the insured wants $7,000 and you're at $5,000, gosh darn it, adjust the claim and split the difference. And there are a lot of carriers who will just draw a line in the sand and say, nope, you got to file suit. And they are extremely short-sighted, cutting off their nose to spite their face. It It's great for me as an expert witness, but I would love to put myself out of business, quite frankly. And I would hopefully, by telling some of our quote unquote secrets, I can do that even from the policyholder side.

Well, and speaking of that, like, what is— so I have my own experience going through the claims process, and I, because of my role in previous companies of partner management, where I told you that it was, you've got to constantly manage— sorry, I talk with my hands. You've got to constantly manage all the different entities to find out what everybody's expectations were. And I know my personal experience, it required me to kind of manage my husband a little bit, manage my adjuster a little bit, manage my company, all these different— all the insurance company, all these different things. Because I think everybody thought everybody was going to screw each other.

Yes.

My husband started thinking it, and the insurance company's like, oh, you're going to get a full remodel out of this. I'm like, I'm not doing any of that stuff. I'm not doing that. I mitigated my risk because I understand where my water shutoff valve is and everything else. And I just, I found ways to mitigate. That's a whole nother podcast that I already talked about, but it helped me understand a bit more about how to communicate with everybody. But I know a lot of homeowners and our listeners may not understand this whole process. And what does a claims process look like for a homeowner?

I am so glad you asked because I tell my students, I say, okay, students, Professor Roberts is about to get up on her soapbox, and you already know that Professor Roberts has issues, and her issues have issues. It's, it's just amazing how many issues I have. And our risk management and insurance book, when it talks about claims— and when it talks about claims, which is also one of my issues— there's only like a paragraph. And in one of that paragraph, or in that paragraph, all it says is there are 4 steps to the claims process. First notice, investigation, you know, coverage review, and then payment.

Okay.

And so I ask my students, look, guys, if there are only 4 steps and one of them is first notice and the last one is payment, why does it take so long?

Yes.

There's only 4 steps. And, and it's— one of them is payment. And then why do we deny claims so often? And these poor little students are just staring at me all doe-eyed because I'm about to go off on them. And, and I'm like, because the book is wrong, guys. The book is wrong. I said, first of all, There's not 4 steps. Second of all, the end result is not payment. The end result is resolution.

Yes.

Because unfortunately, we don't always pay for a claim as much as our insureds and claimants would like us to pay for a claim. And, and so we are fundamentally, even in insurance, Like even in the insurance industry, teaching people wrong by saying, oh yeah, we're going to settle that claim. We're going to pay it. Don't worry about it. No. And then what commercial have you ever seen talk about a denial? I mean, come on. Let's talk. But so when we're looking at what the steps are, yeah, technically you do have 4 steps. You do have turning it in. You've got the adjuster looking at coverage.

Mm-hmm.

got the investigation, and then you have the resolution. And a resolution may be a denial, which is again not what anybody wants to hear, but that is the resolution. What it all comes down to is the actual legal contract that you signed with your insurance company. And again, I explain that to my students too. I don't think anybody understands Especially insurance, that they have literally signed a legal contract, a legally binding contract. And if you're a business owner, you know what a legal contract is.

Yes.

But nobody thinks about that as insurance. Okay, so your question is, as I ramble on, what are the steps? You turn your claim in, your adjuster gets it, they will call you. What they are supposed to do Is call you and explain coverage to you, like what your policy covers, what it doesn't cover, then explain the next steps. Now, we did talk about how your adjuster has 300 people.

Yes.

And now they have 301. Great. So happy to be in this job. It's job security. And, um, so they don't literally have time. And so what they will do in a lot of cases is send out an an email or send out a text. And not to get bashing on generations or what have you, but there are now quite a few homeowners who are millennials or apartment owners who are Gen Z, and they don't pick up the phone for anybody.

Yeah.

And, and so you can't call them, and there is absolutely no way I could explain coverage to you in a text. It is entirely too complicated.

It would be a dissertation anyway.

Exactly. And it would be as long as the policy itself, and you wouldn't read that because nobody reads the policy. Heck, I didn't read the policy, my own insurance policy, until I had an insurance claim. And I'm an insurance adjuster. My husband is an insurance adjuster. My stepson is an insurance adjuster. My husband— or my father is an insurance adjuster. I mean, we are an insurance family. None of us read our policies. We're like, this is good. It's fine. We're covered just like everybody else, right? I mean, you know, and so we're supposed to be explaining these things to you. And a lot of times what you'll get is a form letter saying this is what you got coverage for. We will send someone out to look at your property, or you pick a contractor and you have them write an estimate and send it to us.

Yeah.

And we'll get back with you. And that's kind of where it dies. But one of the things that you're— that most insureds don't know is that the policy states it is their job to give the insurance company the information. Like, it's your job to prove up your claim. Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

We know as an insurance company, you don't know how to write an estimate. So that's why we send out people to do it.

Correct.

But if we're too busy, I, you know, we're going to send you a letter saying, go get an estimate. And it makes you mad as a policyholder because you're like, what do I pay premiums for? What you pay premiums for is to pay for a covered loss.

Correct.

But technically, the insurance company does not have to do anything. However, again, they realized you don't know how to do it, so they invented the role of adjuster, who again is supposed to be the facilitator, who again has 300 people. And I'm using 300 as a nice round number, you know, sometimes it's 900.

Yes, totally. So when it comes to— so when it comes to this, the point that you're trying to make is, as the homeowner, sometimes you have to take on the responsibility of Providing the data.

Yeah.

And especially, and I'll give you a good example, my case. My case was a really small claim, relatively speaking. And what I mean by that is it was lower on the 5-figure range. It was in a back hallway. It, like, I mitigated the risk. Everything was great. And then coincidentally, and I had this adjuster who was awesome, and he himself had gone through a loss, um, during a Galveston hurricane. I can't remember which one. And he had gone through it, so he understood the process. And I was like, okay, great. And he saw it like way larger than I, I had experienced. Mine was minor compared to everything else. Well, coincidentally, like 3 weeks later, one of the major, um, disaster hits, whether it's the LA fires or some hurricane or something hit. And I was like, what does this mean? And of course, my adjuster is so experienced, he was transferred to different cases. Which is the right thing to do as an insurance company. He's more experienced, he understands the total house loss, this, that, the other. He's been in the business a long time. And then I got a different adjuster who was younger, newer, never came to my house, anything like that. But I had a small minor thing, so all I needed to do was provide the data from one to the other and accept the fact that, you know what, I need to understand someone else's losses and put myself in someone else's shoes because these people— let's say it was LA because I think it may have been— they lost their entire house and everything in it. And my minor damage is nothing compared to that. And so I had to be more flexible and more, uh, knowledgeable so that I could then take the information from that I took from one adjuster, lay out what had transpired, give it to the next adjuster so I could speed up her process in order to make her job easy, because that way they could also focus on people who really need the really good work. And it just made my claim process a little bit easier. Was it perfect and was it seamless? Not always, but it was better than most. Yeah, because I just walked through the process.

I love that. I love what you did because so often in the catastrophe situations, again, this is going to be a little secret for, for everybody. The claims department is seen as the redheaded stepchild. And I say that as a redhead. You know, I say that as a redhead where we are way undervalued and underappreciated because we are seen by the, you know, C-suite as where the money goes out. And when you are looking at how to balance your budget, even think about your own home or whatever, you know, you stop going out to movies, you stop buying ice cream and candy, or, you know, you stop taking those extra vacations or whatever. So it's kind of thought of the same way with the claims department. If that's where all the money is going out, we're not going to hire more people. We're just going to stand where it is, which means that when a catastrophe hits, the claims department gets hit really, really hard. We get more claims and we can't handle it because, because we're human. Honest to goodness, we are human. Again, this is another podcast, you know, another story. But The issue is, is I happen to be working an expert witness case right now, and I think they went through at least 7 adjusters. That's a lot. And God bless them, they just had to keep resending the information over and over and over again. And it's frustrating. I know it is. Because when an adjuster happens to up and leave, they don't necessarily write a little summary for the next adjuster who takes over.

Yeah.

I can tell you about cases, CAT adjusters, catastrophe adjusters who are out in the field where they get so fed up, they literally will take their files, their paper files, and throw them out the window. And all of that data is gone. So the new adjuster that I would assign that to would have to start all over again. And so, so I love that the fact that you as the homeowner, you know, gave a little summary and allowed the adjuster to triage because, you know, it might not be hurricane Beth, right? You know, but it's Hurricane whatever, correct? There are other people who are much worse off that need to be triaged first.

Yeah, and I think that that's one of, one of the conversations I wanted to talk about too, is what can homeowners do more? Like, for someone like me, like, I create project management software, and I have all my life because I'm super organized and super efficient. And when I'm not, I think I lose my mind, to be perfectly honest. That's why I create all this stuff. But so how— what, at the most basic level, because some people are just not like uber-efficient project managers like me, what can homeowners do to provide their adjuster the information that the adjuster needs as succinctly and as quickly as they can in order to move the process forward?

Yeah, yeah, great, great question. Okay, so knowing that it is the insured's duty, or the claimant's duty, uh, if it happened to be like a third-party claimant or whatever, duty to provide all of this information. Just realize you can't sit back and wait for the adjuster. So know that if we're going to talk about homes, or even cars for example, but we'll talk about homes since that's what you necessarily do, you have to provide what's called, quote, insurable interest, end quote, which means you have to provide information that shows that you own the house or the piece of property that got damaged. So gather that deed or that mortgage or whatever, along with the mortgage holder's name, blah, blah, blah. Does the adjuster have it in the policy? Sure. Is it better to have it all in one place, in one document? Absolutely.

Yes.

If you get— I love the fact that if you get a new adjuster, give them the same information all over again. Because I guarantee you, having taken over several files before, where I put things is not necessarily where the previous adjuster put things. And I can read his notes and then go to the document section of the file, but I cannot find that deed or whatever because he's put it under important documents, whereas I would have put it under Right. You see what I'm saying? So send it to us all over again. Best thing you can do too to help speed up the process, and I do tell my insureds this and I tell adjusters to tell insureds this, is like, look, we're going to send someone out to take a look at your property. Get your contractor out there because what is going to help speed up the process is if my guy and your guy can walk the roof. Let's just say it's roof damage. Can walk the roof and come up with an agreed scope of damage. We may disagree on the value of that, but if we all agree there's 15 squares of shingles that are damaged, that helps narrow things down.

Yes.

And if we have your contractor information, then we can start talking to your contractor. Like, why are you putting 30-year shingles on this when they had 15-year shingles? We can't give upgrades. You know, yada yada yada blah blah blah. So start figuring these things out immediately. Another thing that insureds can do, and they feel like they shouldn't do it because they've heard horror stories about it, is like you did, is mitigate, which is that fancy insurance word meaning protect. It's that fancy insurance word.

Yeah.

Mitigate means protect. It's just insurance-ese. Is what it is. And so you've got to protect your property from getting worse. So if you have a huge gaping hole in your roof because of a fire, um, you better put some tarps over it and don't let rainwater get in it. Because guess what? That is going to be a second claim with a separate deductible.

Totally.

And it's probably not going to be covered because you let it happen, and then you're going to be mad at me. And, and I'm like, I mean, I, I know why you as the homeowner don't want to put the tarp on because you want me to go out there and take a look at it. But I can't right now for whatever reason. You know, I, I don't know, you just called the loss in and it's supposed to rain tonight or something like that.

Yes.

There's no way I can get someone out there this afternoon, for example. And these things have happened. I'm not making this up. I mean, these things have happened. So you go out to like, I don't know, Home Depot, Lowe's— not an endorsement there, there— but hey, call me and we could totally take your money. I'm happy to do that. Anyway, we're endorsed, um, you know. And, and I'm also not saying that you as grandma need to get up on your roof to put the curb on.

No.

Call the roofer. Call a roofer, any roofer. I don't care. Joe Bob and Bubba.

Yes.

And get them out there and get them to go up there and fall off the roof with a workers' comp claim. And then keep those receipts and give those to your adjuster. But the reason why it scares people is because, you know, you hear about this, like, oh, the insurance company didn't pay for it because they didn't get to see the damages. Hey, you know what? Every single one of our cell phones now have video capabilities. Ding, ding, ding. And photographs. In fact, quick, quick little side story, if you, if you will allow me. My dad asked me to bring the video recorder to some shindig that he was, he was doing. And I told him no, I just point blank said no, I'm not going to go to the office, go you know, traipsing through the closet to find the video camcorder back from the '80s, you know, that, that, that weighed 500 pounds and everything, and like look like a dork, um, you know, videoing you doing your little weird things. And he's like, why not? And I said, because I already have a video camera. And he's like, where? And I'm like, you, you called me on it. Mm-hmm.

Correct.

It's called your cell phone. So that's what you need to do. Upload that puppy to the cloud, send the link to your adjuster.

Yes. And I, and I, to your point exactly on that one scenario, because you don't think about it. So I'll tell you a quick little thing. So the first thing is, if you are in this place where you don't want to get on your roof, just FYI for people out there, You know, our roofer, we, we talked about this on another podcast, our roofer used a drone system because our roof has all these points and they didn't like, no, no, no, we have to repair it. We don't want to get up on it twice. I'm like, we're cool with that. And so they used a drone. So if you've got a neighborhood kid who's got a drone, have them do it too, because it's kind of fun. And then you'll have a different view of what's going on before the roofers have to come out or something, but make sure it gets covered to your point before a rainstorm comes in. But Ironically, when we had our water damage, I forgot to tell this story. We— somebody left the door open or something, I don't know, one of the contractors. Like, because I've got drywall and I've got to plaster everything, and literally I got drywall tape and I'm sanding everything, and it's dusty as all get-out. We've tried our best to cover everything, but invariably one of our bathrooms was open, and, um, it was the one everybody was using, but it was also where our outside door was. And so all of a sudden we have a bat in our house. I'm like, oh sugar, okay. And so my husband and I are strategizing because this bat could have done a lot of damage, and it could have been a bird, it could have been a squirrel, could have been anything else that could have done more damage as I've already gone through the claims process, right? And we're in the middle of the claim itself. I'm like, great, this is going to be a crazy town. So I'm like, well, we're not going to kill it. We're not gonna like figure it out, but we got to be careful because you know you just have to be careful with wild critters. So we found a way to disassemble windows, this, that, the other, open things, close the door, turn off the lights, and then lo and behold, give it a couple hours, don't use the bathroom, bye-bye, bye-bye, away it went all on its own. It figured itself out. But to your point, if we had had any critters coming in, they could have done more damage. And so that was always my biggest challenge is critters, because I got critters coming out my wazoo in my house. And I'm like going, why is there another critter? Where, where are you coming from? Why do you need to be here? And so that's a whole nother podcast. But to your point, yes, mitigate whatever you can, protect whatever you can, because that's important. Now, one of the things that we also talked about, um, Is who's responsible for what in the claims process? And this was like part of this discussion we had that I thought was like so very fascinating. And I want my, my listeners and my customers to know you have responsibilities just like the insurance company and the adjuster does. So it's not a one-way street. It's everyone has responsibilities. Can you help define what some of those are for all the different parties?

Yeah, yeah. Again, okay, so again, you as the homeowner have to prove up your claim. So there is in the policy a section called conditions, and in that conditions section there will be something to the effect of your duties in the event of a loss, or duties in the event of a loss, and it will say things such as You have to report the claim promptly. What does promptly mean? Nobody knows. It's not defined. And I don't mean that facetiously. I just mean promptly. Now, what prompt is to me may not be prompt to you. And if there's a catastrophe, promptly definitely changes.

Right.

And again, that's the Department of Insurance. It's what a jury decides, and a jury is, is from what, quote, reasonable people, end quote, are. What's a reasonable person? Again, nobody knows. Nobody knows. But anyway, it'll say if you have a theft, you need to file a police report. You need to cooperate with us. Any of your representatives have to cooperate with us. We see as adjusters or insurance carriers—

Mm-hmm.

Many homeowners get public adjusters, and I think because there is kind of like what you and I've talked about, there's a huge mistrust of the insurance industry, of the claims process, of all of that. And so a lot of people want to have some kind of representative for them, for their own selves.

Mm-hmm.

And I can understand that, but in a lot of cases, that public adjuster is not necessarily cooperating with the insurance company. Well, that insurance or public adjuster who represents you also has to abide by the duties in the event of a loss.

Yes.

So they have to cooperate with us. When we ask for things as the insurance company, you or your public adjuster have to give it to us.

Yes.

Now here's where it kind of gets a little interesting. The almost all states, I think, except one, and it might be Arizona, but don't quote me on that because Arizona is a little weird. Yes. And I love you, Arizona. If it is you, I did. I have no idea. But every state has what is called the Unfair Claims Trade Practices Act or the Unfair Claims Settlement Act, and it's usually codified, meaning it's law.

Mm-hmm.

Okay, so in the policy are all of your duties, and if you read your policy, which nobody does, but if you read your policy, you will realize that there are no insurance company duties anywhere really listed in it, except that it says we will pay you in the event of a covered loss. It's like one sentence, and then it goes into all of the reasons why we won't pay you. I mean, literally. But other than that, there's nothing there for the insurance company. Like, our duties, we're like, yeah, boom. Um, and it's all about you. It's all about you. Um, it's not us, it's you. And that didn't work out so well for the, for the homeowners. And so law People said, you know what? It's like we need to codify this and make some laws about this. And so, sure enough, if if you're having difficulties or you want to know what the insurance company's duties are, Google your state Unfair Claims Settlement Practices Act, Unfair Claims Trade Practices Act. However, that your particular state names it, and there's going to be a whole section on that. And some of the things that it talks about is, A, we have to tell you what your coverage is. We cannot misrepresent what your coverages are. So that's the reason why you get a letter or a phone call at the very beginning of a claim that says, hi, Mr. and Mrs. Insured, this is so-and-so, your insurance adjuster. Here's your policy. Here's your date. of loss. Here's your, you know, policy dates. It falls within there. So that's looking okay. You've got coverage for this, you've got coverage for that. You don't have coverage for this, you don't have coverage for that. I'm going to send out an appraiser to take a look at it. I'll get back with you. And so, you know, there's that. Um, we can't lowball you. And, and that is a, a favorite of plaintiff attorneys to, to throw around in bad faith cases. Here's the— and, and this is what I will tell your, your listeners is just because you and I disagree on a value of damages doesn't mean we're lowballing. It means we have a disagreement.

Correct.

That's what it means. A jury or a judge will have to decide what the actual value is if we go to court. And, you know, it could be that we say the damages is $10,000 and you say that it's $415,000. That's a huge difference.

Yes.

But we're not necessarily lowballing. Does it happen? Sure it does. There's bad apples everywhere. Don't get me wrong. You know, it says something to the effect of we've got to give you all the forms that we will expect you to fill out. You know, it says the— oh, I don't know. I can't think of— oh, oh, we have to communicate with you or we have to settle within a certain amount of time. Some states will say 30 days. Some states will say 30 calendar days. Some states will say 30 business days or 15 business days. Think about— think about 15 business days. That's, you know, 3 or 4 weeks. A lot longer. You know, and while that seems like a really long time in today's society where we send everything via email, that's what they say is, is okay.

Yes.

And then you've got the Department of Insurance riding over all of this, and the Department of Insurance can't change the law, but the Department of Insurance can give its interpretations of the law and It can say things like, okay, so you're supposed to communicate promptly. Nobody knows what promptly means. It's not defined anywhere. It's not defined in the law. It's not defined in the policy.

Correct.

We say promptly is 2 weeks. Okay, great. And then a catastrophe will happen. All right, great, guys. You now get 3 weeks. You get an extra week. You know, because there's such an influx of claims. So there's a lot of different duties by a lot of different people, and these are where you can find all of these things.

Yeah, and I will say, because I'm going to weave in some of my own experience because I thought that was really interesting. So when I shifted adjusters, I never spent the time talking to her on the phone, and it really wasn't necessary. I talked to the other person on the phone the first time. I understood the process. That's all I need to understand. And I then was working with all the parties via email, which in my opinion, I liked email because it documented the conversation. But 2, it allowed people who are super busy to read it when they need to read it. And I realizing I'm not going to get instant responses because I don't give instant responses. So I'm like, I get all that. And I'm not, I don't ever expect that. I'm like, we're not here in the emergency room trying to save a life. That's just not what we're doing. We're not in a fire as a fireman trying to save a life. This is claims, and I know it's challenging, and I know it's frustrating, and I know it's sad, and all this other good stuff, but it's not saving a life. So I put it into perspective. But one of the things that I needed to do, which goes back to your proving it as the homeowner, is for whatever reason, my insurance adjuster, the new one, she didn't include drywall tape in The the document, and I was like because I have an estimate from the contractor that they recommended, by the way. And then she gave me an estimate, and I'm like, well, first of all, this is the contractor you recommended. But okay, whatever. And then I looked at it, and I started piecemealing things because that's what I do. And I go, oh, she left out all this drywall tape. And drywall tape for anybody who's on the phone is expensive. And homes across the country are different. I am originally from the East Coast, so I like smooth, smooth, baby butt smooth walls. That's what I like. And in California, imperfect smooth is the standard. Not in my house, it's not. It's clean, smooth, beautiful, smooth walls. And so that requires drywall tape. But that's thousands and thousands of dollars that was left out of the adjust— the estimate. And I was like, I just want to make sure you are aware you left this out before we get started. We need to know that this is covered because I'm not going to get the walls that I had before if you don't include this, and my drywall won't stay up, just FYI, and other than screwing it, nailing it in. And so to her point, she was probably really busy, and I didn't attack her, I just educated her, and she made the adjustment and said, oh, you're right, I totally forgot about it. And she just put it in there, and then everything was copacetic. And it was just my ability to review the details and say, okay, and I'm the kind of person, I'm going to listen to my contractor, I'm going to listen to everybody else, but I'm not going to actually fully trust them all because I know everyone's trying to figure out what they want to do. And I'm like, whatever, I'm going to get down to the details. And so that's what I did. And it helped me help her do her job better and help the contractors get what they need in an efficient manner as well. So I played that mitigator and that liaison between everybody in order to move the ball forward. Because it was with that conversation with my contractor where the estimator said, I think they left out drywall tape. And I go, what are you talking about? They didn't leave that out. And then I look, look, look, and I go, son of a gun, they did. And so lo and behold, that was the difference. And once we got that resolved, it was easy, but I wasn't going to start the project By the way, until it was resolved. So I held up the construction until— and the repairs— until I understood what was going on.

And there are pros and cons to that, but totally keep, keep going.

No, there are pros and cons to that because I had to live with a crazy house and stuff like this. But it was— yeah, it was crazy house. But the reality is I want to make sure that we're all on the same page. Before things get started. Now, don't get me wrong. I've been in construction a long time. Invariably, sometimes something happens that you don't predict because that happens. I mean, you could have water damage in your house, and all of a sudden that water damage could actually be this pinhole leak that's been going for a really, really, really long time. And all of a sudden, everyone did an estimate, and no one found the mold that was sitting in there for a really, really long time. And so now you've got mold treatment. And that's a change order or some other component that has to be approved. So I'm a firm believer, know what your whole perspective is and then also know how to manage it moving forward. But to Chantel's point, we as homeowners have to be organized and aware of what's going on. Remember, the people, our insurance companies, most of them never even set foot in our homes. They don't even know what we own. They know nothing.

They're not even in your same state.

Exactly. And you're filling out a policy and you're telling them what you have and this or the other, but they've never seen it. And so they don't know what's going on. So it's up to you to educate them. So that's what I love. But I agree with you though on the insurance companies. They tell you what they're not going to cover. So I was laughing when I was reading what wasn't covered and I'm like, are you serious? And I go, fine, whatever. And I go, because I read my contract When I got the water damage too, I didn't read it beforehand, but I was like, okay, now I have a clear understanding what I have to come out of pocket for and then what they are going to reimburse me for. And I was like, okay. And for me, I think the process was a little bit calmer because I had clarity.

Yeah.

And it's frustrating, but I had clarity.

I think you mentioned a really good point that would be good for your homeowners because so many of them Don't know how to read an estimate. And, and unless you have had a podcast about that, I don't know.

We haven't.

But I mean, all they, all they know is that if they're like me, they'll flip to the back page and faint because it's like way more than what they expect it to be. And you, and you just go from there. And then you look at your adjuster's or your insurance company's estimate and you're like, okay, you're paying $10,000 and my contractor just wrote a $415,000 estimate. It's like, what is the difference? And 9 times out of 10, you can't figure out what the difference is. And there are a lot of reasons. One could be if both of them are using Xactimate or VeriFleet.

Yes.

For example, depending on how they have it set up, a lot of these things can be bundled like overhead and profit or depreciation. Or whatever, and again, your policy is going to bleed into and override a lot of these things. It it's become kind of an issue because again, adjusters are so busy that they're not explaining these things as well as they should. Where Louisiana has just passed a law that says if you change an estimate, someone else's estimate. You need to send a letter explaining what you've changed and why you changed it. I say good too, but then I also say, gosh darn it, guys, why, why are you having people make bad law about us? I mean, you should be doing your job in the first place. Think about, think about your grandma. Would grandma know how to read this estimate? The answer is no. So you need to pick up the phone and call Grandma and explain the difference and explain, for example, your policy does not cover mold.

Correct.

I'm going to send you, you know, a letter of declination. It's a partial letter of declination. I'm not denying the whole claim, just the mold claim. I'm going to take that out of, you know, your contractor's estimate. And and that will be the difference or whatever. Yeah, you know it won't be three hundred thousand dollars or three hundred thousand dollars of more. Whatever, you know what I mean?

But yeah, yeah.

Um, you know it's it's that kind of thing. And when and when you see that, I encourage you to call your adjuster and go, "Yes." Okay, I don't I don't understand what the differences are. Can you explain it to me? Because here's the deal again. You are the homeowner. You are in charge of the entire claim. And here comes the problem. Part of your duties in the event of a loss is that you can't let the property sit and get worse. Correct. So here's the here's the problem with not doing repairs until you get. A firm estimate. One would argue, and I would argue, that you probably can never get a firm estimate until the work is all done. Because an estimate, again, by its very name, is an estimate.

It is an estimate.

So we're never going to know how much the damage is. And Until the contractor gives you your final bill, right? But you got to start and you can't wait on us. So one of our duties as a carrier is to pay you what we know we owe when we know we owe it.

Correct.

That's a really long way of saying if we know we owe you $10,000, we cut that check. You think we owe $415,000. We'll discuss that other $375,000 somewhat later, but right now we'll cut you a check for $10,000. Start the work.

Yeah.

And when you find additional damage, call your adjuster. Found some damage. Come on out. Got to talk to you about it. Or take some pictures, you know.

Yeah, I'm a firm believer in It's the materiality of your damage. So mine was immaterial. I mean, relatively speaking, compared to everything else.

Yeah.

And so I was willing to hold it. And for those of you who are on the phone, you know, Chantal and I are talking about estimates. There's a system that she referred to called Xactimate. It is a system that both the contractors and the insurance companies will use to provide your estimates. However, they aren't always aligned because people, like any software, they can adjust it to their business. And because they adjust it to their business, it populates information out slightly differently, and it could be different phrases or or anything like that. So just mine my estimate was not that big. So the reason why I knew drywall tape and certain things were missing is because I put it in Excel because I'm an Excel genius, and I was like ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding, and literally I married them up, and I was like okay now I understand where the gaps are.

Yeah.

Because I wanted clarity in order to make sure that we can do this. And so just for anyone out there, that is the tool of reference for a lot of these situations. So just get prepared. There's a lot of details. It is not like your traditional— let's say you're doing a remodeling estimate from a contractor. They'll give you like a really broad scope of what they're trying to do, and then they'll give you a total. In the insurance world, there's a lot of details. I mean, they go down to like the studs and the nails and everything. It's very, very detailed. But remember, our homes are very, very detailed. So just keep that in mind when you're looking at all these. Do not get overwhelmed. Do not freak out. Just relax and read the details.

Yes, details are really important to your adjuster. And you, you had asked, you know, like, what is something that people can do to help speed things up. I am always of the opinion to give more detail. Give me more information than is necessary. You know, in talking about these estimates or bids or quotes or whatever, here's specifically what you as the homeowner would need. You need what's called a line item estimate. And that is exactly what it is. It literally means it's a light switch Almond, 220 volts, this name brand.

Correct.

Many years old. It is the wood stud that is attached to the Almond light switch. I mean, it's a line item as compared to when you get a renovation. Yeah, I'll give you, I'll give you a funny story. Yeah, again, a funny story. I called my plumber and I'm like, hey, you know, I want to replace the shower feature here. Give me a quote so that I can faint at it because it's going to be too expensive and I don't want to pay for that. And you know, you won't. Yeah, you won't do it anyway. And and he did. And and I said, okay, great. Did you give me the surcharge for you know all of the non profanity that you're going to have to do because you can't cuss in front of your your customer? And then the the three extra trips to Home Depot because they're using a metric system and you only have the imperial. You know wrenches and all of that. He laughed, but that's the kind of stuff I'm talking about. You you will get a quote that says, okay, I'll replace your shower head for 150 or $1,500, and you're like, what? This is crazy. Just a shower head? That's nuts. But if they were actually writing an estimate for an insurance, it would be like, okay, there'd be three plumbers. We have a stool. We screw it in, you know, counterclockwise on a full moon and a Monday, a day ends with Y, you know, third Tuesday. I mean, totally is granular, and you have to kind of do that. Now, on the flip side, I say all of that. On the flip side, you have contents and your house burns down. Okay, you know what? I do not. I literally do not want to know every single spice you had in your kitchen. I do not care. I do not care. Then you can go, spices, ah, $200? I don't know. There's a lot of saffron. My husband loves to cook paella.

Correct.

You know, I mean, we had books. Okay, $500? You don't need to list all of them because I don't care.

Yes.

But it works out really well if you do videos and, hey, up goes the HOMESADA.

And yeah, I'm telling you, HOMESADA, I'll take it all by AI, which is easy. But to your point, I mean, we have responsibilities as homeowners. Insurance companies have responsibilities. Adjusters have responsibilities. Adjusters are super busy. And one of the things we talked about just briefly before we, we end is Um, is we talked briefly about communications, and you talked about, you know, getting on the phone to really understand the process. And that actually did happen with me when I had my claim, and it was really good. In fact, I'm like, just tell me my process. I'm a project manager style person. Just tell me what steps I need to take, and even if they're out of order, and even if I know there's more steps that have to come, just give me an overview of what I need to do. And that was really helpful. And then the second thing that I did, which was helpful for me, I don't know if it was helpful for my adjusters. I think it was. I realized my adjusters may not have been in my same state as well. And I was like, oh heck, now we got time zones we got to deal with. So it's one of the reasons why I would do emails. And if I did emails late at night, so I got all my work done, I did them late at night, then in the morning, because I'm in California, I think they were in Texas, then in Texas they could get them a couple hours earlier and then they can respond. So it's no— it's not like this, oh my God, you gotta respond right now. It's literally, I could actually use the time zones and the days as an advantage for me in having this conversation and also allow for clarity. And they can respond to an email whenever They can respond to an email late at night, early in the morning, whenever, I don't care. Versus text messages that are unclear and they don't often show context, or people are so busy like with their phones. Like, I know me myself personally, I hate my phone. Like, I have this affinity, I'm like, I have this phone and I'm like, oh gosh, who's texting me now?

Hmm.

And are they going to give me enough context That I actually know how to respond to it. And generally you don't, and you're not supposed to. That's not what text was designed for. So when it comes to communication, I tried to be as thorough as possible, and I think that's why things ran smoothly. And I did that both with my contractor, and even though my contractor was local, and my adjuster and insurance company, all everybody. But what would you recommend with people? Because we do have all these different generations. Everybody from a Z to the elderly who are having to file claims, and some of them use technology and some don't. Mm-hmm.

Oh, such a good question. Okay, so a lot of our claims adjusters are either going to be Xs because most of the boomers are retiring.

Okay.

And I believe that Xs are mostly going to be the ones that Yes. And, and call people. And even if you're an X, as a claims adjuster, you may be calling a millennial or a Z, and that person is not going to pick up the phone. And I think one of the best things that has ever happened to me, I happened to be hiring a contractor, and they were way overcommunicative. It was like, what is wrong with you people? Like back up. I don't need this kind of communication from you. But it was it was really kind of funny how over communicative they were. They would send me texts like we're going to call you from the area code 913 between 10 and 11 a.m. Please be prepared for our phone call. And that was great because then I wasn't if I would have seen some kind of unknown caller from 913 area code, I would. Not pick it up because I would think it would be some kind of telemarketer or spam or whatever.

Reality.

Now, what's the chances of some telemarketer calling me between that? Okay, fine. But you know what I mean? And then, then they would call, or then they would text like, hey, your guy is on the way and your guy is approaching. I'm like, I don't care, just have them ring the doorbell. I need my dishwasher fixed or whatever, right? You know, um, but there's a lot of different ways to do this, and I think it depends on who everybody is and how comfortable they are with things, and then being able to step back and realize if the communication style isn't working. So I'll give you an example again.

Yeah.

Is the perfect example is I'm going to be calling you from this area code between this time. I have to talk with you about your policy, about your claim. Schedule 30 minutes. Is this time going to be a good time? And then you as the homeowner can immediately answer back yes or no, or is this, is this time better? You know, I can't have my phone at my desk, you know, blah blah blah. Okay, fine, great. Then the adjuster can sit there and explain the process to you.

Yeah.

And it could take up to 30 minutes, guys, Because again, insurance is complicated. It is not something that's really, really easy. And if we need, it's hard to go through every single step, which I kind of didn't do with y'all. But even when you get through the first steps of the adjuster going out and adjusting or writing an estimate, that estimate still has to come back to maybe the desk adjuster who is in, I don't know, New York. And you're in California or whatever.

Yeah.

And then that adjuster has to look at the estimate and apply coverage to it. They got to look at the policy again. Well, I mean, this can take a couple of days. And now so many other companies are like, we got to run it through our price verification thing and make sure that they're, you know, not charging you 15 squares of drywall tape instead of 3.

Correct.

And you're just like, guys, give them the 3. Who cares? But it's a whole— that's a whole different podcast anyway.

Correct.

You know, it's funny because Bill and I, that's, that's what our key phrase is, is we keep going as a whole different podcast on our podcast as well. Then, you know, most people like email. But the problem I found with email is, okay, everybody, unless you're driving, Raise your hand if you pay attention to your boss's email. Nobody does. I mean, nobody pays attention to their boss's email. I mean, you skim it and you're like, oh God, what do they want now? And you may misinterpret tone. You may miss a key word. You may miss a key sentence or whatever. An email is great to kick something off very quickly, but I tell my adjusters. If you have something that is important—

Oh yeah.

Like a letter of denial, or I need this stuff from you, no crap, you know, um, you need to send it in a letter. Now you can send the letter in it as an attachment to an email, right? But, but also raise your hand if you pay attention to a letter. Yeah, I do. You know, I pay attention to a letter that comes to me via email as an attachment, and I pay attention to to a letter that comes to my, you know, mailbox.

Yeah.

And you send it that way. Listen, that, that little tidbit works for you as homeowners as well.

Okay, perfect.

Here's the deal. Adjusters are busy. We've talked about that.

Yeah.

You send a letter to an adjuster, that's freaking important. They, they sit up and pay attention to that. I kid you not. And then you mail it, and then you mail it as well. And they're like, oh, I better read it. Yeah, I was like, oh man, you know. Um, and, and so that's important. Now I'll give you again another example. Email is, is incredibly fast, incredibly easy. I'm working a particularly particular expert witness case right now where this adjuster and the attorney were going back and forth one day, and I swear there are 15 emails must have just been going boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. I mean, no sooner get an email before they're typing out the response and hitting send again, always to have the last word. I'm probably 7 emails in going, pick up the phone.

Exactly.

Pick up the phone.

Yes.

And, and the point being is because they were talking crossways.

And—

Right. And like you said before, it's so hard to recognize tone. And I have honestly, to one of my supervisors when I was working with Lloyd's of London, called London, called him, and I'm like, I don't understand what you don't understand. We must be having a cover, you know, a culture gap. Here, I do not understand. I think I'm being clear. So tell me what you think is going on, and and I'm going to try to understand you. And that's what you've got to do. And again, it could be even you as a homeowner saying, "I am going to call you, Mr. Adjuster," because it is impossible to get in touch with your adjuster via phone.

Totally.

You know, can I get an amen? But, um, it's impossible. So I'm gonna call you at 3 PM Mountain Time because that's where you are. You're in Colorado or wherever, you know. Um, 3 PM your time, 2 PM my time. Uh, will you be available at that time? And, and say, I need to talk to you. We're going to have a 15-minute conversation. Let's budget 15 minutes or whatever.

Yeah.

You know, and you all, like I said, you need to know when to stop that back and forth as well.

Yeah. And so it sounds like this whole conversation sounds like clarity is the key here. Clarity, clarity, understanding your insurance policy if you don't already understand it, making sure you can mitigate things at your house, making sure you understand what's going on. Making sure you understand some of the processes, making sure you understand the process of a claim, making sure you understand how to communicate with everyone and what is most effective depending on who you're dealing with as an adjuster and yourself as a homeowner. But also be proactive.

Yeah.

Be proactive and help the adjuster and the insurance company along as you provide more information, and that way that process can move more smoothly. That's at least what I found. Yes, the more clear I was, the smoother it went.

Absolutely. Um, to, to your point, you know, you had a claim and you mitigated your losses. Uh, I shared with you when we were talking earlier that we had a claim, my husband and I, and we're both adjusters. Like I said, we've got about 40 years between us, and it happened to be raining very hard. Sump pump died, and so we had about an inch and a half of water in the basement. And he called me down there, and both of us sat there looking at the water in the basement for a good 30 seconds. As adjusters, we were so overwhelmed with like, oh my God, what do we do? It's flooding in here. And and that's us having forty years experience before our training kicked in. And I use this example to talk to adjusters because I say, listen, if two adjusters with that much experience has a brain freeze.

Yes.

Where we don't know what to do before our training kicks in, it's no wonder that your insured takes 30 hours.

Yes.

To figure out what to do. That's why it's so important for you to call and talk to them. Now, again, talking about mitigation, my husband has a huge— he's a record You know, vinyl collector, and he made me trek up and down these stairs taking his vinyl records out of the basement because he didn't want them to get moldy from the humidity.

Totally.

Did I care? No. But I did because I didn't want there to be an insurance claim about that. Yeah, this is— and this is kind of like one of the things that I'm talking about. Don't let these things sit. We also got the antiques up on some bricks out of water so that the, the wood wouldn't soak up that water.

Yes.

Just don't let that stuff sit and then submit a claim 6 months later for this information. It's going to get denied, guys.

Yeah.

Which is not what you want to hear, but it's not covered. Yes.

And that's a good point. Like, be creative about how you mitigate things. Like, we knew where our water shutoff valve was. We knew some other things— close doors, turn off all these other big item things— because we had an area that didn't have a lot of stuff in it. But when there is items and personal contents that you have that you care about, like, start moving it.

Start moving it.

Start figuring it out. Like, if you put it on blocks, put it somewhere else, but get it off water. And I'm the first person to say it, Water can give you life, but it can take it away.

Yeah.

It can take it away. So, I mean, this is amazing. So I so appreciate you being here and telling us from an adjuster's point of view and insurance point of view, because I think a lot of homeowners need to hear this and realize that they're not alone in this when they've got a claim, that other people experience it, even adjusters. And then at the same time, clarity seems to be the key Any kind of clarity to move the ball forward. And it also sounds like mitigation. Any kind of mitigation that you can do to get going is a good thing. And I will say this, um, when I call your adjuster, have a physical phone call, which is also key. When I did call my adjuster and I explained it was water damage, I had no idea what a water mitigation team was.

Right.

Had no idea. None. Never. But those guys hogtied, got to my house, got everything going. I was like, what is this with fans and everything else? And they were awesome. So they were awesome.

You mentioned something that's really good, and one of the things that I would, I would like to mention real quick is that as a homeowner, you may feel that your adjuster is giving you the runaround or just doesn't care or what have you. And it's really hard for us to remember that this may be your first loss.

Yes.

This is our 5,000th water damage claim or fire claim or auto accident or whatever. So it may sound like we don't care, but it's, it's literally our job. So we, we do have to have our walls built up like I was talking about earlier. And also remember that we are human. We could be having a bad day. Yeah, I had given an example of one of the Bankrate articles that I had talked about is I remember getting yelled at one day by an insured, and I literally had to hang up the phone on him because I started crying. And it wasn't anything that he said because he was crying; he was yelling at me. It was because my two stepsons. Bless their little hearts. They were teenagers, and they decided that it would be better to continue to flush the toilet than to plunge it. So I had sewer, little 16-year-old boys' turds and sewage going down the ceiling and the wall. I did. You have to laugh. Down the stairs, I had, you know, I had to deal with that. And then 2 16-year-old boys going like, I don't know what the problem is. We can't feel as well.

That's right. Hmm.

Does that sound like a good idea? Okay, let's use our 2 brain cells and rub them together. Yeah, come up with an idea, guys. Um, but you know, that could just be that.

Um, yeah, it could just be a bad day.

You know, also I would say it does, uh, you, you do get a little bit more flies with honey than you do sugar, as we say, or, um, with vinegar. You get more flies with honey than you do vinegar, as we say in the South. Um, and I, you know, look, insurance is the only white-collar job I think I know where you get threatened on a— not a daily basis, but you can get threatened. I mean, I have been threatened to be killed. I have literally been told not to bring a knife to a gunfight.

Mm-hmm.

My dad has had to have the sheriff escort him onto an insured's property because the insured said, I'm not gonna— and again, you have a duty to cooperate, guy. I gotta clean up on it. I gotta do it, you know. Uh, um, so—

Play nice in the sandbox, people.

Yeah, play nice in the sandbox. Yeah, my husband— Remember, we're all human. And some guy said, I'm gonna come mess you up. And, you know, my husband was like, okay. All right, let's go. But I'm like, don't don't encourage people, babe.

Exactly.

Unless your life insurance is is paid up. Is is your life insurance paid up? Just asking for a friend. But anyway, what I'm what my point is, it it sounds like I'm defending the the adjusters, and I am. But it's also we forget how traumatizing it is for. We do.

Totally.

We forget it because we encounter it daily. Yes. You yelling and screaming at us is not going to make us remember.

No, and I don't think, to your point, I don't think yelling and screaming and any of that stuff is going to actually, and any threatens of violence or whatever, is going to move the ball forward.

Yeah.

It's going to slow down the ball. It's going to slow down progress. So why bother? Just have some grace. Understand the process. That's why we had Chantel on here, is to help you understand your responsibilities, the process, and understand that adjusters are busy and your hurricane may not be as big as someone else's.

Yeah.

Like, and that's coming from somebody who had a water claim and understood that there were some serious situations going on, and I had to give people some grace.

Yeah.

And my claim took a little longer to finish and close out the project, but I still had my home, whereas I know tons of people who completely lost their homes and they're having to recreate everything in the wheel. So we're just here to have some grace. Now, Chantal, how can people find you? And you've got some books you can talk to them about as well.

Oh, thank you. Yeah, so I have made a book called Once Upon a Claim: Fairy Tales to Protect Your Assets. It is specifically for— it is specifically for consumers because, like you, I was very concerned that consumers don't understand the insurance process or the claims process.

Yes.

And so it uses fairy tales, nursery rhymes, and fables to explain the insurance process. So, for example, we've got Rapunzel. And talking about, you know, trespassing and business licensees. And, uh, we've got the 3 Bears doing the same thing. We've got, um, oh, I don't know, it's, uh, we've got all of them. Um, 3 Blind Mice teaches you how to read a policy.

That's great. I love it.

Um, and of course I get a little creative with a few of them. But anyway, um, yeah, so You can get that and you have the link that, uh, you can— the— your clients, your listeners can order with a, with a huge discount, like 35%. So it's, it's fabulous. And there's— oh, there's illustrations. I mean, it's like a literal, you know, fairy tale book and everything. Uh, but they can find me either at theartofadjusting.com. The Art of Adjusting is the book that I've Originally wrote for adjusters. Consumers can read it too. It has lots of helpful hints, but I wrote it for adjusters. So maybe it's a little bit— I use lingo that I wouldn't necessarily explain. You know, for example, Once Upon a Claim does have a glossary in there.

Awesome.

Yeah. So it also has—

It's almost like a toolkit that helps people connect to the adjusting process.

Yes, and I did some flowcharts because I am a very visual learner. And, and so I wanted people to see this is all that's going on in the background. Yeah, the book says there's 4 steps, but there's like 15 sub-steps and step 3 that's going on in the back that you don't even know about. Because your adjuster isn't going to call you and say, hey, you know, Call you about I am now entering step 13.7, you know, or whatever. And there's no point for you to know that. It just slows down the process. You just gotta kind of trust the process. So that's where they can find me: theartofadjusting.com. They can find me there. And the two books I recommend for your listeners: Once Upon a Claim, Very Helpful to Protect Your Assets. Thank you for letting me plug that. Brilliant.

No, I think people need to understand things, and I'm a huge book reader, so I can't wait. Mine's on its way, and I'm excited to read it. I can't wait to read it. So thank you so much for joining us, Chantel, and we hope you found this podcast of Be a Smarter Homeowner— Be a Smarter Homeowner— something that you can use. And also, we want to provide more information like this, so if you have some guests you want to recommend, please feel free to do And by all means, if you think other people need this, please share this episode with anybody who's in this position right now. We appreciate it. And for now, stay tuned. We'll be back with another Be a Smarter Homeowner podcast shortly. Have a great day. Bye. Thank you for listening to the Be a Smarter Homeowner podcast. Visit beasmarterhomeowner.com to sign up for our newsletter. And find out more about software to help you save time, save money, and manage your home.