Commercial Roofing & Claims Discussion with Zach Baker

Hey, everybody. Welcome back to Contractor Radio. My name is Jim Johnson, your host here at Contractor Radio and the head coach at Contractor Coach Pro, where we help contractors get control of their business so they can grow their business and find personal and financial freedom. I'm pretty excited about our guest today. I did not know this guy. I understand we're friends on Facebook and I see some stuff here and there, but. But he was referred to me by a guest that we had on not too long ago and he was described as a commercial claims expert. So if you're not an insurance restoration contractor might not be the show for you, but if you do work on people's homes, you might pay attention because this guy's going to bring some a game here when it comes to what we do and how we do it, when it comes to the claims process and who you might involve and who you might not involve. If you're looking for somebody to help you with your business as far as growing and scaling it, check us out here at Contractor Coach Pro. You can go to contractorcoachpro.com and click on the assessment button. Take a quick assessment. Take you about 15, 20 minutes from that assessment. We'll do a free coaching call with you. No, not a sales pitch, an actual coaching call. We'll hop on with you for about an hour and we'll go over the two or three things that we see from your assessment that would move the needle for you in growing your business. If you like coaching, great. We would love to have you as a client. If you don't, at least we served you well that day and helped you move a little bit more forward in your business and in your life. So I. My special guest today, like, we got to talk for a few minutes. Before we got started. He actually thought we were doing the show. It was already good. I hope he brings that game whenever we do this. His name is Zach, Zach Baker. He is a founder and principal at the David Group and he knows a lot about commercial claims and he's kind of one of those guys that flies under the radar and kind of likes it that way, but he's being pushed out there a little bit by his buddy. So, Zach, welcome to the show, man. It's good to have you on.

Hey, thanks for having me on. I appreciate it.

Yeah, this is going to be really good because I know you probably aren't a huge fan of doing this kind of stuff, but you're really good at it. Our talking earlier, I was like, hey, this is going to be a great show. So let's, let's do a good job for everybody here.

Let's do it, baby.

Described as a commercial claims expert. We're going to get there, but can you give us a little history and background? Like how did you get kind of that kind of a title with what you do and where did you come from?

So I'm originally from Chicago. Chicago area. My levels. All right. Hear me all right?

Yeah, you're great. Yeah.

All right, good. So I started prior to this almost 15 years ago now. I was part. I was a partner at a real estate redevelopment firm in Illinois. We did mixed use projects. I was the guy on site. I am proficient in all the trades. I was actually at one point an electrician. I've worked extensively with old hardwood floors, like anything you can think of on a conversion mixed use project, commercial mixed use project. I've done.

Somebody that is like a commercial claims expert. That's actually like contractor background. That's on you.

Yeah, man. And, and literally did and became proficient at every single trade in some of the most difficult ways. And I had a, and I had a buddy of mine called Paul me who owned a roofing company and he just kind of gotten into the insurance side of it and he says, hey man. But he's, he's, he's not a social guy. He's a contractor. Not good at talking. He said, I would really love you here. I have an engineering firm on this adjustment. It was a big Victorian in Rockford, Illinois. He said, I need, I need somebody here who knows what I do, you know, knows, knows the trades, but can talk kind of convince somebody this, okay. And I met my buddy, my, who would become my friend Chris, who at the time worked for Donut Engineering. And I, by the end I, and I scaled the roof. I scaled the roof of this thing like a madman without cougar paws or anything on because they didn't know they existed. I had roofing boots and took about three dozen pictures, brought them down to him and told him every reason why I was wrong from a technical standpoint when it comes to roofing and the construction of the home and everything else and the period of the build and everything else. And he said, well, I feel like an. I said, well, you kind of are. And we left. And I said, I don't know how you're going to deny this with everything. I just went over. I didn't know anything about the claims process. This was like 16, 15, 16 years ago. He called me back 15 minutes later and goes, hey, you want a part time job. He said, but you've got to do the opposite of what you did today. So I spent two years doing contract work for Chris for Donut Engineering, helping them. There you go. Yep. Helping them adjust claims. I'll just put it that way for legal purposes. And then had a. Had a crisis of a conflict of character issue with some of the practices and left and may or may not have been blackballed at that moment. I love it.

I can live with that. Black ball.

Yep. Yeah, I could as well. And that second year, I was actually doing it, working with them. I actually started doing sales for a roofing company. I started kind of. I was kind of playing both sides at once, and then fully came to the other side. And in 2013, I became a PA in Chicago. Yes. Okay, gotcha. I did a lot of commercial claims work in both Chicago and Rockford. I live in Tennessee now, but up until about four or five years ago, at least half, if not more of the commercial roofing insurance projects I was a PA on. That's not an exaggeration. Worked with all the biggest developers there as well. Still work with a number of them. But while I was becoming a public adjuster, I kind of started noticing I can talk, I can do this, I can argue. I'm learning policy. I'm doing all these things and doing these continuing ed classes. I know about the building material and the building side of this, but I feel like I'm lacking in some of this knowledge. So I actually. There was a gentleman who. And I don't know if he wants me to mention him, so I won't, but he left mka, Madsen, Knepper and Associates, who's a huge, predominantly carrier side of consulting firm. He left them and was doing his own thing before he retired. I shadowed under him on and off, just in my free time, basically carrying his tools, doing core analysis for him, collecting samples, everything. For about two years, on and off, just to learn. He was a registered roof consultant just to learn everything I could from him, and he was brilliant. In addition to that, worked with other. Other engineers. I've worked with lawyers prior to this a lot in the real estate world and then work with a lot of lawyers now spend a lot of time with companies now. So it's just I'm one of those people where I. I'm constantly throwing myself into situations where I can learn more. And if. If somebody asks me something and I don't know the answer or I don't know the solution, I will find it, even if it has to be Done with somebody else in other settings.

That's a pretty cool story from, from like being a project manager. It sounds like kind of the start of it. Electrician. Learning the trades and, and like performing the work and then slowly but surely gravitating over here to the dark side.

And I was working 90 hours a week back then, to be clear. 90 hours a week when I was doing that work.

Wow.

Because I was, I was managing units, multifamily units, historic buildings, and I was in charge of all the maintenance and I was the site guy. So I was literally working like 90 hours a week. Mouth.

That doesn't sound like a lot of fun.

No, it was horrible. That was when I used to drink. Yep, yep.

So. So we've, we've moved into this public adjuster realm. This. And especially in the commercial world. And you learned from some of the best along the way. What is it that drives you craziest about the self proclaimed commercial experts? Because they're everywhere and I can't, it's kind of like a contracting coach can't shake a dead cat without hitting one.

Yeah.

And this was, you know, 10 years ago, there was nothing like it. And we started this thing and now they're everywhere. Do you feel kind of the same way on the, on the commercial claim side of things?

This is such a long conversation.

So, okay, we are on a podcast.

It's, it's multifaceted. It is the PA side, the appraiser side, the umpire side, the attorney side, the roofer side. There are, and this could sound horrible, the majority of people that are in this business. And I think you find, I think it's like a child, remember, you hear like about attorneys and doctors and you go, they're all geniuses. Right. Because that's what you think. And then you, you meet them and you go, half of you are idiots. Like, what are you? It sounds like they're human. You. It's a human thing. By definition. Great people are above average. So you have great. Average is the majority. And then crap. And it's no different with our industry. Right. Except everybody claims to be the best and the best and the best. And I've never claimed to be the best.

Yeah. Call yourself that. Somebody else called you that. Which, that was a big reason why I had you on. You didn't come to me and say, hey, I'm. I'm the, you know, commercial claims expert or the roof guru or any of that kind of stuff. Somebody else said that about you, which gives it way more credibility.

I don't I don't, I don't. That makes me really uncomfortable. Dude, I'm going to be honest with you. The PA side there have been. I have, I have. In the almost 15 years I have been in this industry, which is not long, but I think it's long enough to know enough with the probably thousand plus couple thousand maybe projects I've been involved in. In some way, the number of bad public adjusters I have seen way outweighs the good ones from. I mean, people that are just not qualified people that.

You mean when you pass that test, it doesn't qualify you.

Oh my God, man. And, and, and people that just. All they want to do is grow, grow, grow, grow, grow, grow, grow, like they're a Fortune 500 company. And I remember one guy specifically, won't say who, who had like 40 PAs working for him and he, he was about to become a producer and all this stuff. And then it came out that. And the only reason I found out about this before everybody else is because I had a buddy of mine who is still involved season ia who we were trying to form an underwriting, a small underwriting company. We pitch it to a couple carriers. Me from the plaintiff side, him from the carriers. I have a couple other people. We're going to do underwriting inspections specifically for carriers. And they're all their answers are basically like, nah, we'd rather collect premiums. And then, you know, once, once they file the claim, tell them no damage, non renew. And that will, that will, you know. Anyway, what I heard from him, he goes, hey, you know this guy? I said, of course, we all do. I work with some of his people sometimes he goes, stay away from him because these two carriers have been purposely paying his claims for two years because they're going to charge him with fraud and rico and all their kinds of stuff. So it, once you get on the radar for being a, especially as a PA dude, they are not going to let it go. And that's why I tell everybody one of the top things that we do. I don't care if it's pa, I don't care appraisal, I don't care if it's consulting our entire approach. I'm not going to say that our estimates are never a little high on things, okay? Just like no carrier guy, Steve Badger, nobody else is never going to tell me that the carrier is never a little low, okay? But there's a, there's a science to that. There's a fine line that a lot of PAs and a lot of people I See it all the time will jump over it and they justify it with like this self aggrandizing like they're Marvel superheroes or the Robin Hood or whatever it is. It's like no man. The way to handle this is to be above approach the entire time. Have a better work product, have your numbers, be consistent. And not only that, have your, your, the, your work product in general and what you do, be consistent for long periods of time. Because if you ever do become a legal expert, be prepared for that to be thrown in your face if you're not.

Do you get to do some of that? Be a legal expert?

Yeah, I, I shy away from it somewhat because.

It'S a lot of effort for a little pay.

No, that's not really it honestly it's because I, I, I talk a little bit too much when I'm deposed.

Ah, okay, gotcha.

And it gets, it can get. I'm very good at not being confrontational with the opposing side. But carry attorneys have a way of bringing that out me because I'm somebody I, I have a lot of, a lot of continuing ad and different things. I've had a lot of time in this. Anybody that knows me knows I know what I'm talking about. Because if I don't, I'm going to find somebody who knows what they're talking about. I'll get an expert just like everybody should. But they like to bring up, you know, I, I dropped out of college three times and, and they love to bring out, I don't have a college degree. I don't do this right. I say everybody's talking about this to all the things you know. But you don't have a college degree. No, I don't. You're not an engineer? No, I'm not. You know and it's like well look at, look at my work. Look at, look at the, on an annual basis, the number of humongous claims that we come into where the carriers paid 30, 40 grand and then it ends up being, or here's one recently we just got done with in, in Texas in South Dallas, one of the biggest churches in Dallas. Okay. Pa got in there, got his money, killing it man. 140 grand in a big church, right? Year later they've got leaks everywhere. Either didn't look or didn't know what to look for on the TPO portion. Hammered. Hammered. TPO damage admittedly is hard to find if you don't know what you're looking for. But don't take the project on dude. Or bring somebody knows what they're talking about, we won. After I was a PA on it, and the carrier admitted that the damage happened from the hill, but it wasn't damage. We admit that the markings come from hail. The. The cap sheet on the ISO was fractured, and there was even some fractures in the tpo. When I was at the adjustment, they brought an engineer with them, a consultant, another register of consultant, an adjuster, and another adjuster I brought. I brought one.

They didn't want to pay for that.

Yeah, I brought one PE with me. Okay. Just to have him there. So I didn't make any misstatements. And I'll give you the short version of the story. The answer was, that's probably from where they dropped a drill during installation. That's from a screwdriver. I said, okay. And I took a blade, hook blade, and I cut up three squares of tpo. I said, let's flip it all over. Because they basically were trying to say that the random damage I found. I was on this roof prior to the adjustment for nine hours almost, because I was on my hands and knees. It's a huge roof, multiple elevations finding fractures and poly ISO finding any kind of indentations in the tpo, any kind of damage, anything I could find. Okay. Hitting it all with wax. And then they basically are insinuating nobody would put that much work into this inspection. You caused the damage without saying it. Okay. And I start cutting squares of TPO back because I already had a waiver from the. From the. The church. I go, did I do all this, too? And literally, you pull back and just random hits in the poly ISO, the cap sheets fractured everywhere. Like, little bit of damage here and there that they're trying to say was. And their answer to that was, okay. It has no impact in the functionality. Even though we had. I had brought with me. I knew they're going to say this. I brought with me a report from another individual who's considered to be an expert in the field, and an installer guide basically showing why it's damaged and why. Why it actually depreciates the value of the system. And their answer, months later, was, basically, we're admitting that that is from hail, but it's technically not them. I said, okay, let's go to appraisal, then we'll just go to appraisal. We went to appraisal and the award with a carrier. The umpire was a carrier guy, a fair guy, but a carrier guy. And he goes, and the whole time, to be fair, the carrier's appraiser is not playing the same game that my guy is. It's very clear that he's getting coached. There's this. That he agreed to seven different things at seven different times. I don't know if he's being coached by the attorney or by the carrier. I probably would think the carrier by the way he was responding. To be honest, I could be wrong. And in the end, we get a 1.9 million dollar award sign. Wow. This is something we do all the time and we don't talk about it because it's. It's. It. I told you this before we started. I don't like flying too close to the sun. I'm not some magician. I'm not some guru. It takes work, man. It takes the right people. It takes a team. It takes the bright situation, right? And a law firm of somebody we mentioned earlier who is on the opposing side, who their owner is kind of a controversial or the lead partner is kind of a controversial person. I don't. I don't think he's that controversial. I think he just does his job. And actually, I like when he talks at things like the plan.

Yeah, he's good at what he does.

Dude. I love hearing him. And we're talking about Badger. I actually love hearing Steve talk because I disagree with like 40 of what he says. But it's so revealing. It's so revealing hearing him talk about things because I can kind of smell then, like, what you already suspect is happening from being in the field. You. You can see kind of, you do this, and often enough on a daily basis, you know it's coming down the pipe. But when you hear him say it out loud, you go, I was right. That's. That's. That's the next new thing. But anyway, we negotiated out. One of his lawyers called, and they said, hey, man, so listen, I have authorization for this. He goes, I have authorization for this. We talked for about a month and a half and ended up being 1.7 in new money. A lump sum settlement.

That's awesome.

And it's something we do.

All literally part to me is it had to go through all of that for a church to be taken care of. Had to go through all of that for an insurance company to finally say, yeah, we'll go ahead and take care of it. I mean, that's a reason that the professionals are out there. It's just I have my own opinions about PAs and attorneys and like everything else, there's good ones and bad ones and the need for them, whether it's necessary or not. But like you said, if I'm not competent in something, I'm going to go find the best guy there possibly is out there and get him involved on that thing. I really hate interrupting these videos, but I've got some important information for you. If you haven't tried out Atlas shingles, you should because they put you first as a contractor. They want to give you a competitive advantage out in the field so that you can win more sales and be more profitable. Check out Atlas in your local area, find your local rep, get hooked up with them today and start making more money tomorrow. So tell me a little bit about the David Group. What makes you guys different? So besides you just being completely obsessed with making sure you find what is there.

So that's kind of a two sided coin here, lack of a better term. So what we do is the process. We get the claim and as I said to you before the show, first thing we do is we review it for viability. Should this even be a claim?

In every claim you get it and viable. That's weird.

No, it is not. And I would honestly say viable. More than half, more than half of them are viable but. But maybe like 40% aren't viable. As scary as that is that we review honestly or ones that where I go that kind of make my skin crawl where I just wonder how much.

Time they have in it before that happens.

Okay, so here's here and, and we'll jump, we'll jump off this little road and get back, right? There are people that are contractors that I love to death and I think are good people and can construction wise they're great. But they've been in this industry for a long time and they've learned very little when it comes to claim side because for a long time it wasn't necessary and now they're having an aneurysm because they have to get people involved and they've met some bad PAs that are the Facebook famous guys that they feel like are dropping the ball or lawyers that are famous that feel like are dropping the ball and they, they come talk to me because they'll have another layout that say talk to this guy, just talk to him and they'll talk to me. I'll say this is what we charge. It's less than most people would charge at our level. Okay. Or if it goes to this, I'll shrink the PA fee or maybe it's whatever. And their response is nah man, we got it. Okay. And then they call me back six months later and they've the whole Thing that's. That's honestly probably half of what we get. And I feel bad for these guys, but it's like, dude, it's not just you that's learning the hard lesson. It's. It's the insured. Because I know behind closed doors you're telling them what to do, even though you're not supposed to be. You're kind of giving them advice and you're giving them bad advice, you know, and. And that's just the truth of the matter, man. Like, that's ones we get where it's like, hey, you know, there was. We. We want to take it to appraisal now. Okay. Can I look at it, like, beforehand?

Yeah, because I want to see that before we go to.

You're going to be the appraiser. Yeah. Send us the documents. You're going to be the appraiser. No, we're going to have to. You are going through the process. We'll send you a claims questionnaire. You fill out the Google Doc, you turn in this. Like, then I'll review it, man. Like, because you're a friend, I will bump you towards the top of the list. But no is the answer. And there's ones where they didn't realize the estimate wasn't enough money until they built a job. What? What are you talking about? You have a company that does 20, 30 million a year. Come on, man. Well, just do it now. No, we can't just do it now, the way you're talk about it and just puff up the estimate, dude. Because now it's just based on your invoices and your actual cost. Because if they suspect that you're puffing the numbers for appraisal, they're going to go after you for fraud and misrepresentation because the job's done. Like the. The play would have been do some temporary repairs. Talk to me then. Even if I'm not going to take it, if you think I'm too expensive, whatever else, God bless, or maybe I'll try and help you find somebody else. You know what I mean? But it's like that's when you talk to us. I don't need every claim on the front end because there are plenty of guys that can probably, you know, just meet insurance company out there, not be a pa, just whatever. But when you run into a problem, and the thing I tell everybody is this. And I will give this secret away, okay? Get right now, in 2023, the name of the game is just get coverage extended.

So be clear for everybody. Listen, not Everybody out there is like at your level. What do you mean by that?

The days of guys and lifted trucks showing up, throwing a ladder up, meeting the, meeting the, the big IAs out there and puffing up and yelling, chalking, doing my squares and just getting this replaced is gone. In most states it's gone. Okay, maybe some residentials, but if you play in the big boys game, that shit's a rap, buddy.

Millions of dollars.

Yeah, dude, and post Covid. How emboldened with all the money insurance companies got. Post Covid. We live in a system and I'm a free market capitalist, baby. I'm a libertarian. I love guns. I love all the good stuff. Right, but, but I'll tell you this. Yeah, but I'll tell you this. In, in, in 2023, it's, it's getting scary, man. You have multi billion dollar companies that are telling people to pound sand with no repercussions. Your elected officials aren't doing anything. So if you think just because you're Billy Badass, you're going to get this commercial claim approved, good luck dude. Have fun. Don't go there thinking that you are going to conquer the world and get something approved right from the jump of its.

And be very careful about what you say.

Yeah, dude, they're looking, they're looking. They're looking for people that are real confident that are either acting as public adjusters, the big one, last two years practicing a law without a license. That's why I'm very careful about what I say. I'll say hey, based on my personal experience or my experience as a public adjuster or I can't give you legal advice, but this is what the lawyers I work with will often tell me. Okay? Those are the phrases I commonly use. And I'll even tell them, dude, listen, this is what we've done in the past. It's worked. But let me introduce you to this attorney in this state, in this area. Let's get him on the phone. Probably get him right now or ten minutes from now. Let's get him on the call and talk. Right? Just get coverage extended, guys, just. And you know what? And then be honest with you. There is enough natural disasters occurring, guys that not every job that should be a repair needs to be a replacement. I'm sorry, that's going to piss people off. It's true. If, if you have one small area of TPO that's damaged, right? Fully adhered system, none of the rest of it's affected. It's got two layers of ISO. You moisture map it and just that 710 square area is affected. There's no lift up, there's no nothing. You have an engineer look at it. If you go to get that replaced after that you're a jackass because it's a repair. It's a repair dude, you know what I mean?

Do it right.

It's not, yeah, do the repair. And a lot of people, they see the one big job, they go, we gotta get it. I go, you know what's going to really get that real estate developer, that whoever that is, that that resource that's opening that door that got you on that roof. You know what's really going to impress them? If you say, hey, I know every other roofer told you this is a hail claim. It's not for these reasons. We had this guy we know who's an expert look at it and, and tell told us for these reasons it's not damaged. But there are these other areas that he found that are deteriorating rapidly that have moisture intrusion from things that aren't claim related that when they do an underwriting inspection they're probably going to non renew you. Okay.

And it's going to cost you less than your deductible to get it fixed.

And even if it costs a little bit more. Right. Here's the repair plan he put together. Yeah, he's a repair plan he put together for us. We'll charge you this for it. Done. And you know what? The next time put it in your pipeline. Be organized enough to keep a big pipeline. And then the next time there's a storm in that area, call them or they might even call you or I don't know, develop a maintenance plan. You know what I mean? Like dude, it's just lightning. Doesn't. It's just not. When lightning strikes, everybody thinks this is whale hunting. If you become a skilled professional and your work product speaks for itself more than your mouth does, whales will pull up on shore all the time.

You won't have to go, that was good. I like that a lot. They will come to you.

Yeah.

So review for validity. So you look these files over that are sent to you, do they send you what you need in most cases.

So we have. I'm sorry, I got off track again.

No, you're good.

And then we'll jump to the next part. We have a claims questionnaire submission that's a Google Doc form. A lot of times I'll have roofers or the PAs or somebody or lawyers call us and say, hey, we've got, here's what we're talking about. And I have, I give way too much access to people, by the way. I have an office, I have all these people, but I give my cell phone to too many people and they'll call me and at 10 o' clock at night and I'll go, just. I'll have Misty send you a claims questionnaire. Okay, thanks. Click. I look at it, review it, review for validity. And what it is, is it's like I think 11 questions. And then there's a list of documents that you need to send in a separate email. You can also submit it on the portal, on our, on our website, which nobody does. I don't know why they'd rather call me and text me things. And if, if you text me a document, a PDF, it's not going to be looked at.

You and I are going to be good buddies.

So stupid. Anyway. And I, and I'll, I'll say, hey, when can we talk? If it's not complete garbage, I'll say, when can we talk? And even if it's bad or if it's borderline, we'll talk. And I'll say, listen. And a lot of times when it comes to a claim, if it's, if it's borderline, I usually won't do it. I have some that are borderline. Not that the damage isn't there, it's just that whether we want to get involved and if I feel like I have a client that's really passionate about her in a tough spot, maybe we'll take it then, you know, and sometimes it's not even about, sometimes it's more about that. Like I have, I was telling you about that one I have with Big Red right now in Illinois. It's a residential case. It's like a hundred, it's like a million dollar residential case. They gave him like 70 grand. Yeah, it's old three, three story Victorian Central Illinois. And it's just, the only reason I'm doing this is because somebody has to. All the lawyers are terrified to take it or too lazy, nobody wants to touch it. I, I typically only do res if I can hand it to one of my guys that works with me sometimes, or if it's within an hour in my house and it's got tea. Other than that, man, I just. And even that even though I shouldn't.

Be taking them, but it's valid, that's the criteria. Like there's some validity to this. So let's go get it.

I do a lot of, I do do a lot of Residential umpiring, be fair. Okay. But anyway, to go back to the process, what we do, so.

So it's valid. What's the next step?

The next step is I develop, after review it and talk to them. I develop a plan. I call it plan of attack. Strategy of what is the best way, the most cost efficient and time efficient way to proceed with the claim? Okay. It's just a suggestion, but it's kind of like, hey, if it hits, if it's this benchmark, this is probably the way to go. If it's this benchmark is probably this way to go. Here's the expected time, here's the expected cost, here's what we charge. We do attorney client matching. We do engineering referrals. We refer people to register of consultants. We incorporate those people into some of our claims. I do appraisal umpire and PA work. I have other people on my team that do most of the same things. I don't work on my team. I don't work with a lot of PAs. And we talked about this before, most of the guys I'll bring on to help me with stuff are IAs because they're less expensive. They're not as greedy because they actually work for a living. They're not looking to make a half a million dollars on one deal and hell or high water.

You mean they're not glorified salespeople that really don't know anything about the process?

Yes. They know what they're doing. They have all the experience, have all the education. They're just better dudes to deal with and they're reasonable and I can trust their judgment. Right. So I always say one of the best things that we do is we don't put a square peg into a round hole. I have never in my life gotten involved in a. You know, I did it once. That's where I learned this years ago.

One time is all it took.

It was because it was actually one. And that's. This is where some of this started. I got involved in a PA claim and then realized halfway through, like, I don't need to be. And even though I had a lot of time and a lot of footwork in it, I actually shrunk my fee from 15 to 5%.

Oh.

And it, it won. They won in court because of the attorney I brought them to because of a lot of the facts I brought. But I didn't do really, except for behind closed doors. I did more consulting and 15 on something of that large. When the, when the attorney didn't take it a Jury trial. But it was filed and then settled before them for a good amount of money was you'd be stupid not to settle to go to jury trial. Me taking 15 points seemed like way too much. So I took five because of my time. And, and, and I, I did that for years behind closed doors where I was telling people what to do kind of. And, and, or referring them to attorneys or planning with attorneys or doing this and doing these things and referring people everything else. Attack plan, dude, all the time. And I'm like, this isn't paying my bills. Like I'm getting referrals from people on things, but I'm spending half my day being like social Susie over here. You know what I mean?

You're the facilitator that doesn't get paid.

Yeah. And, and that's why now that's. This is the business they've turned it into. Where. Yes, we still handle this. A lot of this metaphorically, kind of in house, even though there's sub guys of ours or people on our team. But if not, there's plenty of times where I go, coverage is denied. A PA is not going to get this overturned. You'll say, oh, you're not a good pa, Whatever, dude. This needs an attorney for these reasons. And I'll refer him to an attorney. Maybe they'll use me as an expert, maybe they won't. But I know you're going to the right place.

So I got a question for you because this, I just went through this with my own house. There's hail storm, right? And funny enough, I had a sales guy that I trained in 24 years ago staying with me. He just happened to be there visiting. Hailstorm hits. While he's there, we both like, I'm up, like I'm out of bed, like, what's going on outside?

He's frothing at the mouth in bed.

He slept through it. He said, I heard it. Just another hailstorm. Whatever. I'm out there taking video because my house, like I'm taking video, I'm picking up hail, taking pictures of it, doing what I know I'm supposed to do. And he wakes up. The more I show him, he's like, man, that was pretty good stuff. I said, yeah, nothing was really much bigger than, you know, a quarter, maybe a little bigger ping pong ball. But it was, it was, I mean, flying. It flew underneath a 20 foot patio cover and hit the top of my window.

So was it super dense as well?

Yes, hard as a rock. And so I call, make a claim. I went up on the roof. Sure enough, there's damage. It's obvious. Call, make a claim. The, the ones that like to talk about their hands a lot come out and say there's no, no damage. It's old damage. I'm like, you gotta be kidding me. This is such a joke. So my friend, like, I know people now. And so I'm like, okay. Hey, Derek over at Hail Trace, I hear you got this new technology. Can tell me, like what actually happened at my house, like, what was specific at my home. So he says, yeah, I'll do it for you. I'll take care of it. And he said, it's not priority. So I'm going to put it back a little bit, take a couple weeks. I'm like, cool, no big deal. Gets it back to me. And it's like this 26 page report from a meteorologist. And what actually happened there was a microburst at my house, like in my little neighborhood.

It was hands down the best app. They're amazing.

Yeah. It's unbelievable the level of detail and criteria that they got me. And I'm, I'm sitting there and I'm wondering, the reason I'm telling you this story is I'm wondering what should I do next? Should I get an attorney involved? Because that's usually my coaching advice. Just like, hey, skip all the steps, go to the attorney, just get it done. If they're any good, then they expedite. They don't take forever. And all the other crap that attorneys do. Do I get a PA out here because I know some of them. Not the hugest fan of that whole process. Or should I get an umpire, like appraisal? Like, what should I do at this point? Any words of wisdom? Because I think there's a lot of guys, like even me, I feel like I'm pretty competent in this area. Like, how do I know when I should just go with appraisal and call it good? Or are you in Texas? Yeah, I'm in Texas.

And your daughter's a lawyer. It's not like an attorney is going to cost you a lot of money.

No, not like that wouldn't have hurt me at all.

Based on what you're telling me. Okay. Just based on it's. I don't get fried. For anybody that sees this based on what you're telling me, my personal opinion would be to get all the data from them, all communication done via email. Okay. Ask them how they arrived to that conclusion that the hail was from a previous storm in writing. And then when they Call it.

There was a storm date the year before.

Yep.

And I was there for it. No damage to my roof. They asked me if I took pictures. I'm like, why would I take pictures of a damaged roof? That's something I learned. I should have taken pictures.

Yes, yes. Send them the storm data showing a microburst. Okay. And then see what they say. Maybe they'll do a reinspection.

I know, so. So we had a reinspection. Again, denied. I got that double down there and sent it to him. Didn't hear from him for, like, a month.

Yeah.

Didn't get back. And I'm calling him like, hey, what's going on? The last two times has been like, you know, two days later, you got somebody out here going, no, you don't have damage.

I would take it to a supervisor presentation.

I'm going to shorten the story. They call me back one day and they go, well, we're going to go ahead and take care of it. I'm like, what? I was kind of hoping it was going to go to the dark side and, like, let's follow it all the way through the path and let's see this happen. But, man, you're asking.

Are you asking for your blood pressure to go up? Is that's what it sounds like?

No, I wanted to document the whole thing.

Oh, I got you for it.

And, like, put it on YouTube for people to see what you really go through with some of these insurance companies.

So imagine, though. Imagine standard mo.

Like, everybody with that insurance company gets that the first time out, no matter what.

There's. There's.

It is.

There's. There's an insurance company, okay. That has been consistently rated for about 10 years, the worst consumer rated. Everybody knows who this is. They're blue. And they are. Yeah. So they're. They're a. They are famous for that scenario. But I'll tell you this. If you get coverage extended by them just to repair and then you put it into appraisal, they're one of the best residential companies that go against an appraisal. If you have a decent policy. I swear to God, The. The guys, they hide because the guys.

They hire such a high percentage that they deny. That's actually.

And here's the thing. Most of the appraisers they hire that do the residential appraisals for them know they're a piece of shit company because everybody knows. So they'll go, dude, just don't be a prick. Like, if you. If you. If you are reasonable with them and go hey, here's my number, you know, go a little high. You know, I mean, an omp, really, there's a national precedent for it. But if it's just a roof, maybe work with them on the overhead and profit, you know, I mean, to be more of like maybe like a 5 and 5 or something like that. Like, maybe find a way to make it work. Okay? And most of the time with them, when you're in a. When you're in appraisal, they're going to pay for it. So, I mean, it's.

That was going to be my next step.

But I'll tell you. But here's the thing. I would say this, though. My instinct in this situation would be in most states with most claims, especially residential, okay, but residential doesn't have the teeth and the cost and the money associated with it. The commercial claims do. Yet the process to recover is becoming just as burdensome, unfortunately. And you have a lot, a lot less knowledgeable people involved. When you have some of these bigger developers that we work with, often, they know this. They know the game, they know some of it. They know enough. They know when people are full of shit. They've been burned maybe a few times, but they know the process. Somebody who. Their biggest asset they'll ever own, the best asset is a single family home and a subdivision they don't know.

I was sitting there through this whole process going, what if I wasn't me?

Yeah. And the worst, like, how many people.

Just go, okay, I trust my insurance company. I'm just.

And the problem is with it too, is that in most situations, when you have a denial of coverage, okay, I'd say half the time, let's say half the time, because I'm gonna get fried by public adjusters out there. Half the time when it, when it's denied, you just need an attorney. And you need an attorney that will give you a sliding scale agreement of some sort, okay? One that will say, hey, if we'll send a letter for this, okay, see if we can get you some coverage extended. Like I said, 20, 23, name of the game. Get coverage extended. Okay?

That something happened.

Yes, that something occurred.

They covered my gunners.

There it is. So you have. Yeah, so. And you know what, though? At the same time, if you're somebody who has like cursory knowledge of this, like you do, and there's damage there, you should be able to get it done, and you did. Plus your daughter's an attorney, so I'm sure she was willing to give you some.

She was chomping at the bush. She's like give them to me like just now let's see how it go.

For sure man and and but most of the time when you have a denial, if it's a complete denial, most of the time you need an attorney or if or you need a PA who works enough with attorneys who's fair will say hey here's I I have what's what's called often a sliding scale agreement on my public adjuster contract where if it's just me, this is what we're going to cost you. Okay? If I have to get an appraiser involved or an attorney involved, this is what will be this is what will cost you because if I can't get the job done unless that's the tactic from day one is that on some of these I'm going to be honest with you, that's the tactic on some of these and some of these guys that play that one lane.