Are we roofers or insurance adjusters?

Have been seeing an awful lot of posts lately about the insurance aspects of this business. Not criticizing mind you, but doesn't anyone have any work to do? If our business model has gotten down to the point where the only thing that we can do to get any business is to chase around the insurance dollors, we are in trouble. 17 of the 30 posts on the page right now have something to do with getting jobs through insurance or some aspect of it just in their titles. How many of them are consumed by that topic within their context? Just a thought!

Well I am happy that Stephen did the right thing and walked away from a prospect that would not be a profitable job. As far as dealing with insurance companies there are really only two options (IMHO) either you play the game or you don't. If you are a professional and want to continue being a professional you must charge more than the guy who is working out of his house with no insurance and a Mexican crew willing to work for $33 per square. The problem is the insurance company does not care and will try like hell to get the contractor who will work for the least amount of money. I once had an adjuster tell the homeowner that if I was not willing to work for his price of $180 per square (I was not willing to do so)that he would require 3 bids and refer her to a contractor that was willing to work for the insurance company low price. I see this a Bad Faith and Unfair Claims Practices as the insurance company is forcing a contractor and policyholder to work for the lowest price to get the work done but not the best value price that includes getting the work done correctly the first time, Versus having an inferior job done my improperly trained or low skilled people. Which is normally the case with the cheapest roofers.

twill- the way I see it , on one of my typical projects -there is the customer-and there is me-and between us we arrive at a price.

By THAT I mean- I know what my numbers are and what I need to sell the job for- and the customer is free to accept my proposal or not.

I don't know why i would want to develope a business model which brings a THIRD party into the situation-and allows the third party to determine MY price-not for the customers benefit, by the way-but for the third parties' benefit( the insurance company)

when we had a hail storm here a few years ago-without exception-EVERY roof we did as a result of that hailstorm-was done at MY price. the customers collected checks from the insurance company and the checks were substantially lower than my price -and the customers paid the difference out of their own pocket-and were happy to do so.

I don't see any benefit to doing roofs at the insurance companies price-especially since for us we would actually be losing money out of pocket to do roofs at the insurance price. most of the roofs we did--- if we had done them at the insurance price I would have been better off to simply hand the customer $1000 out of my own pocket for the privilege of NOT doing the roof- I would have lost less money that way.

we would rather do LESS work, for MORE money-and have the time and energy to develope a customer base willing to pay for the service level we provide------ than to try to cut things down to the insurance companies price.

i had several adjusters tell me that they were only "allowed" to pay the average per square price of roofing installed in the designated zip code.- but I specialize in roofs that are probably in the most difficult 5-10% of any zip code we work in-so why would I allow us to be dragged down to the lowest common denominator?

I figure- in the long run I am ALWAYS going to be better off putting my energies into increasing my technical skills and improving my basic sales skills-in effect depending on my own abilities------ much better off than leaving myself vulnerable to the whims and prices set by insurance companies

Best wishes all, stephen

Roofsrus1, I am glad you mentioned that. I have been working on a similar project-and i have been thinking about discussing it here on this forum- but to tell you the truth I have been ever so slightly embarrassed by it, LOL

in my mind- i am just a bit awkward about it since for over 20 years customers basiclly beat a path to my door and I was pretty comfortably set up in my little niche, working in my own neighborhood, eating lunch at home every day etc.

a hail storm in 2007 changed all that

and- I realized I was going to have to actually do some type of marketing to a larger area-but who?-but how?

then i remembered that several years ago- before the hail storm- I had had some door hangers printed up-and my intent at the time was to distribute maybe 50 or 100 around every house we roofed- but for a variety of reasons I never did it consistently.

even back then I figured I was going to need to track how many we hung and what the response rate was-suprise suprise!- it actually worked enough to be worthwhile- but I had enough work coming in from other sources so I didn't do it consistently

Last summer/fall- i had time on my hands-and I thought about what I was looking for in a customer- middle aged or older, household income around $100,000, homes built in the 1910's-1920's- slate roofs, tile roofs, wood siding( cedar shingles or claps, stucco -traditional exteriors---------- virtually zero aluminum or vinyl-volvo neighborhoods but not lexus neighborhoods

my oldest son helped me put out hangers one morning-and after he went back to college I spent a few mornings doing it myself

all in all last year i put up about 1200 hangers-roughly every 100 we hung generated 1 call- but EVERY call except 1 resulted in a sale.

several of the sales were 2 or 3 hour carpentry repairs, one sale was a 2 day spouting project and we will be re-building 2 porches on his house this year, one of the small carpentry projects now wants us to reframe and replace a flat roof on a garage, we also replaced a flat porch roof on another house and relined some box gutters-and we have 2 complete roof replacement projects ready to go this spring.

Based on the lot size in my target neighborhoods- 1 person can hang about 40 hangers /hour

After ALL expenses- printing,labor, overhead etc.- my personal income has been about $14,000 from those 1200 hangers- so I am very enthusiastic about the over all potential for this. I have since learned that out 1 out of 100 response rate is about average for direct mail- but closing virtually every inquiry is unusual-and i also realize that only 1200 hangers is a statistically insignificant number.

couple of last things- a)we hung 2 seperate hangers- one side of the street( even numbered addresses) got hangers aiming primarily for carpentry work- the other side of the street( odd numbers) got hangers aimed at roofing work-response rate was about the same- but total profits were overwhelmingly from the roofing hangers

b)I had some additional hangers printed up-and the new hangers ended up being printed on thinner,flimsier,"cheaper" feeling cardstock.- don't make that mistake( I was unaware of what I was getting when I ordered the hangers)--- get a nice heavy weight, substantial feeling card stock- they won't blow off the door knobs as readily in March winds AND- people are more likely to magnet them to their Fridge untill they NEED you.- one of our best sales came from a hanger I hung back in 2006- th customer kept the hanger untill he finally called in spring 2007--------at which time we re sided his house with cedar shingles.

I track everything- where we hung, when we hung, how many we hung-what response we got from each outing etc.- Hanging mondays worked great for us--- response usually came within 48 hours OR several months later- nothing in between.

We will start our program about the 3rd week of march this year.- I will soon be hiring a new apprentice level employee- and ,frankly I want him to spend about 10 hours/week doing nothing but hanging door hangers-it will be effective work for him to do on rain days at the very least

my suggestion is to go with a heavy weight hanger or a card which will be more likely to be saved as a reference material-and not go with a flyer-which will be more likley to be pitched out or lost if they don't immediately call you.

Very best wishes, stephen

I am getting ready to have five thousand flyers printed and when cut-they will be ten thousand total flyers. I will pay an associate in the distribution business who will do the first five thousand. The flyer is basically for roof maintenance, roof and gutter cleaning but details the other exterior work that we do. And I am still marketing to the hard hit real estate niche market. Plus I have hired a woman who knows sales and has the office expertise that I do not have and that helps me on my weaker sides. I am ready to get it on. On March 1-we kick of our spring marketing effort.

Parts is parts ain't they? Ha Ha!

I had great fun on my two sales calls today-and I thought I would relay here how they played out since i mentioned them earlier today. small job- i have worked for the customers before- instantly accepted my proposal.

Larger job- prospective customer had my name referred to her by a salesman for one of my suppliers-not even one of my regular suppliers- but i have known the salesmans family since he was a kid, and his younger sister and my son were classmates in gradeschool 4 blocks from my house etc.- i am sure you get the picture. Prospect makes sure to tell me how highly recommended I am by the salesman and how the salesman pointed out that I am honest,dependable,do good work etc.---------------- THEN- the prospect immexdiately tries to get me to do something i consider dis-honest- which upon further thought makes me laugh.

I explain to the prospect that since she got my name as a referall from this particular supplier- I feel that I am obligated to buy the materials from THAT supplier-and that based on the materials being discussed tremendous savings are not possible no matter WHO the supplier is- they ARE going to be bought from THAT supplier. WELL!!!!! The prospect tells me that if I work for her my responsibility is to shop around and get the lowest possible price- pass on the savings to her-and then if I feel like it I can send a fruit basket to the salesman!!! LOL. Interesting- she actually thought I was gonna burn my bridges with that salesman and lose EVERY referall he ever might give me in the future-so that SHE could save maybe $60 ???????

the funniest thing was- part of the job was to be replacing a door. I explained that we could spend $120 on a door- or we could spend $3000 on a door- or anywhere in between- she told me- just give me a labor only price and she would pick out the door!!!! LOL Yes- that's right- my labor price to install a $120 door is gonna be the same as insatlling a $3000 door-naw- I don't think so

I figure we can either work together to our mutual advantage- or we can't in this case-clearly we can't-so i politley declined to prepare a proposal. best wishes all, stephen

On the Colorado front range, hail is the prevelent catylist for re-roofing; Hence, the majority of the residential re-roofing gets done by the slime/shyster types that work w/ins. adjusters/co.s....

I have a similar saying to the "swim with sharks", which I feel is more appropriate; "When you swim in S#!&, some's surely to rubb-off on ya"....

I'm somewhat of like opinion/schooling as Stephen.

Now THAT is a positive post and very uplifting.

If we are all going to be "roofing contractors" with the large overheads and such, we will have no option to but to play the game with the adjusters. If we are "roofers" and our overhead is low, we will be able to play our own game and make them come to us. Let's see: 100% and two or three guys working or 60% and 5 crews working, one slaesman, one office person, tons of paperwork...I think the first is better because the money made will be the same or more and the grief factor only about 10% as much! JMHO anyway!

Old school, I would be delighted to NEVER see an inusrance adjuster again because I personally consider insurance work to be very poor business for us. Here is what I know- in 2007 we had a hail storm in my neighborhood-essentially the first damaging hail storm of my 48 year old life.- Stormers and insurance adjusters flocked to town-and had a number of adjusters tell me that I wasn't "allowed" to charge more than X amount per square. "Allowed"-say what?- WTF I ask you!!!!!!!!! Here is what I know- for over 20 years I have specialized in ONE neighborhood- about 90% of my work comes from about a 12 block radius around my house- and the other 10 % is primarily referalls from the neighborhood( co-workers, relatives etc.)---so the important thing is- that I KNOW exactly what I can charge and what my customers will happily and enthusiatically pay.

the "X" amount per square that the adjusters allwoed was about 60% of what I typically charge so-the question is-why would I EVER do insurance work?

Now- several years after the hail storm- my neighborhood is largely "roofed out".- you would think my business would have collapsed- but quite the contrary.

Before the hail storm I was broadening my horizons and expanding into things besides roofing-and into neighborhoods other thasn my own

the hailstorm delayed that move a couple years NOW?- well I have 9 projects on the books of various sizes-and today I will be quoting 2 more- one VERY small-and one quite large and varied by my standards-and NONE of them are in my neighborhood AND the important thing is- that I haven't even begun marketing for this year yet. As it turns out- the old fashioned personal way I did business in my own neighborhood- works pretty well all over town! Make an appointment and be absolutely on time dress as a tidy professional working tradesman listen to the customer describe THEIR PROBLEM!!!!!! Physically climb the roof,crawl under the house-what ever it takes to ACTUALLY investigate the PROBLEM EXPLAIN to the customer how you are going to SOLVE the problem and why your solution is the best solution and what track record you have with similar problems

cost per square is the least important part of this- because the customers we want- the most important thing to them is removing the problem from their life but an insurance company?-well cost is pretty much the ONLY thing they are looking at.-our interests are opposed and they are at the opposite end of the quality spectrum from where we insist on being.

we will be hiring an new apprentice in the next 3 weeks or so I think this is going to be our 2nd or 3rd most profitable year ever-and I fully expect it to be our MOST fun year EVER.

Best wishesw, stephen

Hi, I absolutely despise dealing with the insurance jobs. We had some small minor hail this past spring and several storm chasers moved in even though it wasnt much of a storm. These storm chasers were reporting like 40 sq. roofs to be 60-80 sq. to the insurance companies so now they challenge every single bid we do. We are local and have nothing to do with that crap. We had to go out to one job and remeasure the roof 4 seperate times with 4 different adjusters present. Its getting more ridiculous than ever and it was bad enough to begin with. If we had enough work without the insurance work i wouldn't even bother with it but the fact is we are slow right now and all we have is a couple insurance jobs pending final approval and a handfull of repairs. Thats it. So for now we will have to deal with the crap. Ugh!! :angry:

Wasn't criticising, but it seemed that an awful lot of effort was being consumed by something that truthfully I wasn't reading. We need more Mikes to be posting pictures and asking us questions. I am waiting for the weather to clear a bit so I can get going on the job we are working on. Lots of pictures there for sure.

It is a sad world....damned if you do, damned if you don't.

Old School Said: Have been seeing an awful lot of posts lately about the insurance aspects of this business. Not criticizing mind you, but doesnt anyone have any work to do? If our business model has gotten down to the point where the only thing that we can do to get any business is to chase around the insurance dollors, we are in trouble. 17 of the 30 posts on the page right now have something to do with getting jobs through insurance or some aspect of it just in their titles. How many of them are consumed by that topic within their context? Just a thought!

Fully generated for the most part by just two posters. Both "consumed" as you put it, one eliciting a hostile response and the other generating none.

I'm an old roofer/carpenter.at 50,with the economic slam, selling A roof,or rather doing what I did to sell and build,sanz the ability to physically do the work, I must live. if it's wrong for me to be one out of A thousand that can speak honestly and fairly to an adjuster or H/O then someone pleae tell me. were you to not be A roofer,and had damage wouldyou not appreciate the true sling,bang and smile roofer vs the car/shoe salesman schlep?