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Matt and James tackle your questions and tell some stories from the road.

William W. says:  "I got [reprimanded] for writing an estimate that closely matched what a roofer's estimate actually came in at. It was a good and accurate estimate, but I had to tweak the XM8 criteria in order to get something closer to real world costs.

But that got me thinking about how objective the pricing data is in XM8 and how much the carrier would be charged for estimates that would not require supplements. To re-phrase: accurate estimates increase an IA's fee tiers.  Those estimates would be a bit subjective and therefore cost more compared to the base level objective XM8 pricing data that we all know can be a bit low. 

When a contractor tells the carrier the actual costs, that estimate is not subject to fee tier increase.  

So is it wrong to assume that by extension, the most advantageous thing (for the carrier), would be for me to write an estimate for one dollar above deductible, then the contractor could describe the actual costs that XM8 (and file reviewer) would not allow? Afterall, the carrier really doesn't have to pay the IA for a contractor submitted supplement."

Justin W. has several questions, including:  

Planning and executing for a deployment:

• Can you walk us through the deployment planning process, how you organize this? What has worked for you and what do you feel will continue to work in the future?
• Can you walk us through the deployment execution process, how do you execute?  What has worked for you and what do you feel will continue to work in the future?
• Do you ramp up the number of claims to perform per day as the deployment moves along on all deployments? (Example: I watched a video covering a 4-day work cycle. Starting a deployment with 2 claims per day than ever week after adding 1 more claim per day until reaching the max threshold for claims per day.)
• What does a typical day look like in the peak timeframe of a CAT deployment? (When the machine is firing on all cylinders) 
• Would it help to look at this on an hourly breakdown basis? What is the breakdown of a 12 to 16-hour workday? How many claims within the day? Does the workday consist of an even balance of drive time, appointments, scoping, report writing, etc? Or is there more time devoted in a day to one particular area? Any examples would be very helpful.
• Would you say this is the most difficult part of the job? What do you think are the most difficult parts of the job as a whole?
• How do you balance work, personal errands, and family time?

Jason M. - Can you talk about how to prepare and equip when called on a CAT that's a few hundred miles away by flight?

Anonymous - I had a insured contact me through text message and asked me to “yank the shingles off the roof, before my adjuster gets here." He thought I was his contractor. And when I got out there it was pretty apparent that some of the damage was new. 

How do you handle that situation with the member? Do you just act like you never received the message?

Story from Matt - How to deal with dogs - Beagle escaping and the dog pack that tried to get him in Omaha.

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