Do’s And Don’ts Of Insurance Claims

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Andy Gurczak is a private insurance adjuster and the Founder of AllCity Adjusting Andy has more than 10 years of experience He helps and represents others with their insurance claims and advocates for them So with no further ado let s dive in and listen as Andy shares how he works in the field 00 00 – 05 26 Opening Segment Who is Andy Gurczak Andy started in construction sales Public adjusters are private adjusters who represent their insurance companies and advocate for them There is a right time to get a public adjuster involved the sooner the better 05 26 – 10 40 Agents Advise Property Owners on How to Combat Insurance Companies The importance of agents educating their clients on their policy One of the main points is to avoid being in a hurry as this can lead to mistakes and poorer outcomes for the client Commercial clients are typically more willing to wait for a settlement while residential clients may be more eager to return home 10 40 – 16 47 How to Prepare for an Insurance Claim When you have a claim the insurance company will ask you a hundred questions and record everything Saying the wrong thing can affect your claim such as being delayed denied or even worthless if you had just spoken to the insurance company directly without first consulting a Private Adjuster It is essential to consult an attorney or PA when you have a claim to make sure you present it in the best way possible There are many nuances to insurance policies that can be difficult to understand on your own It is helpful to have an advisor who can help guide you through the process 16 48 – 19 24 Closing Segment Reach out to Andy Links Below Final Words Tweetable Quotes All the policy is written for the consumer right So it s not supposed to be written as an attorney is supposed to interpret it It s supposed to be easy to read but they re never easy to read They re so complicated – Andy Gurczak —————————————————————————– Connect with Andy by calling 708 655 4186 Connect with me I love helping others place money outside of traditional investments that both diversify a strategy and provide solid predictable returns Facebook LinkedIn Like subscribe and leave us a review on Apple Podcasts Spotify Google Podcasts or whatever platform you listen on Thank you for tuning in Email me sam brickeninvestmentgroup com 00 00 00 Andy Gurczak A lot of people wanna be in a hurry And the agents say well I got a guy that s gonna help you out He s a contractor and the adjuster s got a guy and everyone s got a guy and everyone wants to push you to move the claim and keep going and get it done because the quicker they can settle it they know it s underpaid the quicker they can close out the claim 00 00 17 Andy Gurczak It s more when it comes to the residential claims I think a lot of those people with families they just wanna be back in the house 00 00 23 Andy Gurczak And then at the end they re like wow well we don t even have enough money to fix our house Well you were in such a hurry You just let them do anything And now you re out of money 00 00 30 00 00 42 Sam Wilson Andy Gurczak is a public adjuster recovering investors tons of money Andy welcome to the show Thanks for having me Sam Hey man The pleasure s mine There are three questions I ask every guest who comes in the show in 90 seconds or less Can you tell me where did you start Where are you now And how did you get 00 00 58 Andy Gurczak started in construction sales fell into adjusting meeting someone that was already a PA learning the ropes Since then we ve we opened honestly adjusting and it s been like this on my own about over 10 years now 00 01 11 Sam Wilson Okay Absolutely awesome What is just for our listeners So they understand 00 01 16 Sam Wilson What or who is a public adjuster 00 01 19 Andy Gurczak Yeah Easy terms cuz public adjusting I guess it s when people think public it s kind of not a turn that everyone knows I would just easily say it s a private adjuster It s an adjuster you hire that represents you and your insurance claim and advocates for you 00 01 32 Andy Gurczak Not he s he doesn t work for the insurance company He s not hired by any insurance company parties He s only there to represent 00 01 39 Sam Wilson Is there And maybe this will be one of the one of the things that we were gonna largely focus on in this episode is the dos and don ts of insurance claims And I guess and if we re gonna cover this later tell me but is there a right time to get a public adjuster involved 00 01 55 Sam Wilson And is there a wrong time to get a public adjuster involved 00 01 58 Andy Gurczak I would we would advise the quicker the better So for our commercial clients they call us as soon as something happens then we file the claim and we do everything for them They re all hands off So the only thing they know is once the claim is settled the amounts and that s it 00 02 13 Andy Gurczak Got 00 02 14 Sam Wilson it Okay Okay Let s dig right in then let s get into the meat of this which is the dos and don ts of insurance claims Can you just break that 00 02 22 Andy Gurczak down for us Yeah Dues if I m gonna give you your client tips on the dues of claims when you re filing claim know when you re actually calling yourself to set their reserve side to actually tell em that it s a large claim don t meaning when you re calling the claim they ll usually 00 02 39 Andy Gurczak How much damage there is cuz they wanna set a reserve for that claim and amount And what happens is if the Reserve s low and the claim s actually a large claim then to actually go and estimate and negotiate over those limits or the reserves they saved it goes through like three four managers And it s just a long process 00 02 57 Andy Gurczak And it s a very tedious that s usually a lot of our new clients when they call us is that process when they call us a little bit too late our reserves were set low Instead of a hundred thousand dollars claim now we re at a 300 000 claim and you re going through this whole process of getting that that money approved or that claim approved 00 03 13 Sam Wilson So you re saying on the back end at the insurance company you call in you say Hey man we had a fire in one of our units and I don t know you re kind of running off the back of a napkin math You look at it and you say by the time we get the fire damage remediated and whatever now water damage to the property and maybe a hundred grand 00 03 32 Sam Wilson And your estimate was way off but that s what you told The insurance company said a hundred grand And so they re sitting on their back end going okay we ll tag a hundred thousand dollars in the reserve account for Sam s claim And now you re saying that causes problems When you go back and say actually no sorry guys we re gonna need about 300 grand a hundred percent 00 03 50 Sam Wilson Correct That s really interesting That s really interesting I mean it seems like an insurance claim would be and obviously I m wrong but it just it s it is what it is but that s not the 00 04 00 Andy Gurczak case No they have certain amount of reserves they have to put in when there s a claim filed When that amount is low like I said it hurts your claim going forward 00 04 09 Andy Gurczak So if you re calling a claim and it s a fire just might as well just say it s a total loss Even if it s not exaggerate the damage say it s more damage set those reserves higher And that way and then adjusters also insurance adjusters have incentives to stay under the reserve 00 04 22 Andy Gurczak There s bonuses and their stuff when they say under the reserves So it s a haul it s a it s an entire process They have it s entire game They have So you wanna get off to the right foot So not only is it when you call in sending the reserves high enough but also saying the right stuff 00 04 38 Andy Gurczak So a lot of people they jeopardize their claims by how they call them in meaning they ll call and We had a leak in the basement Well they might take that write it down Then you might get a call a day later saying Hey your claim s denied because we don t cover leaks That s over time 00 04 53 Andy Gurczak Leaks are not covered Well you said it was a leak but tactically it was a pipe burst which a pipe burst is covered Right 00 04 59 Sam Wilson Gotcha So it I mean it seems like there s a lot of gaming involved in this where it s like I mean it should it be that way or is there a better is there a better way to do this or would you see do we see a brighter future in this industry 00 05 13 Sam Wilson Or is this just no you gotta learn play 00 05 15 Andy Gurczak game It s only going the wrong way And the reason is for the local the staff adjusters all the more experienced adjusters are leaving and they re bringing all these they call em cat adjusters or out of state adjusters They re bringing those in and just more inexperienced adjusters that never handle the claim but all they know is they get a piece of paper and say these are our guidelines 00 05 34 Andy Gurczak We don t pay for this We pay for this Right So then when we come in and we re meeting with these adjusters you re talking about someone that just finished college that s got a laptop and saying okay well I don t pay for this and we can t do this And this is not covered They have no clue what 00 05 48 Andy Gurczak Most of the time what they re talking about 00 05 50 Sam Wilson How do you combat that Like what do you guys do in that process that maybe the us as just average Joe property owner just simply wouldn t understand 00 05 59 Andy Gurczak Yeah With the experience we have in construction estimating we re always our company especially something that s huge on our end is knowledge and learning as we go forward is taking more seminars and learning and actually knowing how to combat insurance companies negotiate it having the right tools to do 00 06 18 Andy Gurczak So if you cuz you just can t tell the insurance Hey you need to pay for this or you need to do that Like you have to support everything So providing those supportive documents is huge Gotcha 00 06 28 Sam Wilson That makes a lot of sense So one of the first things you said here on the due side is on a large claim just say it s a total loss 00 06 35 Sam Wilson The second thing is to identify actually what happened not a pipe leak it was a pipe burst And then of course getting accurate estimates There Are there any other dues on the front end that you say man this is something that people absolutely should be doing 00 06 48 Andy Gurczak Yeah Mitigate the damage meaning actually have someone on your team that if you have a fire they board up the windows 00 06 54 Andy Gurczak If you have a water loss they extract the water If you don t mitigate they can deny your claim that s in your policy So knowing your policy And actually knowing what s in there there s a section called duties After loss that s the first thing you should know That s the first thing we get when we would get the policy from an insurance company 00 07 12 Andy Gurczak The first thing we read is the duties after loss because there s so many things you have to do to actually make sure your loss is covered 00 07 19 Sam Wilson That s really a really good advice That s not a section of the Of any insurance policy I think I ve ever read is what are the 00 07 27 Andy Gurczak no I don t think anyone s ever read any 00 07 28 Sam Wilson of their policy 00 07 30 Sam Wilson Actually I ve read a fair amount of it Cause I kind of nerd out on that stuff It s like oh okay but I still didn t know that page existed Like so clearly I haven t and that s 00 07 37 Andy Gurczak the most important page There s usually like 10 bullet points And it says all the things now they ll pay a claim even if you don t perform some of the duties 00 07 45 Andy Gurczak But at the end if it was they if it went to litigation or it keeps going further in negotiation stuff they can say well you never filed the proof of loss You never mitigated there s other stuff you didn t do You didn t we have claims with commercial properties where let s say it was vacant or it was under construction 00 08 00 Andy Gurczak They denied it saying you didn t you heat the property They can deny the claim right You didn t maintain heat in the Right right But then there s a clause that technically we can overturn that saying well if you re if the property s under construction then it the claim is covered So just knowing the policy knowing the duties after loss would highly re a good agent should be able to explain all that to you 00 08 23 Sam Wilson Right Right And that was gonna be my next question was at what point in time is this the responsibility of the agent selling you the policy to help educate you and say okay here s what you should be doing And then at what point in time is it where you say all right you re playing for the insurance team and I m gonna have to go find my own private 00 08 42 Andy Gurczak adjuster 00 08 43 Andy Gurczak Correct And a lot of the leads we get or a lot of referrals we get are actually from insurance agents especially on the commercial Because they don t really know the policies They re pretty comprehensive policies there go there s co-insurance clauses there s all these clauses and exclusions 00 08 58 Andy Gurczak They sell these policies It s hard to find a good commercial agent but if you are gonna start investing to commercial highly recommend that you do diligence find an agent that can actually tell you look well this is the business I have I storage ly is I have this 20 unit these are all the people and make sure there s coverage for everything 00 09 15 Sam Wilson Yeah And how do you I guess and that s something probably when you work through with our insurance agent is finding them to say Hey these are the 25 scenarios This is what we need coverage for So that s really really fascinating Thanks for sharing the due side 00 09 28 Sam Wilson What are the don ts 00 09 29 Andy Gurczak What are the don ts Let s see here Don t don t be in a hurry is my number A lot of people wanna be in a hurry And the agents say well I got a guy that s gonna help you out He s a contractor and the adjuster s got a guy and everyone s got a guy and everyone wants to push you to move the claim and keep going and get it done because the quicker they can settle it they know it s underpaid the quicker they can close out the claim 00 09 51 Andy Gurczak That s the number one thing don t be in a hurry Our commercial clients are our favorite because they re usually are more Hey I m not in a hurry I have my own contractors I m let s get it settled It s more when it comes to the residential claims I think a lot of those people with families they just wanna be back in the house 00 10 08 Andy Gurczak And then at the end they re like wow well we don t even have enough money to fix our house Well you were in such a hurry You just let them do anything And now you re out of money 00 10 15 Sam Wilson that s really really sound advice So don t be in a hurry What else you have after that I guess are there things we should and shouldn t say are there people that we are there documents we shouldn t sign 00 10 26 Sam Wilson Are there anything along those lines where you say and maybe that s part of the don t be in a hurry thing Is there just something we should categorically avoid 00 10 33 Andy Gurczak Yeah I think just saying the wrong stuff in terms of don t be in a hurry don t start calling And because the insurance company when they when you call the claim when you re speaking with them they ll ask you a hundred questions and they ll record everything 00 10 48 Andy Gurczak And then if you say the wrong thing then We get called and say well there s this whole trace of we have to go back and like look go through a whole story of what happened in the last three months Well you started out with telling them that this happened and that s what got the claim delayed Deni delayed and now technically denied 00 11 05 Andy Gurczak So no one what to say and actually maybe consulting someone a PA or an attorney when you have a claim to make sure you present it to an insurance as well 00 11 13 Sam Wilson Give me a case study and they come to mind where you say Hey this is what happened This is how we could how we helped something 00 11 21 Andy Gurczak like that was another investor actually your area of Memphis he had a 16 unit building 00 11 27 Andy Gurczak His claim was denied called us was referred by one of his XG students One of his listeners his claim was denied because they said it was sewer backup and his claim wasn t covered technically And there s a big tip for all your listeners If they ever a claim where it s sewer backup and they don t have sewer backup limit 00 11 42 Andy Gurczak Well sewer backup is sewer that backs up from usually the sewers like the streets or overflows or something Most of the time it s called it s called a soft clog meaning something actually gets clogged in the pipe That s why the pipe overflows Okay That s covered under your main limit 00 11 59 Andy Gurczak So that loss for example that case study that loss was denied Cuz two of the units got damaged I think we finished at 70 000 so he had zero denied after months of fighting with them And then we ended up finishing a claim at 70 000 00 12 11 Sam Wilson Wow And what did you call that A soft clog versus a sewer box soft 00 12 16 Andy Gurczak Yes So the two no two different things Soft clog and sewer backup two different things 00 12 20 Sam Wilson That s again it goes back to just the nuance of this where it s like we I feel I m not the sharpest knife in the drawer I freely admit that but it s like there s it just there s so much nuance to this That s like this should seem seemingly be more straightforward where it s like there is sewage 00 12 36 Sam Wilson In our building but how that sewage got there or what caused that sewage to get there is the difference between 0 from the insurance company and 70 000 from the insurance company And how do we as commercial real estate investors educate ourselves on that I mean cuz again you said these policies are hyper nuanced right 00 12 57 Sam Wilson What should I be doing to make sure that I understand this on the front So 00 13 02 first 00 13 02 Andy Gurczak of all the policy is written for the consumer right So it s not supposed to be written as an attorney is supposed to interpret it It s supposed to be easy to read but they re never easy to read They re so complicated 00 13 13 Andy Gurczak Even when we go to read them we re we re looking em up and we have definitions Cause they re very confusing Yeah So so they re not written in your favor Also the adjuster is supposed to have eye for coverage They it s what they used to call an eye for coverage They technically were always stopped that they had an eye for coverage meaning they want they should always look to cover your lumps 00 13 33 Andy Gurczak But once insurance companies took the took in the McKinsey model and I don t wanna get into this whole Allstate McKinsey thing but they accepted this model McKinsey model of how they handle claims Now most claims are denied They re never looking to cover Instead they re more looking okay what s this 00 13 50 Andy Gurczak Or how can we deny this instead of how can we cover it That s every claim how we see going now is it s How can we deny it instead of how can we cover it Then we have to come in and look at okay That pipe there was leaking Well was it leaking over time Did something hit it did it how to burst You just have to find the real culprit to see and then to see if there s coverage in the policy for it 00 14 12 Sam Wilson that is absolutely correct And then that s and that s one of the things I guess that as business owners as real estate investors that s really frustrating in this space is and again I was signing a policy here for our renewal on a commercial building and I just started reading through it and I got halfway through 00 14 27 Sam Wilson I m just like I don t understand what I m reading anymore Like I don t know this is I 00 14 32 Andy Gurczak they get fine I mean they get those commercial That s why I say four unit lasts the residential those policies just they re I dunno 60 pages those commercial ones I mean they get thick those binders get thick 00 14 42 Andy Gurczak I mean there s a lot in them 00 14 43 Sam Wilson a lot in them And by the time I feel like it s a it s a spider web of like You know if this then that but that then and by the time it s all done it s like I don t know This is a ball of exclusions and things that are covered that I can t even begin to remember 00 14 56 Sam Wilson So I guess 00 14 57 Andy Gurczak your point when you say education learning or where can you there s really it s hard because everything s so skew If you go online and say do I need a public adjuster or should I hire a PA you ll find half articles Yes all good And then half bad And those bad ones are all written by insurance companies 00 15 11 Andy Gurczak No one even tells you that you can hire a PA A lot of people don t know there s actually a private adjuster You can hire to look over your claim and you don t even have to hire us You can just literally have us look over your claim to see It was I went to one yesterday was a fire It was a friend that called looked over the claim 00 15 25 Andy Gurczak I m like there s a couple of things missing but I ll give you the tips and advice What you tell em to get it paid There s nothing else for us to do I m just saying it doesn t hurt to call because the good PAs and the ones that are very knowledgeable don t look over a claim like our firm doesn t take on a claim unless we look over and make sure we can bring value to it 00 15 40 Andy Gurczak So I can t bring value to Sam then there s then there s no need for us or I m not gonna waste your time or you re gonna waste Neil waste each other s time 00 15 48 Sam Wilson Absolutely And that brings back us to the last question And maybe this is Too granular too personal to have on a podcast question but I guess I gotta ask it how do you guys get paid in this process 00 15 59 Andy Gurczak Yeah PA usually charges between 10 to 10 20 20 5 depending We cover 12 states So we ve just taken the model of 10 across the board When we do commercial en large we have a scale that drops down the percentage from 10 to after a million dollars It s 5 we cap it for like really large claims for our larger clients 00 16 19 Andy Gurczak but that s our firm Again everyone does it a little bit differently we do a flat 10 and like I said when we do the large claims then we have a scale that kind of goes down based on if the claim is to reach a certain 00 16 30 Sam Wilson amount Right 00 16 31 Sam Wilson No I love that That s great Last question for you here Andy 00 16 35 Sam Wilson If someone were to come work with your firm What makes them a great client for you guys that you say man that s somebody I really wanna work with 00 16 41 Andy Gurczak Someone that trusts us someone that when I talk to says Andy I just want you to handle that claim Just settle it handle everything for me 00 16 50 Andy Gurczak Just let me know when we re done here Let me know the amounts That s the best client the client that is the client That s worried about the percentage upfront what they have to pay or what s our Those clients right away I can tell you then let s not work together because the value I bring to you literally we can charge over 50 on each claim and you d still be better off if you didn t hire us 00 17 11 Andy Gurczak Right 00 17 11 Sam Wilson That s the I love that And that that that s a fair and honest reply And I appreciate that Cuz everybody has in their own industry whether you re a broker whether you re a buyer a seller there s like people you wanna work with And then there s people you re like Hey this just isn t a good fit in a good fit for us 00 17 26 Sam Wilson So certainly appreciate your transparency and commercial 00 17 29 Andy Gurczak clients Like you saying you guys invest in commercial and your listeners are our favorite Because they usually have their own team of contractors and roofers all their whole team So when we come on their team we re just in charge of getting their claims paid fully making sure they have all the money then they get their own guys 00 17 45 Andy Gurczak They re not having the insurance company take all their money and do their work Right So it works out in it works out in their favor 00 17 53 Sam Wilson That s awesome Andy thank you for coming on the show today and taking the time to break down what a public adjuster or private adjuster is how you guys work 00 18 02 Sam Wilson What how you guys get paid what to do the right things to do the wrong things to do And really I guess bringing a little clarity perhaps and saying that the industry is just pretty confusing as it is and there s probably not gonna change any time in the future but at least you ve given us some some tips and tricks on how to navigate how to navigate those murky waters 00 18 20 Sam Wilson So I certainly appreciate it If I if our listeners wanna get in touch with you or learn more about you what is the best 00 18 25 Andy Gurczak way to do that The best way for your listeners What I ll do is I ll leave you my my personal cell phone If any of your listeners wanna call me or text me I ll leave in my cell phone 00 18 34 Andy Gurczak That way that s the quickest way they can save that number in their phone book Cause again you might never need me Or you might have two claims in a year so if they want to save my phone number it s seven oh eight six five five four one eight six seven oh eight six five five four one eight six 00 18 48 Andy Gurczak And that s literally my cell phone They call me text me They have any questions I m more than happy I m very open to helping people so 00 18 54 Sam Wilson that s awesome Andy thank you again for coming on today I certainly appreciate it 00 18 59 Andy Gurczak Appreciate it Click here to visit this podcast episode