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In this episode, Jen and Justin discuss the complexities of total loss claims in auto insurance. They explore the challenges faced by claimants, including misunderstandings about how claims work, the role of insurance adjusters, and the importance of knowing one's insurance policy. The conversation also delves into the differences between first-party and third-party claims, the difficulties in finding legal representation, and real-life case studies that highlight the emotional toll of navigating insurance claims. The episode emphasizes the need for claimants to be informed and proactive in their dealings with insurance companies.
Creators and Guests
What is The Petty Details of Auto Claims?
We are a husband/wife team and we have run our own company since 2009 helping auto accident victims, attorneys, body shops and insurance professionals with auto damage claims and property damage values. We dive deep into diminished value, total losses, the appraisal clause and loss of use but we do so much more than that. We answer your questions, talk about how to make the most of your auto claim and try to get free information out there so claims can be settled quickly and fairly. We also might goof around a bit....depends on the day :).
Jen (00:00.908)
Hey everybody, thanks for joining us. We are Petty Details. My name is Jen. That's Justin. I hope I'm pointing the right way. And we are subject matter experts in auto property damage claims. Justin sits on the stand across the country, consults attorneys and victims and shops and all the good stuff. And today we're here to talk about why you can't get your total loss settled.
So I'm gonna let Justin take over.
Justin (00:31.943)
Yeah, mean total losses suck. mean, first of all, you lost your car. So it's like you're if you don't wreck every week for a year, you don't know how claims work. You know, it's like you're just stuck in a problem with how do you deal with the claim because you're just not familiar with how claims work. And that's the big number one is just not understanding how claims work. So it's like you have to know that that there's
adjusters, you know, is so number one is not knowing how claims work. And one of the reasons why you can't figure it out is because the adjusters don't know how claims work a lot of times. They just are not in a position that is highly trained. That's this an adjusting position. Unfortunately, unless you're high level and have been doing it for 10, 15 years, you're probably not a very high level trained adjuster that understands.
Jen (01:28.76)
Sort of like high turnover. Yeah.
Justin (01:30.686)
It is, it's a hard job. They don't start you out at high pay. And so it's a hard job to try to advance in. And so people get burned out with it real quick. And you have to just follow best practices and rules. But, know, like for example, how claims work, you know, we had an example of me dealing with, I was a defense witness on a wire fraud and insurance fraud case if the FBI was investigating.
and I was supposed to be the witness that was an expert in auto claims and how best practices on auto claims to show how potentially this defendant who was accused of wire fraud and insurance fraud may not have been committing as much fraud as they thought, if you will. And it was clear, I went through, I think, 2,500 pages
plus of claims notes and all kinds of stuff. And I had to go through and basically put an adjuster hat on and adjust eight different claims. And it's like the rampant, unknowledgeable way that the insurance adjusters handle claims is just astounding. It's like you can't believe that somebody is an insurance adjuster and that they don't have enough sense to handle that claim right. And so assuming that
they're gonna handle the claim right is number two. You don't know how that works, how it works, and how it works is just however fast the insurance company can make it work. The second thing is you might assume that the adjuster knows what they're doing. I can tell you 99 % of time they do not know what they're doing. They don't know the case law, you know.
Jen (03:13.995)
Well, I mean, like, they don't have access to the policy sometimes. You've had that response from adjusters that they don't have access to the policy, especially on the appraisal clause, because it's all about that language, you know.
Justin (03:19.387)
Unbelievable. Unbelievable stuff. Correct. You ask them, right. You ask the adjuster, hey, can you send me my policy? Well, we don't have access to that. You're joking me. You know, that's not true. There's no way the adjuster at the insurance company doesn't have access to the insurance policy. That's just a lie. And it's like, they will tell that to you.
and you'll be stuck in how do you resolve that? And so that's sort of, yeah.
Jen (03:51.041)
Talk about that girl that she used to work with 22 years ago.
Justin (03:55.743)
Sure, I yeah, I mean, the point in case is that, you know, I had a claim come through and I was like, great, I know this adjuster. I worked with her 20 years ago, you know? And so I was like, I'll get her on the phone and we'll be able to talk about it and understand each other and we'll be on the same page and so forth. Call her up and she's still an entry level employee that has no authority and could not speak
intelligently on anything more advanced than just your basic property claim. And it was astounding to me that somebody could do that for that long and not advance at all. It's just a weird thing, I guess. It's like one of the things that I, it's just like, I don't know. It's just, yeah. I mean, it's like just a lack of trying to get better, you know, at what you do. And so it's like, I don't, I think it's just common. Yeah.
Jen (04:37.781)
Yeah.
Jen (04:41.857)
Some people are just happy making a paycheck, you know?
Jen (04:49.676)
Rot, like digging deeper, getting deeper, figure it out, you know.
Justin (04:53.629)
Yeah, just try to get better, you know? It's like, that's crazy. it's like, you know, it's like, about, yeah, tell about that, you know, educating an adjuster that you had where you were like, yeah.
Jen (04:58.845)
I have a good story.
Jen (05:05.736)
Yeah. So it was years ago. I don't remember when, but it was a high level insurance executive and he had called us and I feel like he was in like Colorado or somewhere, you know, North, mid North, East, West, whatever West. And he was asking about some complex claim issue that he needed help with and he needed your help with it. And I told him when he said what he did, I was like, okay, I have a question because
I talk to insurance adjusters all the time and I cannot believe how little they know about their policy, like the appraisal clause. They don't even know about the appraisal clause and it says it right there in the policy. so I said, I have to school them all the time on the appraisal clause. And he said, yeah, that's what we call ruining a good adjuster. And I was like, okay. You know, I mean, it makes sense. They don't want to pay a bunch of money out that they're, if they don't have to, you know, and if somebody gives up.
because they're not getting anywhere. That's how they're gonna keep that money in your total loss situation, you know?
Justin (06:11.401)
Yeah. Well, it's just like.
Jen (06:12.536)
What about the one, the one, that attorney, that attorney that had to fight?
Justin (06:18.153)
Yeah, I mean, that's what I was, it goes to show that we had a claims manager and he had hired a defense attorney because their insured party had been sued for diminished value and loss of views and so forth. And the insurance company was wanting to not pay her for any of those damages and they needed an expert and they had hired a defense attorney who knew me.
And so the defense attorney called me up and said, hey, can you analyze this? So I did. And I mean, it was not zero damage, but it also wasn't a big, huge claim either. And so she had a little diminished value. I think it was a Honda Civic that was pretty new at the time. I think this was somewhere in the 2014 or 15, and it was like a 2013. And so it was like not a very old Honda Civic, and it was nice, clean, and it was damaged.
Jen (07:07.487)
Yeah.
Justin (07:15.093)
pretty bad and had to be fixed. So it had a couple of grand worth of diminished value on it. And, you know, and she didn't get to drive her car for a month because of delays and other things like that. And so, you know, I analyzed the whole thing and suggested a settlement amount, which was less than what they wanted, what the customer, what the vehicle owner was asking for. But I just said what the truth was. And it made the claims manager so mad when that attorney sent that report to him.
Jen (07:25.641)
Last of years.
Justin (07:44.958)
And that claims manager disparaged me and acted like I had no experience. If somebody believes it, you know, just making just crazy talk, you know, and that attorney, he wrote an email back to that and copied me on it and just ripped that claims manager a new one. was, I was like, gosh, dog, man, I appreciate you do that. He sent him back an email that said, look,
Jen (07:53.769)
Yeah.
Jen (08:07.015)
Yeah
Justin (08:14.225)
I choose the expert. I've known him. He defended me and acted, you know, said, you know, explained how he knew me and stuff. And it's like, you either take his work, I'm using him, whether you like it or not. And, you know, just fire me off of it and hire a new defense attorney if you don't like who I picked. But that's my, here's my suggestion. It's what Petty said, you know, and so, but that shows you that those claims managers will do that. They, if you tell them that they owe more than they think that they owe,
even if they're not an expert in it, they're gonna, it's just almost an ego thing, but it's just frustrating for sure, so yeah.
Jen (08:49.202)
Yeah. Well, what about number three? What about putting a value on the car?
Justin (08:57.137)
Yeah, so total losses are about market value and how you determine the market value of a vehicle. And that terminology is real confusing. So one of the things that makes people settle their claim is that they believe the adjuster knows how to put a value on their car, that they know, that they've been trained how to do that. They haven't it. That's called an appraisal. You have to do market research and compare comparable vehicles yourself.
as an actual appraiser. There's appraisal standards that you have to follow. have to document what the, who the user is, you know, what the proper market is, what the ownership interest is. Is this a lease? it not? All of those things you have to take into consideration. Insurance adjusters just run a report on a computer. They just log in to CCC or AutoSource or JD Power and they click some drop downs and then,
it produces a report for them. They didn't look up these cars and look and see if they're comparable or not. They're just trusting a computer to do it. And so they have no clue how to do an appraisal. that's the second. I mean, the third thing is, you know, that you don't trust them to know how to put a value on your vehicle. They're using a computer program. They don't know how to do it.
Jen (10:14.492)
or just something made up in house that this is the way that we're like, sometimes they'll just pull like an NADA or JD Power or something. It's like one book. That's how you're coming up with a value, you know, so yeah.
Justin (10:27.785)
Yeah, no, it's, you know, the real problem is that the Department of Insurance approves certain things for first-party claims, and we'll get into that first-party and third-party. But first-party claims are regulated by the insurance department. Third-party claims aren't, but even in first-party situation, that doesn't mean that the way the insurance department says to do it is the right way.
That just means that's an approved way that the insurance companies allowed to do it and they will just stick their feet in the mud on it even when it's clear that that way that they're using is wrong.
Jen (11:06.085)
what about the next reason, which is you don't know what's in your policy?
Justin (11:13.373)
Yeah, you have to understand like on a total loss that there is custom equipment defined in your policy and you have to read your policy and understand what it says about your duties after a loss, section E in most policies, you know, and what all the things that your policy restricts you. mean, people just believe a lot of times that their coverage just covers
The damage if we have a wreck. Well, that's not the case
Jen (11:43.838)
I made whole, right? I pay for them to make me whole. I hear that all the time.
Justin (11:46.698)
Yeah, they gotta make me whole it's bad faith. Yes, that's not true. When it's your own insurance company, your policy dictates how that works. And you have to read the definitions in the policy and understand what limits of coverages you have. You don't get certain payment for stereo equipment or electronics if they're not permanently installed and only up to a certain amount and so forth and so on with custom equipment, OEM.
Jen (11:50.984)
Yeah.
Justin (12:14.739)
versus aftermarket parts or lot kind and quality they'll call them in the insurance policy, which means they can get a junkyard part to put on your vehicle or a CAPA certified part. And these things are big problems. CAPA always is decertifying parts every month. You think the shop that uses CAPA parts is gonna call you and say, yeah, by the way, that fender we put on there the other day, they just decertified it. It was certified when we put it on, but you know.
Just let you know, we got notices, decertified. It's like that's the kind of silly stuff that an insurance carrier will ignore. They'll try to ignore that that even happens. It's like that is, that does happen. That's why you want to only use OEM parts. Get an OEM parts endorsement on your policy. Read your policy is the point. You don't know what's in your policy, you can't complain about it.
Jen (12:44.609)
We got you on a call list!
Yeah, not gonna happen ever.
Jen (13:11.464)
Well, and a lot of people just don't understand it even if they do read it. You know, it's just, really, like for me, coming from not an insurance background, I mean, it still confuses me, even though I've learned so much. I've worked, done this with you since oh nine. Like it just, it's, there's still parts of it that confuse me. So it's, it's a, you really need somebody that you can ask the questions to like people do to us. They, even if it's, mean, we talk to tons of people that we don't take money from, that we just tell them, okay, here's how that works. And
Here's what we think and if you want our help, then we'll help you, you know, so, yeah, we do, we do try to vet all of our cases really well before we take them on to make sure that they are going to get proper help that we can actually help and be a value to them. and I think that's important for appraisers slash experts to do because it is money out of your pocket extra, you know, but, but when you have to spend it on that appraisal clause, like for a total loss, it's so worth it. it when it's worth it. but I do want to talk about the next reason, which is,
which is a big one, and that's gonna be basically first party versus third party claims because you don't have a policy to rely on.
Justin (14:16.495)
Right, right, right. So you have to understand the difference between a first party claim and a third party claim. And the easiest way is to, if it's your insurance company that you're making a claim against, then it's a first party claim. You are one of the people that has the contract, the insurance company and you. So you're a first party to that contract. So if it's your own insurance company that you're making the claim against,
Then you have a contract that governs how that claim is managed along with insurance code statutes. That's not the way it works with a third party claim. And that's where a lot of people get confused is that they think that every claim's a claim, right? The Department of Insurance will get them if they do something wrong, you know? Nope, not, yeah. Very rarely does an insurance company get in trouble.
Jen (15:06.488)
Mwah, mwah.
Justin (15:12.757)
unless it's super clear. I mean, you have to really document it well, we've had some cases over the years that where an insurance company was like, I backpedal real quick and pay the claim because they don't want to get, yeah, right. But very rarely does the insurance department force an insurance company to do anything. Most of the time they say, well, that's a matter for the courts. And we can't make a legal determination.
Jen (15:13.702)
I haven't seen it yet.
Jen (15:25.156)
Yeah, yeah, with a threat, yeah.
Jen (15:41.286)
And so many people are always just like, and so many people are always just like, I'm gonna make a complaint. It's like, yeah, when you say that to a third party insurance carrier, that's not your own. They're like, go ahead, whatever, I don't care. Because you don't have a policy with them. You can't complain to them. You're not their customer.
Justin (15:41.371)
even if that's not really the case, you know?
Justin (15:50.816)
They're laughing at you in the back. You're not a consumer with them. It's that other person that caused the wreck that has the claim. And so you have to recognize that it's that other person that has the claim. You have a benefit that could result out of their claim because they have liability insurance that might pay you because they're liable.
But you have to understand that they have to be liable. You have to prove that. You can't make their insurance company do anything. The only thing that the insurance company for another person has to think about is could you win it in court? And how big of a threat are you? That's it. They don't care about anything else. Are you gonna sue? Probably not. So we'll just offer low amount until you give up. And that's how they...
Jen (16:36.132)
How big a boy are ya?
Jen (16:45.191)
Yeah, because 95 % of them don't sue.
Justin (16:48.445)
Alright, so you have to go in knowing how to handle a third-party claim or don't
Jen (16:52.472)
Listen, they're like the dealers in Vegas. The insurance companies are the dealers in Vegas.
Justin (16:55.733)
Yeah, you're at a definitely an unfair advantage when you're dealing with somebody else's insurance company because your only recourse, yes, unfair, you're at a, you definitely don't have an advantage on a third party claim. You have to file a lawsuit to even make a threat and it's not as simple as people think. We'll get to that too.
Jen (17:03.362)
No, unfair disadvantage.
Jen (17:13.424)
Yeah.
Jen (17:17.242)
Yeah.
Jen (17:21.412)
What happened to your lighting?
Justin (17:24.629)
my computer went into screen saver mode. just turned, I had this ambient lighting going on that just, yeah.
Jen (17:27.43)
sleep mode. I was like, wait a minute, all of sudden your lighting has completely changed.
Listen, this is the 400th time we've done this video, so do not screw it up for us. Okay, let's move on to the next reason.
Justin (17:38.486)
So we did Yeah, I mean that was the same thing it's like you you don't You have to be willing to file a lawsuit if you're dealing with a third-party claim you have to be willing to and You have to either you have to know an attorney or get lucky. We don't know attorneys in every location We do have some attorneys around that we can refer people to but there's places that we work where I tell people up front
Jen (17:52.185)
If you have to, yeah.
Justin (18:07.355)
If the insurance company, you got a third party claim and the insurance company wants to play nasty, you're gonna have to file a small claim suit and I can't do that for you. And so, you you have to be willing to do the work and we can only help so much on that. It's illegal for me to give legal advice. I can't teach that, you know, even though I've lived, right.
Jen (18:18.127)
Yeah.
Jen (18:29.399)
We can't do it for them. can't. People want us to represent them all the time and it's like you're asking for an attorney. Like we're appraisers.
Justin (18:36.117)
And I mean, and I wouldn't want to do that. I've never been a practicing attorney, you know, I'm not the, I know a lot. I've sued a lot of people and I've got a lot of experience in litigation, but I wouldn't want to take on the role of an attorney. And I'm careful not to do that. And you know, I can help, can help you so much, but there's a line where I can't help you. You know, you have to be willing to do that.
Jen (18:39.842)
No.
Jen (18:52.281)
Yeah.
Yeah.
Let's talk about I want to be okay. I want to talk about sorry I didn't mean to cut you off, but this is one of my favorites is They're trying to be their own expert so they're gonna call you and put you through the ringer cuz they have read Google, okay? So tell me tell me about it
Justin (19:09.503)
Yeah, yeah.
Justin (19:15.517)
Yeah, it is irritating. Every professional that's an expert in their field probably feels the same way. you just, I mean...
Jen (19:24.473)
Yeah, and it's hard because you do have finger, you have it at your fingertips. It's just do you understand it, you know?
Justin (19:30.517)
You know what it reminds me of is that movie Lucy where Morgan Freeman's answering the phone and Lucy calls him up. Yeah, she calls him up and she says, I read all your research on the brain. He's like, you read all of my research? He's like, yes, all 7,422 pages. You know, I've memorized them. I can quote them back to you. It's like some astronomical number, but that's what this person that's acting like they've read Google.
Jen (19:35.222)
You love that movie.
Justin (19:59.232)
can't say and like you didn't research everything that I've ever done. You can't be, you know.
Jen (20:03.267)
Well, and they talk to different people, different people give them wrong advice or, you know, I mean...
Justin (20:09.161)
Well, and one of the things about being an expert is your rapport with the community that you're in. cannot, you can't gain relationships with claims managers and attorneys and other appraisers and adjusters. You can't garner that type of experience by reading Google. You have to actually have known those people and deal with them and talk to them and build some rapport and prove to those people that you are an expert so that you have some respect, you know?
Jen (20:35.512)
Well, hey, and have a methodology. You have to have a methodology and rely on that and be able to explain it. I mean, there's so many things about being an expert that people, you you can read a lot and you you can learn a lot and people are smart that call us and they've done all the research. They put together a huge Excel spreadsheet. They've got links to every comp. They've got a narrative on each comp about what's different with their trim level and their options and the cost of it. And like so smart.
Justin (21:01.525)
All right. All right.
Jen (21:04.739)
But it doesn't matter if you're smart. It doesn't matter, like.
Justin (21:07.381)
That's not the way the game is played. You have to have the wisdom of how the game is played. If you don't know the rules, then you're just making up how to fight and they don't care. If you don't know how to fight, that's fine. They'll just win by knowing the rules. And so it's like, yeah.
Jen (21:22.817)
Well, and if you don't know the rules, they can change them without you knowing. Yeah.
Justin (21:26.555)
Exactly, definitely, definitely. It definitely is a good, that's a really good point is that knowing the rules and not letting them just make up rules because they do it a lot all the time. What do we got next?
Jen (21:33.484)
Yeah.
Jen (21:36.866)
I'm looking at our list. Let me see our, I'm seeing our next one is that you don't understand your legal rights. So talk about that just a little bit before we wrap this up.
Justin (21:45.692)
Yeah, and I think it goes back to the idea of first party, third party. You have to understand what you can and can't use to threaten because the insurance adjuster, as low level as most of them are, what happens when they get a formal and well thought out demand that rings the bell, if you will, that talks about stowers demand or talks about, you know, the real, it's like doesn't make a veiled threat.
but makes a credible threat, a threat that is like, hell, this person knows what they're talking about. That goes to a manager to review and then that manager probably doesn't understand how to respond, they go talk to the legal counsel. That's what I did when I was at work at insurance companies. I was in the large loss consulting. So if somebody didn't know what to do, some weird thing, it would go to Jack or to me.
or then to the legal counsel, and then the legal counsel would come back to me or Jack and say, do you have any cases? So it's like they do go up the ladder with it if you know how to ring the bell, but it's difficult to know how to escalate a claim, if you will. You have to escalate it, and it does take a lot of response letters. The bane of my existence is that I just can't get to everybody, and I can't write their letters for them. have to just sort of
pep talk, to do it, you know, here's how you do it. And here's some sample language. It's the only sample, it's not legal advice, you know, and just give them that. But you have people that will take advantage of that. That's why as a professional, you have to be careful about who you give that stuff to. And even if it's perfectly legal, I've had people take something that I gave them as educationally disclaimed that way, and then
Jen (23:09.792)
Suggest what yeah, here's what and here's what they're not doing. Here's what
All right.
Justin (23:39.365)
say to the insurance company, he's representing me.
Jen (23:43.648)
Right. You're gonna talk to my attorney.
Justin (23:44.263)
You know? And it's like...
Jen (23:49.484)
We We quit!
Justin (23:52.096)
So just being sort of, know, it's like, I've used this before, Dunning-Kruger, thinking you're smarter than you are about how to handle a claim. You trust your expert. If you have an attorney, trust your attorney. If you have a good expert, they're gonna refer you to an attorney when you need one. They're not gonna give you bad advice. They're just not gonna do it. Or that's right, you tell them, right.
Jen (24:00.288)
Yeah.
Jen (24:10.923)
or they're gonna tell you that you can't get, they're gonna tell you, I'm not gonna be able to find you an attorney for this. And that was our next point is you can't get an attorney probably, you know.
Justin (24:18.933)
That's right. It's very hard on property damage auto claims to get an attorney Yes, for sure. Just call around to some attorneys Yeah
Jen (24:22.816)
Without an injury, you know, no way. We know a few that will take, well, we know a few that'll take them here and there, but it's gotta be worth it for them. It's hard work. Property damage is irritating. It's a lot of admin work. You need paralegals that can run that for you and do that behind the scenes. And that's what we do is we work with a ton of paralegals and stuff, like telling them, here's the next step. Here's, you know, what to do.
Justin (24:32.351)
Well, yeah.
Justin (24:40.991)
Yeah. Well.
Right. Yeah. Well, the reason that we have some attorneys that will help more than anybody else, I would think. I have a lot of attorneys. I don't know either, but we have a lot and it's because they can trust that our product is good. They're not gonna have to worry about that. If they have an issue with it, we're gonna fix it. And we support their paralegal staff and they can call us anytime and ask us question. Normally can get me on the phone right then.
Jen (24:54.496)
feel like it, but I don't know, I mean...
Justin (25:14.693)
Say, know, hey, I got a weird situation. How do you do this? And I will tell them if I know and if I don't know I'll say let me research it and I'll call you right back And so we figured out for them and help them on that property damage side So it so it opens up that and the ones that use this it's hard to get them to use us But once they do use us a few times they see how? How valuable it is to their customer because that's big part of your claim is my car man, you know
Jen (25:23.158)
Yeah.
Jen (25:42.997)
Well, and at repair, the repair is hard, you know, so we help with that because we know, we know a lot of good shops. Yeah, that's a different video. Yes, but I'm just saying that, you know, we can really help them through the process on these different elements when they call us early. You know, if you're late in the process, I mean, yeah, we talk to people all the time. already have their car repaired and stuff like that, but on a total loss.
Justin (25:43.317)
It's like my car is gone.
Justin (25:47.957)
That's a whole, we need to do that on a different video. We need to do a repair dispute, a different video, yeah.
Jen (26:08.276)
especially people always they get so hung up on fighting with that third party carrier and they won't budge and I mean I literally had a guy I'll tell this quick story before we wrap it up this last week and this is a good story it's one of the most interesting and he'll probably see this and laugh about it but he's a vet and he has PTSD and he has he's just very he's very he's been messed around for like
Justin (26:30.387)
Mr. Johnson,
Jen (26:35.367)
months and months and it's his truck his boat he didn't have insurance on his boat it's a 70 000 ford truck you know and so he turns left in front of someone in in a low visibility and gets t-boned his fault and he has been fighting and fighting his own insurance carrier he's been fighting and fighting to try to make them give him a fair value and they're 10 000 low
$10,000 low under what he's owed. And he was so emotional because he's like, this is the worst thing that's happened in my life. And I'm like, I am an auto claims counselor. So let me cry on my shoulder. But I mean, I did, I talked to him for a long time and I said, look, because here's what he was doing. Okay, so since he's a soldier, his way is to fight, go into battle. That's what he does. So he had been like,
threatening that adjuster. And I mean, like he found his phone number, like his cell phone number. And I was like, sir, is it worth going to jail? Let's, okay, back, back pedal, let's take a step back. Because for him, he didn't even, he could have already invoked the appraisal clause months ago and not even went through any of that heartache. And we could have taken over if the claim was worth it and helped get that claim resolved. So people just don't understand the power of appraisal clause in their total loss.
And even when they're not filing it on their, even when someone else caused it and they don't have it filed on their own insurance, if they're not doing you fair, you need to file it on your own insurance and you can fight them. You have a policy. So that's my two cents.
Justin (28:15.541)
Yeah, I'd say always go with your own insurance if you can. But don't be like that customer you're talking about and be like, I know where you live adjuster.
Jen (28:21.216)
I'm at total loss.
Jen (28:28.256)
Don't do that. He got a cease and desist. He got a cease and desist from the insurance carrier. They hired a third party adjuster to adjust his claim because he's not allowed to call them. So, I mean, it's emotional. It really takes a toll on people's life. Yeah, and we're gonna be able to help him, you know.
Justin (28:30.235)
Don't do that, you Gotta cease and desist from the insurance company. Had to hire a third party adjusting company, yeah.
Justin (28:42.165)
Yeah, don't do that. Don't do that. We're gonna get that one solved for him and and it's in this one where We know the other appraiser. We know both of the other appraisers frankly that were that were hired on it Yeah, both both the independent adjuster and the and the appraiser we know them both. Yeah
Jen (28:54.784)
Yeah, yeah, and and most of the guys in our industry are ladies and ladies and gentlemen in our industry. They're they're you know, they're reasonable. You know, there's a few here and there who like can't fit their head through a door or whatever. But you know, I mean, for the most part, that's in every industry. So, well, you know, we I think we hit on all the points we are here to talk about on this video.
Justin (29:07.231)
Sure.
Justin (29:17.269)
Recap, Understand that claims are tricky. You don't know how they work. Adjusters don't know everything. You know what I mean? And they, even if they say they've got a lot of experience, don't believe that crap, they don't know what they're talking about, the insurance executives also are the kind of people that promote people that save money all the time and show up and be a yes man. And so that's the last two points is that the high level insurance execs
know that they want an ignorant adjuster so that they can maintain the way of handling claims without them questioning it. And so it's, you know.
Jen (29:56.967)
And I will say, we know some smart adjusters. Like we have worked with some great adjusters. Yeah, I mean.
Justin (30:00.49)
Sure, there's some good ones. I was a good one. I was a good one. mean, even though they tried to train me that way, I just refused. And that's why I don't work in that industry.
Jen (30:07.483)
Well, it's just that they don't give them any power. They don't give them any control over negotiations and stuff like that. And people are misunderstood. They think that the adjuster just has all the power to settle their claim. They don't. They don't. No.
Justin (30:18.101)
Not at all. They're told they're under pressure to settle it within a certain dollar figure and they and they're just told certain things talking points as to why not to pay things and so you got to know how to get around that. That's the claims. It's like I thought that's all I did for my career when I worked as insurance adjuster and now you know what am I at 27 years something like that 27 or 28 years it's like
Jen (30:23.422)
Yeah.
Jen (30:29.715)
Yeah, it's a hard job.
Jen (30:44.06)
I've lost count. mean, me and you, so Justin is my husband. You know, this is our first, you know, real big video. We did that other video, what, a year and a half ago that we did our first podcast video. But now we're back into it and, and we're husband and wife and we've owned our companies since 09. We started with nothing from the beginning. Justin saw a hole in the, in where consumers needed help and he wanted to fill it. And he came to me and was like,
I want to start this business. I want to do this." And I was like, okay. Wow, that sounds really exciting. Insurance claims, know? Anyways, but you know, really is an interesting thing that we do. We love helping people. If you need help with your issue, total loss, diminished value, loss of use, repair disputes, get a hold of us. Our link will be in the description.
Justin (31:35.029)
It's people business more than you think once you get into it, if you're passionate about it, because that's what you're doing is you're helping a person whenever you give them the knowledge they need to make sure they don't just leave, you know, get, you know, I can't think of a nice word. I'll just leave it at that. You know what I mean? You know, don't let the insurance company get one over on you, you know, if you can avoid it. Yeah. So.
Jen (31:40.156)
Yeah. Yeah.
Jen (31:56.018)
Don't curse!
Jen (32:00.338)
Beep! Beep! Yes. Yeah. You gotta fight for yourself. That's what I tell people. You gotta stand... You can't be afraid to stand up for yourself. And they always ask, my rate's gonna go up. Look, maybe.
Justin (32:04.895)
Yeah.
Justin (32:13.557)
It's gonna go up anyway, even if you have no claim at all. It's going up, it's going up. If you don't have a claim or not, it's gonna go up, guaranteed.
Jen (32:15.25)
for some unknown reason. It's going up, it's going up. That's right. Well, if you need help with your auto accident, just reach out to us. We will tell you the truth. We will look at your, what your situation is at free for front, for free upfront and tell you if we think we can help you. And we love helping people.
Justin (32:38.165)
Yeah, and look at our other videos that we have on different subjects.
Jen (32:41.18)
Yeah, we're going to be uploading a lot, so stay tuned, okay? Thanks for joining us, everyone. Have a great day.