Mike Fried 0:00
The best thing you can do at the onset of a claim is qualify it. Make sure that you have somebody that can come on site and inspect it, prior to notifying the insurance company, but still timely. And the reason I suggest that is because you want somebody to verify whether or not you have damages that are covered, and that your damages if covered will exceed the deductible. Otherwise, you’re filing a claim, which puts you at a higher risk evaluation from from a carrier standpoint, from an underwriting standpoint, that may ultimately raise your rates and you may recover nothing from a claim due to coverage.
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J Darrin Gross 0:52
Welcome to commercial real estate pro networks, CRE PN Radio. Thanks for joining us. My name is J. Darrin Gross. This is the podcast focused on commercial real estate, investment and risk management strategies. Weekly we have conversations with commercial real estate investors and professionals who provide their experience and insight to help you grow your real estate portfolio.
Today, my guest is Mike Fried. Mike is the president of all American public adjusters licensed and appointed Insurance Claim consulting firm and Aftermath Consulting Group, a large loss consulting firm, he has extensive experience as an independent adjuster. And in just a few minutes, we’re going to speak with Mike about how to make a commercial property insurance claim work for you. But first, if you like our show, CRE PN Radio, there are a couple things you can do to help. You can like, share and subscribe. And as always, if you leave a comment, we’d love to hear from you. Also, if you’d like to see how handsome our guests are, be sure to check out our YouTube channel. And you can find this on YouTube at commercial real estate pro network. With that I want to welcome my guest, Mike, welcome to CRE PN Radio.
Mike Fried 2:17
Thank you very happy to be here today. And I hope that this is a wonderful experience for all the listeners, this is a really good opportunity for everybody.
J Darrin Gross 2:27
Well, I can speak for myself, I’m excited to talk with you as an insurance broker myself. You know, the adjusting of claims is kind of the the fog that a lot of people heard it feels like a foggy time for a lot of people and, and how insurance works and, and the nuances of coverage and policy and, and to learn more about how you guys help clients, you know, get get what they’re looking for. I think it will benefit us all. But before we jump into our conversation if you could take just a minute and share a little bit about your background with the listeners.
Mike Fried 3:05
So I started my career in construction, working on specialty roofing specialty being non residential shingles. From there, I became an insurance adjuster back in 2004. And this was really lucky timing. I was still in college and being an insurance adjuster really wasn’t on anyone’s goal of achievements, if you will, but started off in insurance adjusting. Right before Katrina happened and everyone remembers Hurricane Katrina. This was really a lucky break for my career as it catapulted the weather from 2004 2005 until today has gotten incrementally worse, and it’s caused a catastrophic amount of damages and insurance claims. So being an insurance adjuster in the right place at the right time getting the training that I received from some of the major carriers that I represented, really put me farther ahead of most of my peers in the industry. From an age standpoint and perspective. I’m currently multi state public insurance adjuster, which is an insurance adjuster whom represents the people against their insurance companies. I specialize in multifamily and commercial assets. That’s where my training started with insurance companies such as travelers and Zurich, I was taught how to manage and represent the entire file as opposed to just look at the damages and apply costs to it. Having that background is pivotal in the career that I’m in today on the public side. And the training skill and knowledge that has come with it has just proven to be head and shoulders better than a lot of the competition who who may not have that carrier background, but I do so I’m currently on the boards of both the Texas Association of Public Looking for and suggesters I’ll be the president of that association next year. I’m currently the sitting vice president of it. I will also be on the ladder for the National Association of public insurance adjusters, which I’m currently a board member of. I occupy a couple of other board seats in the industry, such as the insurance appraisal and Empire Association. And I’m a licensed and appointed study of the Institute of inspection cleaning and restoration certification, the ICRC hopefully that’s a good background listeners. Hey,
J Darrin Gross 5:36
I know I was gonna say between your your construction background and your training with major insurance companies and sounds like you’ve weathered a few storms and disasters and and been there on the on the front line of some some, you know, catastrophic losses that’s that’s no better way to learn the material than then to be in the field facing live fire. That’s That’s good stuff. So let’s, let’s get into this here real quick. The policyholders the insurance, they buy a policy from somebody like me, an insurance agent or insurance broker. And at the time when they buy the the policy, assuming that they they weren’t trying to cut corners that that everybody was trying to ensure that the property adequately you have a claim that occurs and will just, for example, say, say it’s a cat loss, windstorm. You got, you know, property damage, maybe roofs ripped off, you’ve got people that are displaced, you’ve got clients that that are in a state of shock, or, or just a state of uncertainty. And they call somebody like me, they’re their agent, we turn in the claim. And there’s an adjuster from the company that comes out.
Mike Fried 7:13
correct? That’s correct.
J Darrin Gross 7:16
Okay. So my question, is it that point? The adjuster for the company is working with the their client, the insured to adjust the the claim, they’re surveying the damage? Trying to figure out what what happened? A is a covered B, what are the costs compared to the limits that are that are involved and start money, or you know, start payments of the repairs or reconstruction can occur? My question I guess I would start with is, what point do you get involved in how do you get involved?
Mike Fried 8:00
Sure. A lot of our pre existing clients always call us first. We suggest to everyone new clients, existing clients, whoever it might be, the best thing you can do at the onset of a claim is qualified. Make sure that you have somebody that can come on site and inspected prior to notifying the insurance company but still timely. And the reason I suggest that is because you want somebody to verify whether or not you have damages that are covered, and that your damages if covered will exceed the deductible. Otherwise, you’re filing a claim, which puts you at a higher risk evaluation from from a carrier standpoint, from an underwriting standpoint, that may ultimately raise your rates and you may recover nothing from a claim due to coverage. So having someone evaluate the policy and inspect the damages, is really, I think, the most important first step how to know when to call a public adjuster. Not every case, not every claim needs a public adjuster. However, being on the commercial and multifamily side of claims, most all of them do. You’re dealing with a lot of personalities. Let’s assume this is a multifamily. Let’s assume this is an apartment complex, it being an apartment complex. You’ve got multiple families that are displaced, you may be dealing with an avenue of loss of rents, loss of income, you’ve got a business interruption as a result, you’ve got to relocate some of the families into unoccupied units, if any of them are even accessible at the time, but there’s a lot of moving parts to it that you as a manager or owner of an asset may not have the wherewithal to facilitate that’s something that a public adjuster will assist in across the board. So we will get on site and get with the right people we have in house business interruption financial analysis and CPAs that help with the business transaction of it. And then we have really specialists that focus on On damages based on the cause that specialize in estimating the damages as well. So we verify coverage we verify cost, we verify that you have the right people in place to maximize and expedite your insurance claim. When it’s really case specific, but if you don’t have a public adjuster at the onset, and you wait for an offer to be made, which is very common, you’re setting yourself back at least 30 days and likely 90 days to the process, because a public adjuster still has to start from the beginning, we still have to create the event and determine what the total valuation of the loss is not just what a Delta might be. Based on what a contractor might say, or based off what you think the values might be, we always have to start from day $1. One when creating the loss measure. So the sooner you get a public adjuster involved, the better there’s no financial gain or loss to hiring a public adjuster later. Sometimes it may cost more, but you’re certainly losing time. And time when you have a loss is probably the most important element of it. You need to get done fast, you need to get your folks back in. You need to get your business up and running. And you have a family of your own to attend to there’s people out there that specialize in the actual processing of your insurance claims. No different than hiring a tax accountant. You wouldn’t do your own taxes, and you’re not going to let the IRS do your taxes for you. So why rely on the insurance company to do your insurance claim for you let somebody who focuses on all of those elements handle it for you in a timely and professional manner? The onset is the best.
J Darrin Gross 11:44
Yeah, no, that’s that’s a pretty good, compelling argument there, you would have the IRS to your taxes. Right. So So we’ve established the win, I guess is the The sooner the better, is what you’re you’re recommending and based on it sounds like you’ve probably got some larger property clients that have you used your services in the past and they think first of you, as part of their, their claim solution. Is that pretty sure, okay,
Mike Fried 12:15
we operate as a risk. In any sense. Not we don’t sell insurance policies like agents and brokers. But we can advise as to that specific asset, what the best risk analysis might be for them. Again, using apartments as a example, we need to make sure that code is in play in the code upgrade exists, that there’s not actual cash value endorsements on the roofing sections, that they have coverage against fire without limitations, business interruption is in place, we review all of the buckets per se, for lack of a better word that may come into play when there’s a claim. And we make sure that you have the right coverages. So really, it’s a free service that’s offered. But it helps, I guess, bridge the gap between us and you the broker, so that you can make sure the right coverages are in place, we are very anti shopping policies, we always say that now is the time to spend the money on the front side, think of it as an investment because if you ever need it, it will pay dividends. Price shopping on policies is against our recommendations.
J Darrin Gross 13:21
Well, I think that my experience has been some of my more significant customers. That’s that’s where they start from, they don’t start from a price they started from a coverage standpoint, I think it’s more of the the newer, the less capitalized with less to lose, they are basically trying to make a deal fit. And they’re trying to make the insurance fit their budget, as opposed to worrying more about what they could lose. So it gets you it’s just kind of a nature of people trying to get in in business and get started. But let me ask you this. So I engage you or customer engages you right at the start. How do you fit in in the conversation? Do you now become the contact for the insured with the insurance company? Or Who who are you like another conversation where, where if you come out and you do your kind of a pre qualification of a claim? Do you then become the representative of the of the insured with the insurance company?
Mike Fried 14:33
Not at that point, we would always want to qualify the loss prior to moving forward anyway. As a public adjuster, we charge a contingent fee. So we don’t get paid unless you do. We used to take every claim that would walk in the door, but that was not a good business model model for longevity. So the advantage of us qualifying a case at the onset gives us the immediate knowledge to know what Claims value might be, again, if it’s covered. And then if if we both opted that it’s a good business decision to move forward at that time, we would move forward, what representation looks like? Yes, it’s similar to hiring an attorney, the state of Texas especially gives us a lot of leeway to represent you, as an individual, we are licensed and bonded, not a crackerjack box licensed for sure. So it’s like hiring an attorney, all communications and inspections would then run through us and your insurance company. We don’t we don’t get to dictate it’s not an adversarial process, it’s more of a higher level of professionalism, because now we’re speaking the same language to them, as opposed to an insurance company. And again, for lack of a better word dumbing things down to talk to a client, without using maybe insurance language, or I call it claim speak. There’s just faster ways to get things done. by communicating directly making sure that our inspections are scheduled exactly as we can both be there. If they’re going to bring an engineer out, we like to have engineers present. Same thing with building consultants. And any we like to match experts, if you will. So we can’t do that if someone else is handling the scheduling, and the insurance company will absolutely try to schedule as soon as possible with as many bodies as possible. Don’t have the the experts matched up on site. It’s not a negative. It’s just a business model. And it works very well for him. Again, not a knock. If it wasn’t for insurance companies, I wouldn’t have a job. So we do think it’s best to, at the onset, schedule together, schedule, jointly inspect together and handle all communications. That is how the letter of representation that we have reads. And that’s how the state approves it. It keeps a lot of the hair, the hair, say and he said she said from happening. And claims are professional. There’s a they’re big transactions for both sides. Oftentimes, they’re some of the largest transactions beyond the buying of the real estate or selling of the real estate that may take place in. So it’s very important to document and inspect directly the answer.
J Darrin Gross 17:15
Gotcha. So in the process, you mentioned kind of qualifying and, you know, assessing coverage. Do you find that in a typical claim, if you were to compare a settlement offered by an insurance company, is there any difference between what what you have found is that are you finding coverage? Or do you find the insurance company doesn’t offer coverage that’s built into the policy? Is there? Is there anything like that?
Mike Fried 17:50
Gosh, I’ve seen all kinds. So I’ve done over 5000 claims, I think it’s safe to say I’ve seen it all. I’ll give a good example. The first large claim I handled as an insurance adjuster was Blue Cross and Blue shield’s headquarters after Hurricane Gosh, well, one option was Hurricane Wilma. So 2004 was my first deployment and Blue Cross Blue Shield headquarters. It seemed like the Twin Towers to me at the time. They were just ginormous mega mega towers office space. And I went in that morning representing travelers. St. Paul’s actually. And I said, Man, this is probably going to be a million dollar claim. By the time I got done off the roof, and under the ground Servpro handed me a $1.6 million water extraction only invoice for work that had already been completed. And at that time, I didn’t even realize that there was any mitigation done. So for from an adjusting standpoint, I’m waiting for the day that I get to meet my former self on their first claim, and maybe get to correct a lot of wrongs. But safe to say that I made some mistakes there and it happens.
J Darrin Gross 19:10
Yeah, no, I and I think there’s a in some cases, there’s a I guess a I’m gonna say a fog if just for lack of a better word, where the customer feels overwhelmed about what has happened, what it’s going to take to get put back together. And just a sense of what’s the next step. Do you guys do you help sort that out and kind of advocate for the insured?
Mike Fried 19:45
That’s exactly what I do. I’m an insurance advocate ensure that we do not represent insurance companies anymore. So public adjuster can only represent the policyholder and the sole focus is to expedite and maximize the insurance So yes, there’s certainly a personal level to it a lot less so on the commercial side than the personal line side. And your house catching on fire versus your business catching on fire certainly have different emotions that go with them. You’re losing a lot of personal effects in house fire, you’re losing a lot of business, personal property, and another. So the personalities that we deal with on those two sides of the claims are much different. But I would say that, when you have a public adjuster, handling your business and your assets, handling the insurance claim, managing your actual business losses, and quantifying the valuation, you can then go back to your personal life, and do the things that you need to do to stay sane. Unfortunately, being on the disputed claim side of the industry, I’ve seen, marriages destroyed, I’ve seen suicides, I’ve seen a lot of bad stuff happened as a result of insurance claims and the stress that comes with it. Divorce is probably the most common because most click most cases take six to nine months, there’s a lot of personal emotions involved. The husband says he can handle it, the wife says she can handle it. And six months later, nothing’s happened. We deal with the personalities a lot. It’s cost of doing business for us. But yes, we sort all of those things out and that’s part of the the checklist from the onset. The last thing I want to have to do is maybe argue with the client about anything when I’m arguing with insurance company about the cost to fix the building. So I do feel it’s important to manage expectations at the front side, to maybe work on the emotions and personalize what is normally a business to business transaction. Because there are emotions involved. There’s personal loss always whether it’s financial or or personal property, there’s always going to be loss involved in emotions that come with it just a little easier on the business lines, as opposed to the personal lines.
J Darrin Gross 21:57
Sure. No, I you know, the claims process and I in fact, I always sell a policy, I tell people, I hope that they never have to use it. It’s not that it doesn’t work. It’s just that they’ve got a mess on their hands or life’s an interruption in the normal things that they’d like to be doing. And, you know, it’s it’s a big distraction kind of thing. So you mentioned payment, you guys get paid on a contingency? Is that built into the the fees? I mean, does the insurance policy paying for that? Or is that just a net that you guys collect from the insured?
Mike Fried 22:43
So, in a sense, yes, it’s built into the claim. Every every complex claim, which is the ones we would handle has what’s called overhead and profit attached to a pin. Some people are going to love and hate this response. But normally, General Contractors would take the overhead and profit from a claim. And let me explain in backtrack a bit what overhead and profit is for the listener, the end user here, overhead and profit is paid in addition to the claim for the claims management and general contracting of it. If you have a $100,000 loss, your claim will be valued at $120,000. So overhead and profit is what’s called 10 and 10. It’s 10% overhead and 10% profit, and it’s on top of the damages. So using the $100,000 claim as an example, if it’s 100,000 in damage to your roof, you’ll have a $120,000 insurance claim. Our fee comes out of the overhead and profit not out of the construction dollars. It’s never our goal to interrupt the construction process. But oftentimes contractors will hire us directly on their behalf for the client, because they don’t have the wherewithal to estimated or to handle the numerous inspections and they have no problem paying it from that 20% anyway.
J Darrin Gross 24:02
Right. And and you mentioned Did you say contractor for hiring.
Mike Fried 24:11
We get referred by contractors. I can’t say a contractor would hire us directly because it’s still the policyholders responsibility, but a contractor more often than not, in fact, our biggest volume of claims come from contractor referrals. But the contractor may come out and see that the insurance claim has been screwed up somewhere somehow and may not have the time where with all the fix it they say it’s time to call a public adjuster, let the public adjuster get it resolved. We’ll come in and do the construction. My suggestion for listeners is to get the claim resolved then hire a general contractor. You wouldn’t want to necessarily put the cart in front of the horse or spend the money before you get it. Get the claim resolved. know exactly how much money you have to work with and then start handling the construction process from there. Whether you use a general contractor or whether you You made general contract and yourself. And I would assume a lot of your listeners on the commercial side have some sort of background or wherewithal to do so. And this allows you to have your own expert on your side, again, just like you would a CPA or an attorney, you have to have experts handling these things for you to maximize your return.
J Darrin Gross 25:19
Right. Most policies that I’ve written are on replacement cost basis, there’s a way that’s usually settled is there’s a partial payment upfront. And then once everything’s put back together, the company settles up on the difference. Do you is that fairly common as far as the the settlement process? And are you engaged in those conversations? Because it comes down to the accounting at the end, and I think that sometimes there’s just so much information traveling back and forth, and depending on on how many contractors you have involved and, and bills you have, and how many months you’re down and loss of rents, blah, blah, blah, do you guys help with the accounting so that the the insured can present a, you know, a more clear picture to the insurance company so they can collect what’s what’s due?
Mike Fried 26:24
Yes, that’s the whole premise of what we do. So we create the entire damage model, we are the last ones to leave the party. We’re not done till your claim is done to your construction is done. We create the actual cash value and the replacement cost models. And we determine what the depreciation should be consistent. The materials age and condition. Oftentimes, insurance companies will use a blanket depreciation and depreciate something by 30, or 40%, which is sometimes an unfortunate industry standard. And what you’re referring to on replacement costs versus actual cash value, is that deduction for depreciation. depreciation isn’t like driving your car off a lot, it’s an insurance term that is representative of you doing the work, and you’ll be paid in multiple payments, one on the front side, which is the known actual cash value. And that’s the amount of what your material might have might be worth today for what you had 10 years ago. So less depreciation. And that may sound confusing, still, I apologize for that. But actual cash value is the value of the property, less depreciation based on the age and condition of the item.
J Darrin Gross 27:41
Right. It’s, it’s a little bit of a kind of a little bit of a math equation there to get there. But the the the idea and the way the policy is written is that you have to replace it in order to get the full replacement cost. surance policies are typically written on an actual cash value basis, that’s the initial payment thing there but
Mike Fried 28:10
cash value depreciation would follow on completion of construction, we see that through and we determine on both sides that the numbers make sense that money has been spent accordingly and we will be the ones that submit for the recovery for you the client or for you the construction company.
J Darrin Gross 28:27
Gotcha. Well, I can speak from experience on a couple of different claims situations where client decided to act as their own general contractor and did not exactly manage the remediation, you know, the the disaster remediation contractor, as well as could have been and did not communicate as clearly as possible. And in a matter of time, the contractors looking to get the same good back together so they can move on. client, you know, has some different ideas or whatever. But anyway, the long story short, is it doesn’t take much to get things tangled up. And you know, in one case, I can think of there’s you know, contractor liens that got placed on the building because of in a way the way things were going on and another one where there was a customer they they must have had a bad experience at some point with a contractor and they were you know, fearful of, of hiring the contractor and, and anyway, it just the I think the thing that I take away from from property claims is that when you have damage you need to get it taken care of as soon as possible. And if you were to hire somebody like, Mike, you know, I would recommend you do it sooner rather than later in in, get engaged and get going. And if you don’t hire somebody like Mike still you need to get engaged and get going. So that you can get back in business And, and because the insurance companies my experience has been is while the policy may grant certain time limits of coverage, they may feel that the time is not warranted based on expectations. and wonder if you if you probably experienced that with COVID, and other time oriented market constraints.
Mike Fried 30:50
Yes, I’d love to jump in on that one right now. So, using real life examples with time elements COVID, we were lucky to get a lot of extensions that came from COVID. But a lot of the considerations we needed were the 365 days that are required to complete the claim and the construction. And then COVID happened, and you couldn’t get contractors to come out. And this actually fell on a lot of the 360 fives from last years. So insurance companies at first, were not really willing to extend the clock to recover the depreciation. And finally, due to the the civil civil authority in the policy, we were able to get extensions for just about every one of them. And where this was most important were folks that had fires, fires notoriously take nine to 12 months Anyway, there’s no fast way around it, you have a fire, you can, you can assume that you will not be done quickly. But for folks that have additional living expenses, as a result of their house fires, they have policy provisions that have X amount of dollars or 12 months, and you may not be able to extend past 12 months with with COVID, we were able to get either an additional claim filed for civil authority, because they could not get in or out of anywhere, frankly, they couldn’t get building materials, there was a supply chain issue. You certainly couldn’t get workers and you didn’t want people showing up in your house, or your business that may or may be sick or didn’t know or you know, at that time, we had no idea what was happening. So luckily, the carriers played ball on the time element of COVID especially. But more importantly, knowing that there is a time element is probably of the utmost importance in a claim. Because if you don’t get started promptly, you don’t get your claim settled promptly, there’s no way you can handle the construction promptly. And 365 is most common, but I’ve seen 180 day clauses where you have to have the work done within 180 days of not only getting funded, but from the time the claim was filed. That’s hard to do. There’s very little construction can be done in six months, when you’re dealing with some sort of catastrophic loss.
J Darrin Gross 33:02
Yeah, independent on the jurisdiction, just getting your permits to get started and stuff I know it can be I know for business interruption, we are encouraging all of our clients to to look at least 18 months of business interruption or, or more just based on what we’re seeing based on just more of municipal. Just kind of a log jam with getting permits, and that. And then if there is a if you are in a market where there’s a lot of work to be done. And there’s a the contractors have more work than they can handle. Scheduling them may may be difficult, you may be able to get the guy that can paint right away, but the drywall is not up. Or you know, it’s not textured or whatever. And if you don’t put everything in in the right order, it’s not going to come out. Right. So I know that’s that’s that’s been a real problem. But what’s
Mike Fried 34:10
and there’s a shortage of drywall right now.
J Darrin Gross 34:12
Yeah, no, exactly. Yeah. All the tariffs have created some challenges. And just in just the the the demand for materials based on all the construction going on. You know, there’s there’s plenty of construction. I know. That’s a constant it’s that’s kind of one of the things can keep the economy going and add into it more of the catastrophic weather related claims. Even more demand for the for the materials and labor
Mike Fried 34:41
this year unique. You had five major landfalling hurricanes. And while that was happening, everybody forgot about all the wild wildfires in California and the duration in Iowa. And you can understand that there’s going to be delays with your insurance claim because there isn’t enough insurance companies Your insurance adjusters to handle catastrophes coast to coast. And we’re we’re not seeing anything happened fast right? construction even slower. It’s it’s not a knock on the contractors, they can’t get material or labor.
J Darrin Gross 35:15
Right Right now, it’s just I think it’s some constraints that people need to be aware of when buying insurance, make sure you get you know, you ask the questions to make sure you get some limits, because even if even if you have somebody like Mike hired in your coverage doesn’t provide enough coverage, I’m assuming Mikey, you’re not able to pull a rabbit out of the hat if there’s no coverage.
Mike Fried 35:45
That’s true. So we can’t create coverage and we can’t create damage. But we feel like we’re the best in the industry at marrying the two.
J Darrin Gross 35:53
Let me ask you this. Do you guys ever offer a any kind of a policy kind of a checkup or any kind of an audit of a policy for your clients? Or is there any any kind of information you provide on what you should, what you recommend, on coverage
Mike Fried 36:11
we do for every claim that we have. First thing we do is read the policy. And that that’ll happen generally before we even conducted inspection. So we need to verify if coverage exists, and where there’s deficiencies. Now, as far as a risk audit, we do for every one of our clients, we have copies of their policies that we retain. Now granted, they may change every year, they may switch carriers or switch policies, renew update, have changes in the vendors, we always ask that we be included in those changes. But once once you have a claim and the reconstructions done, oftentimes you’re up to code, which is very important, and you’re going to be less risk. So knowing what you have today, before you have a claim is more important than knowing what you have tomorrow after it.
J Darrin Gross 36:59
Yeah, amen, then. This is all good. Mike, if we could shift gears here for a second, as I mentioned, you and we’ve been talking by day, I’m an insurance broker. And as such, try and work with my clients to assess risk, and determine what to do with risk. And there’s three strategies we typically look to. The first is we look to see, can we avoid the risk? If we can’t avoid it, we look to see if we can minimize it. And if we can neither avoid nor minimize the risk, then we look to see if we can transfer the risk. And that’s what an insurance policy is a risk risk transfer vehicle. And I like to ask my guests if they can look at their own situation, take a look at their you know, clients, investors tenants market. However you want to frame the question and identify what what they consider to be the biggest risk. And for clarification, I’m not necessarily looking for an insurance related answer, although with our conversation today that might that might be warranted. But if you’re willing, I’d like to ask you, Mike Fried. What is the biggest risk
Mike Fried 38:16
for me and our company, its liability. We don’t have the ability to make a mistake. We have to be forensic. And we have to get everything right the first time, there’s really no going back to the well for us, especially if we get something wrong. So we constantly educate ourselves with certifications with continuing education really means specifically, its liability against making mistakes. And the biggest mistake we have oftentimes is communication, where either we communicate too much, or occasionally we communicate not enough. And it’s hard to meet the expectations of all the clients there. But for us to avoid risk professionally, it has to come down to being mistake free. It’s your claim. And you’re hiring somebody and frankly getting paying them a lot of money. We don’t really get the luxury of making mistakes, because it’s my bond you’re going to come after if I screw it up. So oftentimes, to avoid risk, we have to be thorough, we have to be very expeditious and we have to avoid mistakes while doing both of that both of those. So avoiding risk for us is as simple as avoiding liabilities. And and really it’s it’s with industry education, it’s with communication. And we do the best we can to be mistake free. But it happens
J Darrin Gross 39:44
and that’s why you have insurance right? Or bonds.
Mike Fried 39:47
Even I have insurance. policy to boot.
J Darrin Gross 39:54
That’s good. Mike, where can listeners go if they I’d like to learn more connect with you.
Mike Fried 40:03
So we have a website, it’s www.my, TX PA, that’s MYTX pa.com. You can always reach out email text call. I do a lot of continuing education for the industry. We have. We have a lot of online now zoom meetings that people are welcome to attend for tapeo, which is the Texas Association of public insurance adjusters. That’s my tabea.org, which is a great resource, you can find a public adjuster in your zip code or in your area just by looking. I do always suggest using a tabea affiliated public adjuster. It’s no different than having a real estate agent who is or is not a real tour. It’s more of a professional association that that really maintains the standards of its individuals. Yeah. But checking out the website is good. You can like I say, call me can reach me anytime the numbers on the website, my cell phone is I would say website is probably best. We do have a lot of blogs that we put out quarterly updates on the website that people can go see. And oddly, I get called for a lot of podcasts, which I love doing. So.
J Darrin Gross 41:21
Good. Check. Well. Well, this has been good. Mike, I appreciate you taking the time to talk today. I’ve enjoyed our talk, learned a lot. And I look forward to doing it again soon.
Mike Fried 41:37
Thank you very much. Have a great day. Have a great holiday. And if you ever need anything, reach out.
J Darrin Gross 41:43
Alright, we’ll do that. For our listeners. If you liked this episode, don’t forget to like, share and subscribe. Remember, the more you know, the more you grow. That’s all we’ve got this week. Until next time. Thanks for listening to commercial real estate pro networks. CRE PN Radio.
Announcer 42:06
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