The majority of public adjusters (PAs) wonder about what to do when the opportunity presents itself and you have a chance to sign a new claim. You know what to do in theory but when real experience comes knocking on your door, it’s an entirely different story. 

I know all of you want to do everything right but you start stressing over it. This is where situations happen that you might forget something important, unintentionally, of course. 

That’s what this article is all about. I will help you create your own claim workflow by sharing mine with you. I’ll also provide you with a few tips and tricks that will help you stay on track.

So, without further ado, let’s have a closer look at how to create your own claim workflow. 

Before we dig deeper into the claim workflow, I’d like to share a useful tip with you. It’s very important to build your referral list. The main reason is that you’ll get more claims coming your way if you have people who are out there in the field. 

The majority of my referrals come from the people I often work with, such as plumbers, roofers, water mitigation companies, and so on. What happens is they basically refer you and you refer them in return when there’s damage that needs to be fixed.

This is a good relationship to have because it works exceptionally well for both parties. 

So, once your referral comes in and you find out that the loss has occurred, you need to get to the site as soon as possible.

This is very important because you need to preserve any evidence of the loss and repair or mitigate any damages right then and there. 

For example, if there’s a pipe burst at the homeowner’s house, you want to get the plumber there to fix the burst. Moreover, if everything is wet due to the pipe burst, you need to call the water mitigation company to dry everything out so there’s no further damage.

As mentioned before, once you get to the site of loss, you have to assess the claim. What that means is that you have to determine what the cause of the loss is, is there a need for an immediate repair, and which expert you need to call if there is. 

Assuming there’s a need for immediate repairs and that you need to call experts in, they must provide you with expert documentation. This means that you need all the documentation from licensed experts regarding what they’ve done to repair the damage, what caused the damage, and why they had to repair it straight away. 

This will be of great assistance later on when you have to file a claim but we’ll get to that later. Furthermore, it’s important that you take photos as well.

This will help you back up your estimate and serve as additional proof of loss.

Now, this is arguably the most difficult part of the claim process because you need to convince the homeowner to sign the claim.

This is important because that’s how you get paid. If you leave the house without your contract signed, chances are that you won’t have that claim signed. 

Therefore, try to be as convincing as possible and try not to leave without the contract signed.

There might be a lot of explanation involved because your client won’t understand why some of the things are included in the contract and you have to explain that you have to get paid as well.

As mentioned before, taking photos is important when assessing the claim but this is also important to help you keep track of the claim.

Moreover, taking photos of every little bit of damage that occurred helps you defend your claim.

As you may know, some claims may go to litigation, which can take a long time to settle. Photos will play an essential role if you have to defend your client during litigation.

Once you signed the claim, obtained all the necessary expert documentation, and taken all the photos that you could, it’s time to prepare your file for the case.

What I do is use project management software and various other tools to help me stay organized.

For example, I use Trello to help me organize my files and I update everything into the cloud so that I always have a backup.

Technology is more reliable and more convenient than having everything on paper within some chaotic filing cabinet.