By Matthew Vanderford, Claimology
Filing claims isn’t a hard thing to do. I mean people file claims all the time without help or guidance and feel they’ve been taken care of. That’s AMAZING! So, why would I say that being a public adjuster? Because the role of a public adjuster is primarily to act as a bridge or conduit between two parties helping them reach an amicable resolution. And, if two parties come to an amicable solution without the need of my services, then that really is AMAZING!! That means they’re happy (hopefully)!
In the insurance world, most of the people I meet want claims paid out quickly and fairly. Because that’s what makes people happy – quick and fair treatment. Issues tend to come up when claims get lost or mishandled, underpaid or denied.
So, here’s a little #CLAIMHACK for all you claim filing DIY’ers out there:
Take contemporaneos claim notes.
Contemporaneous Definition: adjective: contemporaneous
existing or occurring in the same period of time.
“Pythagoras was contemporaneous with Buddha”
This hack can save your claim from so many issues that could come up at any given time. A good claim can fall off the rails real quick. The work on this is simple and easy – get yourself a claim diary and use it every time you have a conversation with anyone in the claims process. The key however, is that this needs to be done in real time, as the conversation is happening, making it contemporaneos. A pen and paper work best, but you can use your smartphone, too – place the phone on speaker or use a headset and use whatever app you like to take notes with. Just make sure to save your notes with a photo back up, email them to yourself and save it to the cloud somewhere (that’s triple redundancy for the real safety freaks out there!) Also, send an email to the other party to recap what the conversation was about, asking them to clarify any discrepancies or to explain things further.
Hope this little hack helps you. Because this hack is the only thing that’s helping an insured I know navigate a claim that was filed correctly, but went way off track – so far off track it’s taken almost two years to resolve. And that’s only because the notes have helped this insured keep their claim alive after repeated attempts of the carrier to shut it down.
So, here’s to good claims being filed with very happy outcomes for those that need it most – you – the insured!
“Looking at reflections one can cast their own shadow waiting watching for the neverchild to emerge from the room within,” mmi
