So I get this question kind of frequently. How can I close more than two claims a day? Or I've never been able to close more than four claims in a day no matter how hard I try, or six to eight close claims a day sounds like total baloney. In this two part video, I'm going to talk about how many cat property claims you need to be closing a day and how to do it. And in part two next week, I'll explain how I was able to inspect and close 36 claims in one day before dinner starting now. This is Adjuster TV. Hey, it's Matt here with Adjuster TV and for the best tips and tools for getting on the first call list as an independent adjuster, subscribe now. Click on the bell notification so you'll never miss a video. Carl says, Matt, I've been on five storm deployments for wind and hail and I've struggled to close more than about four claims in one day. You talk about closing six or more in a day. What am I missing? First of all, thanks for watching Carl. Second, let's do a quick refresher on just what it is that we do as property IA. Our job is to assist insurance carriers in closing large volumes of claims, okay? The carriers want us to get these claims closed so that they can put the cat behind them. The key here is volume. So let's just jump right into this and talk about how long it should be taking you to do everything you need to do in your claims workflow. First, what are the parts of the workflow in general and how long should each take? So basically, the parts are processing incoming claims or intaking new claims and these claims have to be downloaded. The FNOL is printed out. They need to be routed and scheduled and the insured needs to be contacted. Per claim, this should take you about 10 to 15 minutes give or take. So we'll say about 12 minutes. The second part is inspections. This and estimate writing are the big pieces of this process. So for a typical heavily damaged hail claim on a house with a 20 to 30 square roof, you shouldn't be spending more than about 30 minutes scoping that loss. If there's light damage, believe it or not, this can take more time. Big damage is obvious and you don't have to spend a whole lot of time doing your test squares. If you don't believe that there's damage on the house or the roof, you want to be as certain as you can that there isn't so that when a rougher reinspection happens, you can be confident that you did your due diligence. The third part, of course, is estimate writing. Importing and labeling photos shouldn't take more than about 10 minutes and don't worry, I'm going to come back to photos in a minute. Writing the estimates itself, depending on the number of things damaged, roofing, siding, windows, etc, between 10 and 30 minutes. And this includes your diary, damage evaluation forms, and invoice. So we'll say about 20 minutes. The fourth piece is settling up with the insured. We're having a short conversation here. If you only explain what you're paying for, the grand totals, and what the next steps are, this will take you no more than about five minutes. However, the insured will certainly have questions, so add another 10 minutes to that. So 15 minutes to settle up with the insured. Okay, let's add all that up. So processing claims, intaking claims, about 12 minutes, field inspections, 30 minutes, estimate writing, 20 minutes, and settlement, 15 minutes. A grand total of about 77 minutes. Will some claims go more than this? Absolutely without a doubt. What about less? Yes, most certainly. You'll be doing your claims intake stuff in your hotel room, so knock that 12 minutes off of your field day, and we're about 65 minutes start to finish. Now I can hear the high speed keyboard's clicking now. It's total BS map. There's no way you can scope and write a claim in an hour. Okay, if you're an experienced adjuster who is having trouble closing more than three or four claims in a day, what's holding you back? What part of your workflow seems to bog you down? And if you're a newbie, and you haven't run your first claim yet, what part of the process is scaring you the most? Let me know in the comments where you're watching this video so I can create some new videos on those topics. And you know what? I will agree with you that if you don't know how to use powerful time-saving tools like claims recon, routing, macros, batching, and have a consistent and repeatable way that you move around buildings, and through the software, you'll never get more than four done in a day. So let's dig a little bit deeper into scoping and writing claims. So I'm saying that a typical hail claim should take about an hour to scope and fully ride up, assuming 10 minutes of drive time between houses and that you scope and write the entire claim on site. If you get started at 8 o'clock in the morning, we could easily do three before lunch and probably another five after lunch if we've got some long summer days. So that's about eight, right? You'd be done by 7 pm with the latest if there were no surprises, and you'd have eight claims closed and uploaded. But let's just go with six to be safe. Three in the morning and three in the afternoon closed claims. And even if you scope six and take those back to your hotel room to write them up, you're still going to be done by no later than 8 pm for the day. All right, how are we going to do this? How is any experience adjuster closing those many claims in a day? Here are the top seven ways that good adjusters get six plus claims closed in a day. Number one, they spent some time doing work before ever getting out into the field to make sure that they don't get any time consuming surprises. For example, using Google Maps to check and see if they'll have to scope 2,000 feet of fence or multiple outbuildings. And in the same vein, they'll also do as much work in the claim file as they can so they don't have to do it when they sit down to write. For example, importing a grouping tree, checking off check boxes, making sure the deductible is correct. And if they need to add a supplement, it's done before they get to the house. And so on. We call this claims recon. Number two, they have taken advanced damage ID training so that they don't waste time hemming and hauling over spots on a roof. One of the biggest time wasters there is for us is not being able to make a decisive call on a roof because we're in doubt about what's a hail hit and what isn't. Believe me, that's why I say lightly hit takes longer. Number three, they have a repeatable and consistent way that they move around and through buildings and their estimating software. Doing this reduces or eliminates time consuming backtracking. It also hugely reduces errors and misdamage, which again, waste time. Number four, because they've spent a lot of time and exactimate, they spend very little time hunting and pecking around, looking for things and trying to remember what the category code is for gutters. Number five, they extensively use macros to complete their estimates. Number six, they use templates for their general loss report and activity diary entries. And finally, number seven, they've had a lot of settlement conversations with insurers and can anticipate objections and questions. Now, photos. The number one complaint that I hear from adjusters, especially newbies, is that it takes way too long to import and label photos. A few things about photos to think about. Number one, are you taking the right number of photos? We definitely don't want to take too few photos, but my experience in doing cleanup and file review is that many, if not most, IAs take way too many photos. Believe it or not, the insurance company really doesn't care that much about gutters. So maybe don't take more than one or two downspout photos per elevation. We don't need five hail dent photos of one downspout. We just don't. Remember that your entire claim file, including photos, estimate and diary, should tell the story of the claim. Not too much and not too little. Number two, are you using your phone or a dedicated snapshot camera to take your pics? Believe it or not, but this makes a difference. Number three, do you know how to type? Learn to type. Almost everything you do in the software will get a speed boost the faster you can type. Number four, do you know the keyboard shortcuts from moving through exactimate photo import tool? Remember, every time you touch your mouse, you're wasting time. Number five, do you know how to label more than one photo at once? Super helpful. Finally, when I got started as an IA, the only thing I used the computer for was writing the actual estimates and creating letters. I had to handwrite the diary, I had to use a pen to fill out the file jacket and to label the Polaroid photos that I had to staple to a piece of paper. Paper. So just imagine taking photos with a Polaroid camera, labeling those photos with your sweaty hands, then stuffing them in your pocket to be organized when you complete the file. With a stapler on two paper, and you know what? By the end of my first ever storm, I was closing seven hail claims a day in the field on site complete in Chicago with lots of drive time and ridiculous traffic. At the end of the day, I took my closed claims in and dropped them in my manager's basket and picked up my new claims. So with all of the advances we have today, there's simply no excuse for not being able to close more than four claims a day. Question of the day, do you know how to use macros when writing claims? Would you like to? Let me know in the comments where you're watching this video. And don't forget to check out part two of this video next week where I'll explain how I was able to inspect and close 36 claims in one day before dinner. And for much more information about crushing it as an independent adjuster, head on over to adjustertv.com. If you got value from this video, you can help me create more videos just like this by subscribing to adjustertv on YouTube. Wondering what to watch next? You can binge watch adjustertv videos for hours. And as always, thank you so much for watching and have a great storm.