In this video, part of our ongoing series on auto claims, Chris Stainley, a podcast host and founder of IAPath, is going to answer the question, can you earn a good living as an independent auto-adjuster? And we're going to start right now. This is Adjustor TV. Hey, it's Matt here with Adjustor 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 and you'll be on your way. And thanks to Brandon from email who says, thanks for all your helpful videos. They are certainly helpful for somebody trying to break into the industry. He truly gave me the push that I needed to make the switch in jobs. Thanks for watching Brandon. In this video, Chris Stainley from IAPath breaks down one of the most popular questions asked about the independent adjusting industry. Take it away, Chris. Thanks Matt, appreciate it. Alright, I am here today to answer a question that a lot of you have, and a lot of you have asked me, and if you haven't asked me, you're probably thinking yourself. Especially if you've heard about all the money you can make in property, can you make a good living working as an auto-damage appraiser, as an independent auto-adjuster, etc. Is there even a good living in this? So that's what I'm here to talk about. For me, starting out at no experience, I had a mentor, and I was given an opportunity with one company to cover a large daily claims area. I drove a bunch of hours in each direction to earn the ability and right to write auto claims. But what I was able to do my very first year in my first full year was $42,000. Now for a lot of people, that's not enough money to survive. I was dumb. I was young. I didn't know to diversify who I was getting work from. I didn't know to work for multiple companies and that therefore increased my revenue. My first year I made $42,000 and I felt pretty dang good about that. Coming from working at a warehouse, Walmart distribution, making $28,000, if I got over time busted my bloodthrowing boxes, I felt great about it. Later on in my career, I started understanding how this game was played and I started getting connected with more companies and knowing to diversify myself and handle heavy equipment and RVs and all these different things, I started making in the 80s, so $80,000 a year. Now there's other ways to increase your income other than just doing daily auto, and you're probably already thinking, well what about catastrophe Chris, I'm more interested in working catastrophe. This is a huge, not myth, but misconception about catastrophic claims. You can make great money. I say, hell yeah, you can make $500 a day working haile claims, but haile claims for auto does not produce typically long term storms for an auto IA. An average storm to me is 10 to 14 days. I think if I'm getting deployed to a haile storm, me as a competent, confident auto haile adjuster, I'm thinking I'm probably working two weeks. Now sometimes I got longer deployments than that. Sometimes I worked six to eight weeks straight, but I don't plan on that and I don't want you to plan on that. So you probably think, well Chris, what can I plan on that? I'm going to go work auto claims during a haile storm. What can I count on? Well one, you can't count anything. You haven't learned that about this industry. Learn it right now. You can count on anything, but if you get in with multiple companies and you start getting deployed regularly to the major haile storms, I averaged about $40,000 during the haile season. Now the haile season is only March to August and really you work in May, June, July. That's really where you're picking up steam. And so to make $40,000 in that three, four month span is good. And if you're doing auto daily claims or daily property claims or handling other types of claims that'll generate revenue the rest of the year, you can make a good living. So the answer is yes, you can make a good living, but there's some things you need to do. It's number one, you need to hire it for multiple companies. And I would suggest that you be on over five rosters that are consistently giving you work. You need to have at least three major companies that are feeding you work on a weekly basis. Those are coming in on a consistent basis from them. Then you need to expand your coverage area if needed to increase your revenue. Don't be scared to expand your area to get more claims. It can pay off. And in fact, mileage a lot of times, if you learn how to play that game, whole other video on that can generate enough revenue to take it to that next level of income in your business. So don't be afraid. Expand your coverage area if needed to where the help is needed. And then you can also diversify your where your claims are coming from. Not only with companies like we did, like we just talked about, but you can expand by working other types of claims, heavy equipment, RV, motorcycle, scene inspections, all these different things you can handle to increase your revenue. Plus, catastrophic claims during the year when they come up. But to be able to do both daily and catastrophic claims, you got to be really good at data-sing and balancing both the daily claims business and the hail or catastrophe claims business. What I would do is always inform my daily firms that I worked for, hey, during hail season, I am going to go work storms. And so I'm going to let you know once March hits to start back in me out. And I planned on working hard during the hail season. And it was tough. Sometimes I let people down. First time, though, I just was lean for a little bit, but I'm more than made up for it during the hail season. So yes, you can make a good living working as an auto-adjuster, but don't stop there. Don't just think, hey, let me go work a few auto claims and boom, I'm going to make money and just going to happen. No, you are the business owner and you need to pursue new companies, new business, new lines of revenue, whether that's property, auto, RV, heavy equipment, whatever it is, whatever the case might be, you can make a good living as an independent auto-adjuster, but understand getting above six figures in auto is a lot harder to hit. You really got to be hustling. You got to be working hard to do it, but you can do it. But it's a lot easier to get started in auto, but I don't suggest you to sit in auto for the rest of your career. Use auto as a revenue stream in your business and increase your revenue by adding other lines of claims, property, heavy equipment, etc. All right, Matt, back to you. Question of the day, what do you think? Are you interested in getting started in auto claims? Let us know in the comments below. For much more information about Chris and IAPath, head on over to adjustretv.com slash auto. If you got value from this video, you can help me create more videos just like this by hitting the round subscribe button. Wondering what to watch next? Check out these videos. And as always, thank you so much for watching and have a great storm. So why don't skeletons ever go trick or treating? Because they have no body to go with. I've got a lot, I'm doing dad jokes at the very, very, very end. No. Oh yeah? Yeah.