Mat Muholland, aka “One T,” stopped me while walking the exhibit hall of the SRC Summit. He asked me if I wanted to shoot his hail gun. His latest hail gun edition carries a three-hail ball load. Suspicious Steve Badger asked whether this was the latest technique for creating fraudulent hail dents on a roof.
Speaking of Steve Badger, he was the final act of the SRC Summit. His roast was truly funny. It was taped, and I will certainly purchase the highlights. I also commend Steve for giving it back to us and taking the puns in good nature. He is a class act.
I also spoke to a room of restoration contractors on behalf of the American Policyholders Association about what I called “the new playbook” insurers are using against them. I began with a simple question: “Who wants to be known for quality work, happy customers, and a lasting business?” Every hand went up. That answer framed the entire discussion.
The tension insurance restoration contractors and roofers feel is not random. It reflects a broader pattern orchestrated by many insurers, indicating that contractor fraud against insurance is pervasive. Insurers organize through aligned industry groups, shape public perception through repeated fraud narratives, and then point to the rare prosecutions as proof of a larger problem. The result is a climate of suspicion that makes it easier to justify underpaying claims and harder for honest contractors to operate without reputational risk.
The insurance industry narrative wrongly suggests that restoration contractors plan to do shoddy work, rip off their customers, and are in it for the short term killing they can make. This simply is not the case. While there are a few bad apples that fit that narrative, nobody in their right mind and with character would ever run a business in that manner. The narrative by some in the insurance industry is simply to help it frame a claims response that is hard and suspicious.
One of the recurrent themes when I give speeches is how former claims adjusters will share stories about how they were taught to handle claims. One adjuster in yesterday’s audience told stories about how contractors are portrayed as rip off thieves by claims managers in role-play training sessions. He also discussed how insurance claims managers “deselected” experts if their reports were too favorable for the policyholder. I always learn when I prepare for and give a speech.
Congratulations to April Hall and her staff. The SRC Summit was the best organized one she has ever produced.
Thought For The Day
“We shape our buildings; thereafter they shape us.”
— Winston S. Churchill
