00:00:07:14 – 00:00:43:10 Unknown You. 00:00:43:12 – 00:01:00:08 Unknown I. 00:01:00:10 – 00:01:17:08 Unknown specifically on fleets? I started out in claims with State Farm Insurance. So I started there handling claims, all types of auto claims, bodily injury claims, uninsured motorist, no fault litigation, all that stuff. 00:01:17:09 – 00:01:43:23 Unknown And once State Farm started consolidating, I had to leave because I was in mobile and I when I left there, I, I sort of missed being in in claims and there was open an opening for a claims manager position at a moving company, a local moving company. So I took that and I guess that introduced me to, you know, the commercial 00:01:44:01 – 00:01:47:18 Unknown vehicles and, and the semi tractor trailers. 00:01:47:18 – 00:01:50:16 Unknown And I started handling household good claims 00:01:50:18 – 00:02:17:11 Unknown for moving company, you know, for damages to that those types of, you know, furniture everything packed away for a move which, which was very interesting. I never heard the word chargeback before then, which is a definitely an interesting concept. I’m not sure where else you can damage something or, you know, make a mistake during your job and you know you have to pay for it. 00:02:17:15 – 00:02:36:15 Unknown And then I also saw you work with some nonprofits. Could you tell us a bit more about that? Yeah, sure. So when we do our closed file reviews, there are some nonprofits that, on the bottom of our flier, it says, you know, mentioned the nonprofit. And when we send your first check, we’ll send them a check, too. 00:02:36:20 – 00:03:02:21 Unknown So the nonprofits that, we work with are more for hunger, Truckers Against Trafficking, safe moves for seniors. And our newest nonprofit is, blessings in a backpack. So we’re happy to to, you know, give back when we can during those closed file reviews. And could you tell us a little bit about what your day to day lives right now, how it looks right now and what you’re doing? 00:03:02:23 – 00:03:35:01 Unknown Yeah. So I basically help businesses with commercial vehicles. So it could be an insurer of commercial vehicles. It could be, you know, a business with a vehicle, you know, just regular vehicles, cars on the road or up to tractor trailers. Those are my favorite. And then, you know, I just I make sure whenever there’s an accident that the companies are getting everything they’re entitled to and if they have prior accidents, we come in and do a close file review to make sure. 00:03:35:03 – 00:03:59:01 Unknown Same thing. They got everything. There’s no money hiding in those closed claims. Yeah, mostly on this channel. We have a lot of single truck, 1 to 2 truck owner operators, and we get some questions about what is something they can do or what’s something they, a little bit of a checklist after they’re involved in an accident, maybe a small fleet owner is involved in an accident. 00:03:59:01 – 00:04:07:13 Unknown That’s not their fault. What’s the biggest mistake they can make right after the accident? Yeah. So, I mean, starting at the scene of the accident, 00:04:07:14 – 00:04:17:05 Unknown you know, I’ve spoken with owner operators and they say, oh, my, my company told me just to get the dot number. So they go to dot number and yes, we can search and see what the company is. 00:04:17:05 – 00:04:37:05 Unknown But you know, as you can imagine, they’ll deny the accident happened. We don’t have the name of a driver. We know, you know, we’re missing a lot of things. So I always say, you know, pictures are great. Take a picture of the cab, car, take a picture of the insurance card. Take a picture of the other drivers. Driver license. 00:04:37:10 – 00:04:56:03 Unknown Take a picture of the vehicles at the scene. You know the way they are when contact was made, before anybody moved their vehicle to show there’s contact. Because when we talked to the other company and say, oh, we had no vehicles in that area at the time, right. But pictures don’t lie. 00:04:56:05 – 00:05:02:05 Unknown We had a carrier on, a few days ago when we were talking about that as well. 00:05:02:07 – 00:05:29:00 Unknown Would you say cameras on the trailer and, and on the rigs are a must have nowadays? Oh, for sure. And, you know, sometimes we’ll see. Dash cams, though, and, you know, there’ll be a hit and run and we’re trying to identify and it’ll it’ll be blurry or, you know, it’s raining so it’s hard to see. It’s not going to hurt to spend more money for a better dash cam. 00:05:29:02 – 00:05:39:19 Unknown You know, I don’t I don’t know too much about them and what the options are out there, but just make sure it’s activated at all times and, you know, it gets the information that’s needed. 00:05:39:19 – 00:05:58:20 Unknown And then sometimes most owner operators could think that insurance will handle everything. Where would you say that assumption usually goes wrong? Okay. So when you say insurance will handle everything, I see that as you know, if I’m at fault and I’m telling you, oh, my insurance will handle it. 00:05:58:22 – 00:06:09:22 Unknown You know, that’s how I take that. You’re not at fault and you’re presenting a claim against someone else’s insurance. Okay, I guess the first thing I’ll think of is, okay, you want your repairs, right? So 00:06:10:00 – 00:06:20:20 Unknown sometimes insurance companies, you know, you submit an estimate, they’ll write their own estimate, they’ll audit your estimate and and send you what they think you should be paid. 00:06:21:00 – 00:06:37:12 Unknown And they’re they’re not going to tell you, oh, you might be entitled to loss of use or you might be entitled to this or diminished value. They’re not going to present the claim for you. So if you just have that mindset, insurance will handle it. If you don’t know what you’re entitled to, you’re not going to get it. 00:06:37:12 – 00:06:39:17 Unknown You don’t ask for it. You won’t get it. 00:06:39:19 – 00:06:48:19 Unknown Could you let us know a bit about what types of money carriers are typically entitled to after an accident that they they don’t realize they can actually recover? 00:06:48:19 – 00:06:59:04 Unknown So, I mean, it would depend on the where the accident occurred or stated occurred. It would be great if everything was uniform and every state was the same, but it’s not. 00:06:59:06 – 00:07:16:12 Unknown Some of the most common things are, loss of use, diminished value, lost revenue. Those are things depending on how severe the accident was and where the accident occurred. That might be other things, other claims that can be made. 00:07:16:14 – 00:07:25:20 Unknown Could you explain to us a bit more in simpler terms, what what is loss of use and why it matters so much for carriers who run under their own authority? 00:07:26:02 – 00:07:55:02 Unknown Yeah, sure. So loss of use is simply the loss of use of or enjoyment of your, your property. So it’s when somebody else takes a takes that away from you due to their negligence. So typically when if you have a tractor trailer, for example, that’s being repaired, that length of time that it’s being repaired, you’re out. You know, your the loss of that property, your enjoyment of it and that that could be a valid claim. 00:07:55:07 – 00:08:13:18 Unknown And often is depending on the situation and where the accident happens. You know, a lot of the pushback I get too from carriers is, well, this this is one of my favorites. They’ll say, well, the driver has a reset. He could he can he or she can get it repaired during their, their reset. And no, that’s that’s not how it works. 00:08:13:19 – 00:08:32:19 Unknown And a lot of times you know there’s there’s a sleeper in there. So these drivers though they’ll cook in there. They’ll sleep in. They are I mean that’s that right there is their enjoyment of it. You know you’re you’re taking away you know, their home. That’s that’s where they live while they’re at work. 00:08:32:21 – 00:08:38:09 Unknown Could you, tell us a bit more about how does diminished value work for trucks? 00:08:38:09 – 00:09:03:23 Unknown I’ll give an example. Let’s say where you’re in the market for a tractor, $100,000 tractor. Right. And you go to the lot and there’s two available. So let’s say me and you where we’re both there. We’re looking at these two tractors both the same identically. The same one was involved in an accident and one wasn’t. Which one are you going to offer to purchase? 00:09:04:01 – 00:09:27:15 Unknown The one that hasn’t gone into an accident. Yeah. Okay. So let’s say we’re down there. I offer to purchase at first and and I buy it, and the sales guy tells you we just we just sold it. We have this one, though perfectly repaired. It was involved in an accident. Repaired properly. Everything’s the same. How much would you offer for that one? 00:09:27:20 – 00:09:58:13 Unknown We said, what was the original price? Sorry, 100,000. 100,000 you would do. We need to offer less. What? What would you offer? What? Yeah. How am I 98? Okay, so. So you offering $2,000 less? That right there is the diminished value. It it’s the amount that somebody will offer because of the accident. And this there’s a few different types of diminished value claims. 00:09:58:15 – 00:10:28:22 Unknown The one specifically that we go after is inherent diminished value. And it just means that’s basically like the stigma value because you the car has been involved in an accident and it’s just like the same as a new one for for owner operators who haul cargo, how often do you see cargo claims mishandled or underpaid? Maybe say if if they’re a mover and there’s cargo claims? 00:10:28:22 – 00:11:02:08 Unknown The and I stopped when I first started claim shield. This is primarily what I was focusing on. If they’re an agent for our van line, let’s say. And a claim is paid and there’s a charge back to that owner operator for damages. Right. Let’s let’s say they dropped a TV. Okay. It it happens. Things happen if the claim if, let’s say the TV $2,500 was paid out for the TV, sometimes they there’s, you know, you could find a TV for maybe $1,000 and you could dispute that. 00:11:02:08 – 00:11:26:00 Unknown So sometimes more on the owner operator side, I’ve seen where claims might be more has been paid out. And that’s what I started doing. I started disputing that and and getting that reduced. That’s interesting because it in does come into this next question, which it’s a question I’ve had since we’ve started talking to carriers three years ago. 00:11:26:02 – 00:11:34:19 Unknown At what point does a carrier bring in a claims recovery expert like you instead of trying to handle it themselves? 00:11:34:21 – 00:11:57:16 Unknown They should always, always have somebody like me. I’m really like a third party claims administrator for the recovery side. So there’s no there’s no I don’t charge a fee unless there’s a recovery. So there’s really no downside to having somebody like me on their side. 00:11:57:18 – 00:12:03:06 Unknown There’s you know, we did for a moving company, we did a closed file review. 00:12:03:08 – 00:12:31:14 Unknown And from one claim we were able to recover $7,700. So a payment was made to a shipper for damage to their cargo. And we got that back for them. That was $4,700. And then we also got back loss of use for their trailer for the time that it was, you know, down being repaired. So think though that the the moving company did make a claim, but only for the repairs. 00:12:31:16 – 00:12:55:20 Unknown So if if you don’t know you’re entitled to other things, you’re losing money. That’s another question that comes up a lot too is how long after a claim is closed? Can carriers still recover money when they’re owed but never recovered the money? So that also that that would depend on where, the accident happened. Which which state? Every every state has a different statute of limitations. 00:12:55:20 – 00:13:18:09 Unknown So that would depend. But initially, when I come in to work with a client, I’ll go back a couple of years and again, depending on depending on where the accident occurred, and take a look to see, you know, what was paid. If anything, you know, it’s everybody’s so busy today, right? We if there’s an accident, they need to repair it, get things repaired. 00:13:18:09 – 00:13:50:10 Unknown They might pay out of pocket. And, you know, go on. There’s jobs and and work and get back on the road. And then unless there’s somebody, you know, back in the office submitting the claims that might just get lost and pushed to the side and never recovered. So yeah, what would you say is something a carrier that carriers should change around accidents and claims that could have an impact on their profit, because we’re talking about the accident happens and we want to move fast and get it repaired and get it moving. 00:13:50:10 – 00:14:17:20 Unknown And then we forget about the money. We can recover. What’s one thing you could one tip you could give out for carriers to to do around accidents and claims? Yeah. So honestly, I just have have a third party claims administrator on your side. Somebody like psych like us, you know there’s no there’s no fee unless there’s a recovery and it pays off because you’re they’re missing out there. 00:14:17:20 – 00:14:37:21 Unknown Could there you know, and here’s another example. We had a claim where we got the police report, the insurance company is listed for the negligent party while the insurance company, they say, oh, there’s there’s no policy that can be found when a company here. Is that right? What are they going to do there. They’re probably just going to say, okay, there’s no insurance. 00:14:37:21 – 00:14:58:08 Unknown Close the claim. I called up a second time to speak to somebody else. No claim, no policy. Called a third time, no claim, no policy. I mean, this is like, this is really this was a real thing. I called four times, Amy. The fourth time, I got somebody on the phone that said, oh, there’s a claim that set up. 00:14:58:10 – 00:15:20:03 Unknown And then then we got a recovery. So I don’t know if any other company has time to call four times or we do that in the course of their busy day when they’re doing their core, you know, job in some of these companies where it’s maybe the owner operator, the husband and the wife could be a one back home getting all the logs. 00:15:20:03 – 00:15:40:10 Unknown It’s it’s too much to handle and definitely seems like something you want to have someone with the knowledge about it to be on your side and to tell you what is it that you need to be looking for? Because it seems like with claims to me that there’s always like hidden things that you have to be like picking out and finding out. 00:15:40:12 – 00:16:06:21 Unknown Sometimes carriers will, you know, you’ll say, okay, here you’ll present your claim and, you know, you could you send them your estimate and, you know, you just want the repairs and that’s great. And they might audit it and maybe send you 50% and they’ll just take instead of telling you they’re sending you 50% and having the conversation where you can, you know, disputed and present your argument, they’ll just send it in the mail. 00:16:06:23 – 00:16:41:18 Unknown So now you actually get the check, you’re going to cash it and you just going to move on. You know, a lot of times those are forgotten about too. And that’s like a very clever way for insurance companies to just pay what they owe, what they think they owe and close their claim. And, you know, sometimes close claims on on the owner operator side as well, because they don’t know they can go back and, or they don’t have the time or when we’ve had other guests on and we talk about compliance and we talk about insurance, it mostly falls on the side of they didn’t know. 00:16:41:19 – 00:17:07:02 Unknown It’s they do also have this this predicament of not having the time. But mostly everything that could go wrong falls under the that they didn’t know situation. And that’s really where we talk about cash flow also that comes into play for small carriers after the accident. They got the repairs, the downtime, the expense is waiting on insurance, waiting on claim payments. 00:17:07:04 – 00:17:29:01 Unknown That’s where we talk about having predictable cash flow, like with same day pay. So the business can actually keep on running if they have more than of course. Yeah. I mean sometimes there are some times where we could also collect lost revenue. And, you know, sometimes the carriers will say, oh no, that’s loss of use. I’m like, no, that’s that’s a separate claim. 00:17:29:01 – 00:17:50:02 Unknown And in some states we can collect both. So you know, it all depends. And you know, we we go after whatever, you know, they might be entitled to. And then for carriers listening right now who already had an accident, how do they know there’s still money left on the table. Where do you begin or is the route to go directly to you and then. 00:17:50:03 – 00:18:11:21 Unknown Yeah, yeah, you because this is something where, you know, you’re an expert in something when you have 10,000 plus hours, it’s it’s not something I could say. Well, there’s a little more to it, but yeah, if they’ve had prior accidents, just feel free to reach out. We do a closed file review. There’s no fee for that. And then if there’s something we feel that might be owed, we’ll go after it. 00:18:11:23 – 00:18:36:15 Unknown You know, we send checks. We we don’t invoice anybody. We send check. Could you tell us what does a closed file review actually uncover most of the time. Yeah. So it could uncover loss of use and and diminished value. Those are the two big ones. Awesome. I think that’s most of my questions. Is there anything else you’d like to add or a direction we would like to go into with the, claims topic? 00:18:36:15 – 00:19:02:11 Unknown Yeah. You know, a lot of times I just want to say when, when people present their own claims, just because an adjuster tells you, you know, the claim is denied or it doesn’t mean it really is, is there’s many times I’ve gotten liability decisions reversed and claims that were denied that were paid. So as long as you can substantiate your claim and reasoning, 00:19:02:11 – 00:19:07:17 Unknown sometimes they’re the adjusters are not knowledgeable with certain things and it goes to their attorneys. 00:19:07:17 – 00:19:46:09 Unknown Right. And then sometimes even the attorneys, we’ve had a claim where the attorneys reversed their decision and said, yeah, no, you’re right. They all the claims. So just just have somebody on your side that that knows how to present the claim.