Let's not start talking about the 2008 season just yet. We have 90L out there that might make a run for it!

While I realize that there are a good many adjusters who are eager for work, I would like to point out that its in poor taste to eagerly talk about catastrophes and disasters as if they have no effect on anyone.  While it is how cat adjusters earn their living its just plain bad taste to eagerly hope for and joke about devastation.  Try to remember that there are people on the other side of the disaster, and believe me, its their lives, which is far more important than any amount of money that can be made.  Needing to earn a living is one thing, publicly salivating over a potential storm is quite another. 

Please try to remember that in order to be employed doing catastrophe adjusting that numerous people are probably devastated due to the loss and destruction that has completely changed their lives.  Please don't give the industry black eye by showing a callous and insensitive nature by pretending that people's lives aren't devastated by catastrophes.  Tact, grace and compassion are much better emotions to show than greed, insensitivity and callousness. 

I sure wouldn't want to be an insured who'd read some callous remarks that my adjuster made on a public website. 

Jeff Masters in his blog yesterday stated:

"The Atlantic hurricane season officially ends on November 30, but unofficially, it is probably over. While ocean temperatures are still plenty warm to support tropical cyclone formation in the Caribbean and the Bahamas, wind shear has become prohibitive across the entire tropical Atlantic, and is forecast to remain so until early December."

Though I certainly did not wish for this BUST to occur, I was (and AM) a realist.  I have heard the "fat lady" sing, and this year she sang Out Loud.  This year was a total BUST, wind and hail, and even daily work.  So, back to the original purpose of this post:

How many of you are 'hanging up your tape measures'?  How many plan to stick it out?  AND, What now happens to the fee schedules in our business, in this new era of "too many adjusters/not enough claims"?

Many companies 'hedged' their bets in the past two years, adding 'staff' adjusters, (which they did not use).  Will they keep these new staffers, or will they do the mass layoff to offset their lack of use in the past year? 

So many questions... 

No intention to hurt any feelings, and I certainly would much rather have been wrong and have us all working, than to be right and have so many unemployed adjusters out their.

Best wishes to all for 2008.

Z

Well, I took a staff job. The carrier I am working for said they are trying to avoid using independants at all. They now have a new program to train staff adjusters that work in other departments for cat deployment. They also have a large cat department. I haven't heard any rumors of lay offs at the company I am working for.

It's funny, earlier today before reading your post I was telling myself how you have to USE it or LOSE it.

I'm back doing daily claims, and for the past 10 months over 1/2 of my work was General Liability and Commercial Property, because the other guy didn't want those claims.  Then he quit - and I have been buried in homeowner losses on top of the other stuff.  Fires, pipe leaks, the usual stuff.

I have been using Xactimate since 1993, did my first hurricane in 1992 - and couldn't believe how rusty I became.  Doing stairs with a middle landing busted my balls.  I was back at the help screen, reviewing how to make separate room for each stair run, then the landing a separate room, take out the missing wall between...  doing the rise and run of carpet etc.

I had been using Sketch since the first windows version came out in 1997, yet it was like starting all over again.  Now I am up and running, and it came back to me.  But if you don't USE it, you will LOSE it. 

Even if you get paid 1/5 what you are worth, we need to keep our skills sharp.  And learn something everyday, nobody knows it all.