You can’t charge for your equipment!

Is the day coming when having equipment on the job is “the cost of doing business”? Is the day coming where you can’t charge for equipment?

We had quite a discussion in the Restoration Advisers Official Group on Facebook. If you aren’t in the group we highly encourage you to jump in there for some zero BS discussion. No outside advertising. No belittling. Just real, raw, and professional discussion. Join here.

The insurance company is always evolving in their arguments and creativity to drive their costs down so they can reinvest the premiums. In the book Delay Deny Defend, the author describes insurance companies as investment companies. They invest the premiums and drive down costs by negotiating claims. *

They are claiming that more and more standard practices are part of “the cost of doing business”. Supervisor hours, etc. So why wouldn’t they say that equipment is part of the cost of doing business?*

Those who believe the notion that they profit from their equipment will stay small. The equipment is a profit producing metric for sure, but a proper understanding of Overhead costs, and the amount of profit needed to afford to do the next job is critical to growth. 

If you aren’t allowed to charge for the equipment on the job, how will you profit?

What if you used the data from your past projects (not AR data if you have been discounting your invoices) to build a pricing structure that was all inclusive?
You have the data to develop a strong square footage or T&M pricing model that was all inclusive?

While we are discussing shifts, consider the moves and future of the beloved Xactimate.

They have more than enough data to fully institute assigning values to losses by the customer using AR and LiDAR images.

They upload the images, filter through a program and extract a dollar figure, even a prelim. The client is provided a list of contractors that will perform the work for that.

We aren't far from that now.

This industry has done a poor job of marketing itself against this.

The average home or business owner doesn't know such a service exists.

So FNOL mostly goes to carriers.

If they get a premium break to use the app (auto already has such things), they can continue to drop LAE (loss adjustment expenses) and improve their ratio to 45-50.

Everyone's lethargy to address the domination of programs is only expediting this.

I'm not on a soapbox....but everyone should be thinking long term.

It's the exact reason why we are creating a community of restorers here at Restoration Advisers who are striving to better their businesses and learn to have intelligent conversations with clients without crossing ethical and legal lines and being accused of public adjusting. We are developing a community of business owners and leaders who are growing their businesses and developing their people to provide excellent service and support their communities.

We have a program called 60 days to Build a Strong Restoration Company. The lessons will be around 4 pillars of a Restoration Business such as Sales/Marketing, Operations, Financial, Leadership, etc.

60 Days to Build a Strong Restoration Company

 *It is important to note that we are referring to non-program work. If you are on a program, you will always be bound by the rules of the program.