Insurance Jobs... Insurance Direct or Customer Pay??

[barton174]

Question is actually for a friend. A tree branch fell on his house, which has since been repaired, but the insurance company will pay, under the same claim (already paid deductible), to take the tree out. I'm not touching it because it's close to his house, and insurance is paying for a professional to take it down, so all the better. (I'm getting the wood from it once its down, though)

However, he's had a couple people out, and they won't deal direct with the insurance company (or wait for the check), and he doesn't have the money to pay up front and wait for the check, so he's sort of at an impasse. Is it just these 2 guys who won't deal direct with insurance, or is that kind of standard in the industry? (this is around Indianapolis)

Thanks,
Mike

 

[no tree to big]

It's very normal! Unless the insurance company hires me.... buttttt what we do is we get signed contract do the work, do the work, then if you are home and have a check ready I'll gladly take it otherwise we 99% of the time mail a bill out and you have 30 days to pay (every customer) If you don't pay its 2% a month intrest.... most smaller places want money now bigger companies who have big bank accounts are more forgiving

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[rarefish383]

If your friend has already been told to take the tree down by his insurance company, by all means do it. We billed the customer, they had 30 days to pay, and they settled with the insurance company. Now, state to state, insurance companies are different. Besides the deductible, some policies only pay to have the damaged tree removed from the insured structure. So, if we did an itemized bill stating so much to remove tree from structure, so much to remove debris from site. The insurance would not pay for the removal from site. Then for insurance work we quit using an itemized bill, just stating "so much to remove tree". We didn't lie or add money to help the customer. Just didn't itemize, Joe.

 

[benjo75]

I've been given the run around by insurance companies too many times. I won't deal with them anymore either. The last time I did was a storm tree blown on a house. The homeowner said the insurance would pay and just get it off the house asap. I did. Then the insurance agent showed up the in a week or so and said he thought my price was too high. He only saw it on the ground. Not on the house and the bucket truck, crane, tractors and personnel that it took to do the job. So they decided not to pay. I asked him what he thought my time was worth and what he thought I should charge for the job. Basically he thought I should charge about ten dollars an hour for me, my crew should work for free, the crane should be free and I shouldn't charge anything for my equipment . After about a month of this I had a really long hot day where nothing had gone right. Perfect time to stop in and have a visit. The little worm ran in the back when he saw me come in and refused to come out. Needless to say I was assured I would get the check in the next week. I did. But I had to threaten to turn the office over first.

That was not the first but it was the last time I dealt with an insurance company.