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Inspectacast Season 2 Episode 5
Opportunities
Caster- Tom LeGros
Unedited Transcript
Tom LeGros 0:00
Today is June 23, and this is Inspectacast sponsored by Preferred Reports.
Tom LeGros 0:19
Hello from Lafayette, Louisiana. Today we had intended on doing a live podcast from our corporate headquarters in Lafayette. But unfortunately due to a lot of thunderstorms in the area and some technical difficulties that came as a result of those thunderstorms we were unable to. So we're going to go ahead and post this briefer podcast than normal, but one that nevertheless has an important message. The main unemployment rate for the United States non farm payroll was 13.3%. This is almost 10% higher than it's been in some time. And remarkably, it was better than what it was in April. Remember, April saw the peak of the virus cases and suffered through the worldwide economic stall that it caused. Recovery is happening, but we all know it won't be fast and it's true. won't be the same for all sectors of business. the hospitality industry in particular, will take much longer to recover than some of the other areas. with government assistance expected to sunset next month compounded this with more state reopening, there will be more people looking for work than jobs available, especially at the income levels that they previously had. The insurance industry has had recruiting issues for some time, and faced with hardening markets, increasing premiums and unclear claims future. It also is seen a 3.6% unemployment rate when it had been less than 1%. Prior to the pandemic, the insurance inspections industry faces similar challenges. Most of the companies that are in this business such as preferred use some type of independent contractor or commission employee model. Many of them have seen reductions in orders and naturally a reduction in revenue as a result of those reduction in orders. Plus has been difficult to get some of the inspections done. Most have also lost inspectors whether it's through illness, voluntary withdrawal or Their ability to minimize their risk by taking the pandemic relief and wait things out until things got better. But even before 2020, the inspections business has faced a reality where many experienced consultants were getting older and leaving the business or reducing their availability significantly. There's really no true pipeline to replace these valued consultants as they leave the field. universities do not specifically train risk management students for a loss control career, especially as a sole practitioner outside of a a mga or carrier model. There are few formal training programs outside internal ones offered by various providers further with the fact that the IRS frowns on independent contractors being taught actual professions by companies because it tends to create a perception of an employment relationship. It has been something that just really isn't done. However, you know, we preferred reports believe that ours is an honorable profession, and we also believe in the freedom industry. Dependent contractor model offers to many people. Studies have found that independent contractors tend to be more educated, slightly older, and are independent contractors because they want to be not because they have to be, we want to see people have the opportunity to enter the field of insurance loss control, and we're going to help make the transition easier for those wanting to explore our industry. In July preferred reports will sponsor a basic residential insurance inspector training program at no cost to the participants. We're not guaranteeing anything, we're not guaranteeing that we'll use them as inspectors or that they would even be able to get an opportunity to become an inspector elsewhere, but we are giving them the opportunity to make a positive change in their lives. By learning more about the insurance business as a possible career and money making opportunity. The course will be a four week online and Webinar Program, which will prepare them to perform exterior residential insurance surveys for any company. We ask our fellow providers to offer similar opportunities to refresh the ranks of qualified inspectors We'll post the details of the program on our website, telling them where to sign up. Now due to technology constraints, the training will be limited to 75 people. The materials covered will be posted on the website. So everyone completing the program will receive a grade transcript along with a letter of completion that they can provide with their resumes to companies seeking exterior residential inspectors. Again, this is only an opportunity there is no guarantee this training will result in any company including preferred reports using their services as an insurance inspector independent contractor. take it for what it is a chance to explore a way of earning income that comes with a great deal of freedom. Again, this will be posted in chat in July after the Fourth of July. So that way, we can get the Fourth of July holiday out of the way and it will last approximately four weeks. And what we're looking at is sort of a hybrid class where it's a combination of live webinars where people can ask questions as they go through the materials. And then we're going to use the preferred reports education portal or prep to host the online component which is basically going to be lectures that they'll be able to take at their own pace listen to when they want to. And that will also be the platform where the quizzes will take place where they will be graded on the recall of information. The entire course will culminate in a
Tom LeGros 5:14
simulated inspection that will use a special process that that we use for internal training. And that'll give them the opportunity to actually do a walkthrough of an inspection will expect them also to perhaps use their own home or friends or neighbors home,
Tom LeGros 5:30
whatever to be able to do a simulated inspection
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and turn that material in as well. So it's gonna be a great opportunity for people to see exactly what insurance inspectors do, especially as it relates to residential exterior inspections. Now for those of you in the business, you'll know that the exterior residential inspections are probably some of the most common and probably the least complex things to do. Usually these homes are low value, and by a low value, we mean less than a half a million dollars. And usually those are exterior only they don't generally will go Inside the homes for those levels of inspections and less is older home, where they're concerned about electrical and heating and things like that. And that will all be stuff that they will be able to learn over time. There's other opportunities, they might have to learn more, but to get them going and to get them into the field, we think that that very basic level of training the exterior inspection, would give them the opportunity to enter into the field to go ahead and make an income and then begin to earn more experience as they go. Especially as more and more companies give them opportunities to broaden their scope of practice. We ask that other companies that are in the business as well, our competition, please do the same thing. offer free classes so that we can get more people into our business because quite frankly, the way the independent contractor model works in particular is they really shouldn't work for one company they shouldn't work for just two companies and by work for I mean, be retained to be a consultant for Libyan inspector for a particular company. They're not employees. There are a lot of people who certainly understand that. And they want that because they want the freedom to do what they want to do when they want to do it and how much they want to do it. Believe me, we have inspectors that make it a full time job on their own by working for four or five different companies traveling a lot, doing whatever it takes to make the income that they want. And then we also have inspectors that do it, if you would call it part time, just a few hours a week to get some additional income. But it gives them the opportunity to do that. It gives them the opportunity to work when they want. I know that I spent years as a independent contractor in the field, I had my own business, and I represented multiple companies out there. And it gave me the opportunity to go to my kids things at school to watch them go through their talent shows or whatever. I never missed any of that. And there were very few of my guys my age, the other fathers that had that opportunity. They were working a nine to five office job somewhere. But being able to do the inspections to work my schedule around with the school schedule would be worked out great. Plus, we had a A lot of family vacations together, we would travel to areas where I was doing inspections, and they would have the opportunity to go to hotels to go to Disney or whatever goes swimming. And they had a lot of fun in the summertime. I don't know that I necessarily had a lot of fun during the day going out doing a bunch of inspections. But there was always dinner, there was always a firework show at Disney or wherever we were at Universal Studios. I mean was fantastic. Now, I was fortunate where I covered a lot of the state of Florida. So there were a lot of opportunities to go out and enjoy things really year round. But I think anybody could find some great things to do with their family anywhere in the country, especially that they had the opportunity to make their own schedule. And really that is the attraction to being an independent contractor doing insurance loss control is the fact that you really you know, they say salesman, yeah, make as much as you want, you know, sell as much as you want. You get commissioned well with, with insurance inspections, you truly inspect as much as you want. If you have the workflow available. It's up to you. You take vacations or you take time off when you want you do what you In terms of what areas you go inspect, and those sort of things, on what days and you really have absolute autonomy with how to do it, because the insurance inspection companies like preferred, we're not going to direct you how to do your inspections, you're going to be trained to do it. And you go off and do it and provide that information to us. And in turn, we provide that information to our clients. There are other types of inspections out there. Certainly there's an entire field of commercial inspections that requires a much different level of experience, especially with different specialty areas. But I can bet you that there are people out there who had been in the fast food business or the restaurant, business, hospitality business, and they know food safety. They know restaurant operations, they know how to work hood systems, they know how to work a cook line. They know what the safety requirements are for food preparation and food handling. And quite frankly, that gives them a leg up on a lot of people to do restaurant inspections. There are other people out there who worked in the retail industry. May had been trained in retail store safety, making sure there's two lessons slip and fall, things like that all of that experience and training that you've received in other areas are very applicable in the insurance business. Because after all, an insurance, we're looking for the same things that those companies should have been looking for their own internal risk management programs. You'll have people out there who were managers of different types of companies, whether it's manufacturing, you know, or warehousing, or trucking or whatever. They're trained in these specific safety requirements of their industry. And that makes them well versed to be able to inspect that part of their industry because they are experts. And the only additional training you would need is how to go about writing a loss
control report, and working kind of like within the insurance loss control arena, as opposed to you know, like a regular safety manager arena. It's a little bit different emphasis, but it's still the same rules. We also see a lot of people who are firefighters, who are trained to be fire inspectors building inspectors all those guys
Tom LeGros 11:01
have talents that fit well in with insurance inspections and in fact, make them very well suited to be insurance inspectors even without additional training. So with the idea of being trained as a residential exterior Inspector, that gives you the opportunity to see what it takes to make a living as an independent contractor in the insurance business, and it should open your horizons. Not only that, you also would from there, you could become a home inspector, which is an addition on to the business of an insurance inspector. There are a lot that do both. There's the appraisal business, there's insurance claims there's any number of directions, you can go in terms of education, and still operate as an independent contractor because there are independent claims adjusters. There are certainly independent home inspectors there, there are independent appraisers. It's just a matter of getting the education getting the licensure to do that. And fortunately, in the insurance business, particularly in personal lines, especially for exteriors, there's generally no license requirement in any state that I'm aware of for residential exterior inspections. So this is a great opportunity that we're going to be offering people, again, we ask that our competition certainly consider doing the same thing. And certainly consider giving the people that would go through the program and opportunity to inspect for them as well. So hopefully that will happen. This is probably the shortest inspected cast that we put up. But, you know, this is one of those things where I just really wanted to emphasize what we're doing. And that is giving people especially as we come out of this pandemic, and as we're looking at double digit unemployment figures, giving them an opportunity to have some freedom to go out and earn an income and perhaps become a small business, you know, because small business does make up the backbone of American business. And that's certainly what we need is good, vibrant, well run, well financed small businesses out there to really help make this recovery work. After the pandemic, please, if anyone is interested, we will be putting out announcements on our social media that will tell you where to go to register for these courses. And again, we're going to limit it to 75. But if it goes, Well, this may not be the only one that will do. We may do others. But I can't emphasize enough. We're not offering you a guarantee. We're just offering you an opportunity to enter into a new world of income potential and that is as a independent contractor insurance inspector. Thanks a lot for joining us this evening. We're going to try to get that live broadcast going in the next week or so. But please keep tuning in to inspect a cast sponsored by preferred reports. Have a great evening.
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