Catastrophe "CAT" Adjusting

---

Some time ago I wrote about working claims as a “cat” adjuster. When I wrote this I was completely out of sorts needing to get back to work ASAP and having mixed feelings about all of this. That time, I doubt that I even made myself clear; My Bad!

First, a Cat adjuster is a Catastrophe Claims Adjuster. We work property claims from storm damage. We are a group of property claims adjusters who are independent, meaning that we do not work for any particular insurance company. We generally work for independent vendors who have contracts with several insurance companies.

Having said all of the above, the work is not entirely easy, we get paid by the claim so it is in our interest to work as many as possible. And while I’ve been accused of trying to save the insurance company money, it is actually the opposite; the higher the amount of damage the more I make. But rest assured it isn’t a straight % of the amount of damage. Here is the catch; if I just made the estimate high then I wouldn’t be working now. We must justify and verify every decision so we try to get everything that is really and truly damaged repaired for the insured.

Now we can make a bunch of money, for those of us who are not afraid of really working our butt off but it is also an amazing chance to experience different areas of the U.S. by living there. On the down side the work takes us away from family and friends for stretches of time, plus we should work 12-20 hour days to really make it worth the while. It is easy to get burned out. But again on the plus side I get to find those little “hole-in-the-wall” restaurants and visit historic sites when time permits.

When a storm is actually on the way the adrenalin starts to flow, it is an excitement that is difficult to explain. So now we have Irene and now we will see what she blows in.

---