How to set yourself apart from other adjusters

So its a few weeks into your storm deployment.  You are all caught up on your contacts.  You are scheduled out at-least 3 weeks.  You've settled and closed a few dozen claims.  Now what?  It feels good to finally catch your breath and relax, right?  While it is healthy to give yourself a breather; now couldn't be a more important/crucial point for your deployment!

Some of you may start to feel like you are over that hill and that things are easing up.  While this may be true, the one thing you need to remember is to stay on your game!  This is the point in the storm where you can greatly differentiate yourself from the other adjusters on-site.  This could buy you more time deployed on storm if you handle everything right!  By now you should be receiving return phone calls from homeowners you have already inspected.  Make it a goal to respond to these people within 24 hours!  Agents and homeowners often complain about their adjuster's lengthy response time for voice messages.  They don't always understand how busy we are... Do your managers a favor and respond before these complaints reach them!

You may also be overhearing word of potential HOT claims in the office.  These are usually homeowners that are upset because another adjuster may be 3 weeks or further out on their schedule.  While it is impossible to make "everyone" happy, you could earn a few brownie points by making room in your schedule to take a HOT claim off of your manager's hands.  However, don't reschedule someone just to make an impatient homeowner happy.  You owe it to your homeowners to keep your word with your appointments.  Make yourself known and tell your manager that you would be willing to take an extra claim or two to help out.  Don't do this if you do not feel comfortable taking on extra work!  If you are absolutely booked solid, its okay to turn down a few claims.  Remember, you still need to keep a high standard of quality on all of your claim files.  Don't do anything that would hinder your best performance!

I'm not telling you to be a pest while your in the office.  After-all, nobody likes a brown nose...  Approach everything from a genuine, realistic perspective.  Don't be a stranger!  Face time is one of the most important things you could do for your career!  Make yourself known to your peers!  You are just a name on a roster unless others can associate your face to that name.  It is common sense for higher-ups to keep the claim handlers they know, and even more common sense to keep the claim handlers that are willing to go an extra mile to lend a helping hand!