In this episode of The Restoration Rundown, I’m joined once again by Doug Weatherman to revisit a topic that’s becoming harder for the restoration industry to ignore: Artificial Intelligence (AI).
The reality is every claim has two audiences now. Well, three. You’ve always had the adjuster. You’ve always had the customer. But now you’ve got the machine.
The machine doesn’t care how hard the job was, if you got up in the middle of the night for it, or if you drove far away for it. The machine doesn’t care if the elevators don’t work and you had to haul the equipment upstairs. The machine doesn’t care if you had to wake a guy up and get him out of bed and that takes more time at 11:00 at night or 1:00 in the morning. Nobody’s as fast as they are at 8:00 a.m. It doesn’t take into account those things.
Instead, it looks for file structure—the complete, consistent, easy timeline. So it has to be able to really simply determine why you made the decisions that you made. “You took the floor because it was wet”—that sort of thing. “Meter reading says wet, floor’s gone because it’s wet”—all that makes sense to the machine.
What they’re going to do then is validate those against historic production rate values. Then we’re going to start getting preset loss expectancy estimates that go over that via custom price lists, via U-estimate methodology, or estimator skill, or whatever other X factor you want to throw at that statement. No matter what that ends up being, we’re all going to end up being the victim of those caps.
There’s going to be almost an automatic appraisal. If you’re within that line, then you fit. If you’re out of that line, you’re going into a queue to wait for the human. And the human’s going to get to you when they get to you, which probably won’t be anytime soon because their easier jobs are just “clickity click, pay this one, pay that one, pay this one.” If he’s got to make a phone call, you already know how hard it is to get the adjusters to make a phone call.
Guys, if your documentation is messy, it doesn’t matter how good you did the job. If the documentation comes in messy through the machine, you’re going into this queue, and it’s not going to be a good time. If you’ve got clean documentation and you can move your narrative all the way through from start to finish of the job—whether it’s on the mitigation or the reconstruction side—then you should be able to have a pretty smooth transition through the machine. You shouldn’t have any red flags that are going to trigger the human interaction, and you won’t end up dying in the queue waiting for somebody to call you. That’s the new battleground. That’s where we’re really at right now.
00:00 The three audiences for every claim: the adjuster, the customer, and the “machine”
00:09 What the “machine” does not account for in a job
00:30 Importance of file structure and clean documentation for the “machine”
00:46 How claims are validated against historic production rates and loss expectancy estimates
01:09 The automatic appraisal process and the queue for human interaction
01:32 The impact of messy vs. clean documentation on job processing
02:00 The new battleground for claims processing
About a year ago, Doug wrote an article in C&R Magazine titled “We Have a Big Problem,” raising concerns about how AI could influence the restoration claims process and whether contractors may be feeding data into systems that could eventually be used against them.
Shortly after that article was published, Doug joined me on The Restoration Rundown for an episode called “AI and the Future of Restoration.” Now, a year later — and after massive advances in AI — we’re revisiting the conversation to ask an important question: “Are restoration contractors paying enough attention to how AI could reshape the industry?”
In this episode we discuss:
- How AI may already be influencing insurance claims
- Whether contractors could be unintentionally training AI systems
- The growing value of restoration industry data
- What AI could mean for negotiations with carriers
- How restoration owners should approach AI moving forward
Join us on YouTube and LinkedIn LIVE- tomorrow at 9:30 AM (EST)
📖 Read and vote for Doug’s Article
“We Have a Big Problem” – C&R Magazine
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If you’re a restoration business owner trying to understand how artificial intelligence may impact the future of claims, this conversation will give you a lot to think about.
If you missed our Podcast last year with Doug Weatherman and Andrew McCabe, click on this link to read our blog entitled, “The Good, The Bad, & The Ugly of AI with Andy McCabe & Doug Weatherman”.
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Benjamin Ricciardi is the founder of Ironclad Restoration Marketing, A digital marketing agency that specializes in the Restoration and Cleaning industry based in South Florida. Benjamin is the author of The No Bulls**t Guide to Internet Marketing for Restoration Contractors and hosts The Restoration Rundown Podcast, a podcast that is focused on everything related to marketing and owning a Restoration and Cleaning Business. Connect with Benjamin and Ironclad Restoration Marketing on social media for the latest tips and tricks on how to grow your Restoration Business.