Benjamin Sens, CEO of BOSS Construction Group, interview with Kevin Jean, from Honest Lion Adjusting, a team of public adjusters dedicated to representing you in negotiating your insurance claim.
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Transcript
Benjamin Sens
Hi, everyone, this is Ben from balls construction. Your South Florida permanent code compliance specialist. I have today over here, Kevin Jean. What’s up, man? Where are you? Gina? JOHN? Jean Jean? Yeah, just call me Kevin. That’s, you know, that’s my wife’s maiden name. Wow, gee, Oh, wow. That’s I’ve been in the field a lot with my permitting and code compliance. And I also represent many insurance companies on defense and homeowners claims. And I before we met, we met at an a rap event at a real estate event. Yeah. And I always tell people to come to the real estate events, because you’ll meet good professionals, usually in those circles who are owner operators like Kevin and I, right, who do a great level service. So we met and lauderhill correct at lollis struck with Mayor wholeness now then vice mayor now Mayor now Mayor wholeness of Broward County. He was speaking over there at the time. And it was a phenomenal opportunity to connect. Yeah. From then, you know, we started working together, I learned about some of the claims you’re handling. Over the past year, I’ve learned how you do business. And what’s really attracted me to you. I like both to what you do. Yeah, specifically is I was wowed because I haven’t really seen a public adjuster who walks the walk talks. The talker is knowledgeable about both ends. And what I’ve basically seen in the field we’ve discussed which we’re telling our viewers about today is some of these PhDs, they basically they want to take everything, they’ll they’ll take everything. There’ll be a networking group saying if your fence is messed up, or your plumbing under your sink is leaking, give us a call. So they’re out there actually trying to train people to look for problems in their property to open claims and everything that you’ve taught me. I mean, that’s not the right way to go about the business.
Kevin Jean
No, no. Whenever you whenever you have a problem, it should be a, you know, sudden accidental loss. Yeah. There you shouldn’t be You shouldn’t have to make up anything or go looking for anything. It’s it’s sudden and accidental. That’s what your policy is there to cover. Your policy is not a maintenance policy. To maintain your home. It’s there in case you have you have a law.
Benjamin Sens
Yeah. And what’s really amazing and, you know, my sister in law, she represents, you know, homeowners as well as an attorney. But you told me a lot of times, you know, you if you have that skill, public adjuster, it’s not going to go to that lawsuit. Correct. And you gave me a really, really good quote the other day, actually, a couple weeks ago, we’re eating. You said that you don’t need to shoot an email with a shotgun
Kevin Jean
correct. You don’t need to shoot an S you don’t need if
Benjamin Sens
you don’t. So So again, the reason you know, I see many PhDs there who then have to get attorneys to open lawsuits, because they have shitty claims.
Kevin Jean
Not necessarily not necessarily because the claims you know, not great
Benjamin Sens
because they can’t represent well yeah it for the insurance companies being too aggressive can
Kevin Jean
be a combination of things. It can be a combination of things. But But if you if you’re fair and you’re honest, you should have a higher rate of being able to close out your claims without having to get an attorney involved.
Benjamin Sens
I wonder why all these companies honest, reliable lien search who we work with, they all have that in the name and it really sticks. You know, and I seen a lot of large companies out there with many public adjusters working for them. You don’t really see the same stuff going on. They mainly seem like ambulance chasers, house fire chasers. They seem like some people just and I’m not and again I’m not bad. Again, I clearly in construction, and insurance claims very quickly when I learned what a public adjuster does, I saw said, Wait, there’s a need for these people. Because the insurance company has an adjuster the way I understand it. I’ve seen homeowners and property owners try and represent themselves. And a lot of times that doesn’t go over so well. So just a little bit about me. Many years ago, I started working at law firms. Working at law firms ultimately led me to working at insurance companies. I worked at three different insurance companies, those law firms were the client, those law firms were the insurance company. That is correct. Most people I’ve just told the viewers, it’s very technical. Most people don’t correct
Kevin Jean
and correct. They were insurance Defense Law Firm. So so you know, somebody would have an issue or, you know, a, you know, a client of the insurance company would have an issue, and the insurance company would hire the law firm in order to represent the policyholder. Yeah, so I would I was working at law firms and then after working at law firms, I ended up working at different insurance companies did that for over 10 years. And one The light bulb went off in my head. I said, You know what, let me let me gather up the knowledge and experience that I’ve gained. And let me help the little guy, you know, I’m representing the people not the power of the actual policy, the actual policy holder.
Benjamin Sens
And I mean, sort of, like, you know, you see in the legal world where the prosecutor like I’m on order, they go and then they decide to be a defender. Yeah. But no, that’s and, And that, to me is like a really cool transition, because I can relate to that because when I worked for the city, you know, then I said, Hey, I want to I want to represent people on the other side of the counter. I don’t want to process permits, review plans, I want to submit plans and help people to get
Kevin Jean
them approved,
Benjamin Sens
help help people get them approved, and do the right thing essentially, definitely, that not only makes a good background, but it’s really sincere.
Kevin Jean
Yeah, definitely, definitely very sincere. And you know, another part of my was very, it’s very deep and it’s personal as well. You know, a lot of passion
Benjamin Sens
and I talked to you about that. Yeah.
Kevin Jean
Definitely, you have to make sure that you level with people on a human level. It’s not all about money. You have to make sure that you give them good advice. Most of my day is spent just giving advice and consultant screening
Benjamin Sens
calls.
Kevin Jean
Definitely giving, giving, giving advice for example, here’s a piece of advice I tell people if you ever have a loss if you ever have a loss, do not get rid of the evidence keep it the insurance company has a right to throw away the tile fall No, no No, do not throw anything away sports do not do that. Do not do that. Keep it the insurance adjuster needs to see it get their permission before you discard it get their permission, you
Benjamin Sens
have to get an ao B’s the assignment of benefit. Well,
Kevin Jean
it depends that it depends. It depends because you also have a duty to mitigate. You have to mitigate your left to do the cleanup and well yeah, whether it’s fire water, you can’t allow the damage to get worse. Whatever happened it you have to preserve, preserve your property, you know, save the evidence, but also if it’s a leak per se, you know, you have to shut off the water. So if the water don’t allow it to get worse, it’s a duty to mitigate, you must mitigate your damage. If you were living in the house or even not living in the house, you’d want to mitigate because I know if you don’t clean up water right away, many days later if it’s under laminate floor, and you hear the squish, squashing,
Benjamin Sens
again, many days after you’ll see mold start correct. But you’ll have air quality issues. That’s correct. That’s correct. And and so I know that and also I get involved with remediators because remediators are not allowed to do construction and put back their licenses specifically to do air protocols. If they have the, the the testing license, and also remediate if they have that lice, correct. That’s correct. And we’re just looking for checks and balances. I get a lot of, I mean, we don’t want the remediators doing the work, testing their own work. We’re seeing all sorts of things in the industry and why we’re seeing all sorts of things in the industry, I think, is because this industry is highly lucrative correct and there is a huge vacuum in South Florida. So when I when I, when I was even working at the city before I got into construction in real estate, I saw a lot of water mitigation companies running around the street, common to the city.
Kevin Jean
fly by night.
Benjamin Sens
Yeah. And again and again, keep in mind, these guys, a lot of them don’t get paid money until the insurance pays them directly or the homeowner gets the money. So what I what I thought interesting about that you have a high profitable business. Yes. You have a transient place like South Florida. Yeah. And so you’re attracting, you know, different types of groups of people to represent homeowners, property owners, and specifically, I think some of them don’t have the best interest
Kevin Jean
of the client in mind. Yeah, that that that’s correct. Sometimes you get some shady people who see dollar signs. Yeah. And they don’t you know, they don’t necessarily always
Benjamin Sens
or they’re looking for quality for
Kevin Jean
quantity and cases and not quality. Yeah, definitely. You definitely have to focus on the quality When someone calls me when a homeowner calls me and they have an issue, the first thing I do is I listen to their story, I listen to what they have to say, I apply facts, I apply logic to what they’re saying, saying to me, I don’t just immediately, you know, sign up every single claim, I take the time to actually investigate into research, what it is they’re saying, so that way I can I can properly advocate for them,
Benjamin Sens
you know, right. Because essentially, you need to go over their policy correct. You need to go over their their adjusters report. And some times the existing conditions change two years later. Yes. So again, you have you you’ve come into an I could relate to this to you could you come in through processes in the beginning, in the end, in the middle, you know, yeah, and again, and again, hopefully, you know, the homeowner makes those right decisions on what to do. Definitely, definitely. I
Kevin Jean
I definitely steered my clients to do the right thing. And I let them know From upfront, you know, you know, we have to work team, we work together, they get to get to get this done and I need their full cooperation or honesty, their trust in order to be able to advocate for them.
Benjamin Sens
How many? And you know, I always hear this battling back and forth between, you know, the insured and the insurance the company. Sorry, both sides. The insurance company obviously wants to pay out as little money as possible. Correct. You know, like we discussed like that guy, incredible Incredibles, and yeah, sorry. Yeah, yeah. sitting at the table. Yeah. Yeah. And and denying people’s claims. Yeah. We’re undervaluing Yeah, yeah. And then we have people like public adjusters who are licensed by the state correct. And they can come out and valuate and represent people and negotiate on the adjuster to adjuster level
Kevin Jean
correct. That is correct. That is correct.
Benjamin Sens
A lot of times we see negotiations if there’s no public adjuster involved homeowner to adjuster which that’s what we want. To try and prevent
Kevin Jean
I do a yeah it’s
Benjamin Sens
not only because you’re in the business but because you again you have someone who is out resource you out not knowledge is resource time is a resource their job it’s literally your job to to find it. And again, I’ve heard of I’ve heard of homeowners handling their own claims, saying, you know what, I’m going to save the commission. I’m going to save the money. I’m going to handle this by myself. And a couple a couple times family members of mine who I saw doing it themselves. It was a job. Wow, it was both a full time job. It was a full time job. Wow. Just to handle the claim. While they didn’t have to obviously pay an adjuster or there wasn’t an attorney involved. They might have gotten more money and better representation and peace of mind.
Kevin Jean
Had they hired Yeah, and the right public adjuster not just any the right but the
Benjamin Sens
right public adjuster and a lot of times when it’s people’s property. For example, if you’re a realtor and you’re selling a property, everything No one takes it personally meaning a seller or a property owner thinks that they their property is worth more or their claim is worth. Or they haven’t a situation that’s so special. Yeah. Well, every situation is unique and special. The thing that again, the thing that I want to stress, is it when it’s your own house. Yeah. Like, for example, when I have to negotiate rent with my landlord, it becomes personal. It’s very personal. And I rather have a professional do that for me. Yeah. Even though I even though I come from the real estate background. Yeah, yeah, definitely.
Kevin Jean
You always want to make sure that you have a second set of eyes and somebody who’s a professional who this is their, their forte, this is their, their area of what they do. So yeah, definitely.
Benjamin Sens
So we talked about insurance claims. We talked about public adjusters. We you know, specifically what What have you had? As far as you know, worst case scenario outcomes? What have you had is? Let’s start with best case scenario comes for clients.
Kevin Jean
I’ll just give you a recent example. I had a client know a lot
Benjamin Sens
of these I know, we can’t, you know, disclose location or clients name. Yeah, until everything settled. And even after that you have to have their permission correctly. I love talking about practical solutions, correct?
Kevin Jean
Correct. I had a client recently who had a hurricane Irma loss. This particular homeowner calls me one day and says, Hey, you know what? The insurance company came out three years ago told me that the claim was under deductible and that that homeowners roof was leaking. And the insurance company for viewers at home and audience they sometimes deny the claim and say it’s below your deductible correct?
Benjamin Sens
Oh, you to kind of go away? Correct, correct it kind of like you don’t have a claim
Kevin Jean
which is which is actually better than than outright denying it because
Benjamin Sens
they’ve at least they’ve accepted cover. So, they can they can deny they can they can accept and say Thunder deductible and they can accept and undervalue which basically what that is correct? Correct. Yeah. So, I just want to
Kevin Jean
know, okay, so So ultimately, you know, I ended up going in there, I gave my estimate. And, you know, we, we went back and forth for a little bit, but I got a very, very, very good outcome enough to repair her whole roof and her whole interior and everything. And she’s very, very thankful. And I was able to get that done within a few months. So property back to hole, correct pre loss condition pre loss, can that correct?
Benjamin Sens
That’s the technical term loss condition. Yeah. And, and what’s what’s very interesting is, again, we talk about floor to floor, wall to wall ceiling to ceiling coverage. If you have an open room, the insurance company is required to give you pre loss condition. That’s correct. And you can’t just spray something with kills and be like, Hey, you know You need to actually it because the mortgage company, everyone has a stake in that. That’s correct. So you need to preserve the property. Depending on the amount of the claim, there’s inspections that are involved, correct. The insurance company wants to make sure that they’re giving money to a licensed contractor, and they’re actually doing the work that the insurance company’s paying them. That’s
Kevin Jean
correct. That’s correct. And there’s, there’s no you know, you shouldn’t be painting over mold because if you, here’s the concept, if you paint over mold, essentially what you’re doing is by painting over the mold is you’re you’re basically you know, using, you know, or a gel on a tooth that has a bandaid on upon a bullet wound, it can’t put a bandaid on a bullet wound. You can’t you know, if if you have a tooth that’s that’s you know, that has a cavity you have to go to the dentist to get it properly filled. You know, just dealing with the pain, you’re only dealing with the symptom but you’re not actually dealing with the actual issue at hand. So you need to properly remediate, remediate that mold.
Benjamin Sens
Whether the water is coming from the roof, the exterior wall, correct?
Kevin Jean
Correct.
Benjamin Sens
Correct. And what also we’ve seen a lot is property maintenance issues. And I know that’s a part of where insurance companies deny, for example, if the homeowner doesn’t paint the house, or they don’t, you know, repair the cracks in the stucco when we consider wear and tear, and there’s water. And so those are like things that happen all too
Kevin Jean
often, but it happens. But you have a you have to maintain your home.
Benjamin Sens
If you see someone that has property maintenance issues. Yeah. And the claim is going to get denied.
Kevin Jean
That’s obviously not a claim that your firm wants to take. Yeah, we won’t take it not that we don’t want to we won’t, we definitely won’t take it. If I take a look at your policy, and I take a look at the damage. And I apply science and logic to it. And I see that it’s something that’s existed for a very long time that you’ve just failed to fix. I definitely won’t take backline do you do?
Benjamin Sens
Do you do commercial and things like that? Yeah, commercial Yes, definitely work for so associations definitely
Kevin Jean
yes, I definitely do work for associations commercial work. You know, I take a look at all different types of policies I’ve looked at, you know, $5 million church building policies and etc, etc, etc. So not just homes commercial policies as well
Benjamin Sens
and commercial policies pretty much. I mean, we talked about mitigating recently. I went through, for example, commercial shopping owners, I do site plan code violation cases, they don’t have stop bars. They have like water that’s trickling on the walkway with mold growing on it, wow is going to slip by. So again with your background, working for the the law firms that represent the insurance companies and then going to work inside the insurance company and then going to work inside the insurance correct. Yes. And now representative. Thank you. What do you I know you mentioned you did auto you property
Kevin Jean
property, a property mainly property
Benjamin Sens
and also what is so More of a technical question. So sometimes the insurance companies, they have their own, they have their own adjusters. They have their own attorneys, and then sometimes they sub out and get another attorney.
Kevin Jean
Correct. Correct. They send the cases out to outside counsel. The insurance company send cases outside counsel. Sometimes when they feel like they can’t settle it with their in house legal team, they’ll then take it and send it out to the outside counsel and pay them either a flat fee or an hourly rate.
Benjamin Sens
And that’s and one question I always had, because we, okay, really important. People are like how to public adjusters get paid. They get paid a difference on a percentage of what they help you collect.
Kevin Jean
Yeah, public adjuster gets paid up to 20% by law, have a claim that you have, it’s illegal to go over 20% up you can never
Benjamin Sens
before so it’s 20% of If you started in the beginning, it’s 20% of the whole claim. But if you started in the middle it’s 20% of what you
Kevin Jean
I thought work I just want to confirm that I understand what you’re saying when you say started in the beginning you mean I mean I mean for example, some people try and start claims on their on their own
Benjamin Sens
some public adjusters I’ve even seen takeover other public adjusters screw ups, correct. You know, so is it 20% of always the total claim, whichever, where you take it over in the process,
Kevin Jean
realistically, every public adjuster is gonna operate differently. The way that I operate is I don’t want a percentage of something talking to you, man. Okay. I don’t want to take a percentage of something that I did not help you recover. I only take a percentage of what I helped you ever. So unless, yeah, definitely. Yeah. So if you had, you know, five or $10,000 that you got on your own, before bringing me on board. I don’t I am not entitled to percentage of that. Other public adjusters might do it differently. They might tell you differently, but I will not take something that I didn’t Work for it’s not there.
Benjamin Sens
And and then and what’s really important to me when I work with homeowners, you know, they’re always talking about how their claim took a long time. Maybe because they did file suit. So you you kind of approach it from when we spoke, you kind of approach it on like a top down, you know, pyramid, upside down pyramid, if you will, where you’re funneling the the least invasive things, and then escalating correct, which we refer to the shotgun in the hands, right? You don’t so what is a percentage? I mean, what’s a percentage of claims that you’ve taken, that you’ve settled yourself?
Kevin Jean
I’d say the vast majority, I’d say over 70% of claims can be settled your myself without the need to send it to any attorney or
Benjamin Sens
escalate it because when you escalate it with a lawsuit, then the homeowner is waiting more time crime usually usually usually because There’s depositions and mitigation litigation. All the litigations. Yeah,
Kevin Jean
all the
Benjamin Sens
arbitration and yeah, so no, but it’s it’s that’s that’s kind of interesting to me. Definitely. So again, you know, when you see on the on the side of the road, on the side of the highway, a company like who, who just does personal injury law, and now they now hurricane comes, and they decide to do property.
I mean, what what is that? You?
They’re just buying a billboard, they know that Irma came, and we know in the industry claims happen six months, eight months after the event. So they’re all like trying to prepare themselves in this market that they’ve never represented before. That they’ve never done before. They’re trying to approach property claims, like
Kevin Jean
personal injury claim, you shouldn’t do that. Do you think about that, I think that that’s It’s a little scary. It’s a little scary. You wouldn’t go to your your podiatrist which is your foot doctor for for a heart condition or something wrong with your brain. You want to go to somebody who specializes in what they do. Somebody who’s who’s done it for many years, someone like me public adjuster who’s worked on the inside of insurance companies, who actually has the experience and the knowledge and the background to better handle your
Benjamin Sens
matter. And no, that’s, that’s, that’s phenomenal, man. That’s like, and how long have you been?
Kevin Jean
I know you’ve had experience on the other side, but how long have you been with your own firm and organization for all i started my public adjusting firm last year. But But again, you know, it’s after 10 to 15 years of working inside of the insurance companies and different you know, law firms.
Benjamin Sens
Nice. That’s phenomenal. Yeah. Well, I have Kevin gene here. Yeah, from honest line adjusting. Again, amazing topic. We’re talking about. A topic that I like because people normally don’t talk about this on video never. This is something that is affects every property owner like open permits and code violations. I want to thank reliable lien search our sponsor, and all of our viewers again, what I’m trying to do is, you know, if I represent property owners at the city, and I see beneficial practitioners and professionals that will represent property owners on insurance claims, I want to say hey, there’s someone really good to us out here definitely. And that’s why I’ve identified Kevin and I’m really excited to have him here today. If you like this video, please like our Facebook page like our YouTube channel boss construction group, like good people like Kevin Jean offline adjusting, honestly.
Kevin Jean
It’s our Instagram, Instagram Yeah, social
Benjamin Sens
media honestly. And, and and what that does is what Kevin is I do is when we’re in the field, when we have a resolve case to talk about when we have an open case to talk about something that we want to share with the public on the experiences, we put those up there for you to view. So contact us at any time. And thank you so much. Thank you, Kevin. Thank you. Sorry. Talk to you guys soon. Thanks.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai
