Welcome to our latest episode! Today, we’re joined by Andy Gurczak, the founder of AllCity Adjusting, a leading public adjusting firm that has helped countless policyholders secure fair settlements. Andy’s journey began in construction and fire restoration, but he found his true calling in public adjusting, advocating for insured individuals and business owners against insurance companies that underpay claims. With over a decade of experience, Andy has successfully recovered significantly higher payouts for his clients, ensuring they get what they rightfully deserve.
In this episode, Andy breaks down the complex world of insurance claims, explaining the critical differences between residential and commercial claims and why policyholders often struggle to get fair settlements. He discusses the growing challenges in the insurance industry, including skyrocketing premiums, denied fire coverage, and how insurers strategically delay payments. Andy also reveals the key mistakes policyholders make when filing claims and shares expert strategies for maximizing settlements, avoiding pitfalls, and ensuring faster claim resolutions.
If you own property—whether residential or commercial—this episode is packed with must-know insights that can help you protect your assets and financial future. Tune in now!
HIGHLIGHTS OF THE EPISODE
00:00 – Welcome to the BigMikeFund Podcast
00:23 – Guest intro: Andy Gurczak
01:10 – From construction to public adjusting
03:18 – Residential vs. commercial insurance claims
06:45 – How insurance companies delay and deny payouts
10:30 – Why many policies are now excluding fire coverage
14:20 – The skyrocketing cost of insurance premiums across the U.S.
18:05 – Strategies for maximizing claim payouts
22:50 – Hiring a public adjuster early makes a huge difference
28:34 – How to connect with Andy and AllCity Adjusting
If you found this episode substantial and want to dig deeper into real estate, or maybe you want to discover better investment opportunities, be sure to check out www.tempofunding.com.
CONNECT WITH US:
Website: www.tempofunding.com
Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCnJkdVoOsUy85ydkmot9iVA
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mzlotnik/
Facebook: https://web.facebook.com/TFmanagementgroup/?_rdc=1&_rdr
X: https://twitter.com/management_tf
CONNECT WITH THE GUEST
Website: https://allcityadjusting.com/
Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/andy-gurczak-528b9b64/
Full Transcript:
Mike Zlotnik: Welcome to the BigMikeFund Podcast. I’m the Big Mike, I’m Mike Zlotnik, and I’d like to welcome back Andy Gurczak. If I’m pronouncing it correct. If I’m butchering you up, forgive me. I’ve tried a few times. He originally is from Poland, right? He’s Polish. His family is from Poland. And remind, just a couple of words about you, when you came to the country, a little bit of your story, and then we’ll jump into insurance adjusting. This is your great expertise, and we’d love to hear what’s going on. It’s a very hot topic, given what’s been going on with the natural disasters and all the crazy stuff going on.
Andy Gurczak: Mike, thank you, first of all, for having me on again. So, I think it’s been about a year since I was on, uh, on your show, so, um, I’ve listened to your other, uh, uh, episodes. I appreciate it, uh, for your listeners that don’t remember. Yes, I did grow up in Poland. We only immigrated when I was a little kid. So, pretty much grew up here my entire life. Um, and then got into this, uh, adjusting industry. Um, now it’s almost 15 years. It’s been a long time that been in this industry. Um, and all we do is advocate for the insured. As we discussed previously, we represent the insured. We make sure they get paid fairly and they get all their money from their claims.
Mike Zlotnik: Yeah, I appreciate that. It’s a very important function. Insurance companies nowadays are looked at as a million pound gorillas. We have been charging higher and higher premiums.
We’ve seen massive insurance premium inflation in the last couple of years. I don’t know how to put it. Everyone is complaining about it. You’ve got huge premiums if you are in a natural disaster zone. Some even uninsurable. Some properties you just can’t get even insurance. And then it gets worse. You pay for the insurance and the insurance company fights you ultra hard and doesn’t want to pay.
So this is where you, you come in and, uh, so give us a little bit of the, uh, basics on the process. So let’s cover residential and commercial. The question is to you. Do you work in both residential and commercial? And what’s the big difference today? You’re seeing drastically different results in residential versus commercial.
Residential, you’re dealing with the, I guess, small time owner versus million pound gorilla in commercial. At least the owners, uh, have more resources, typically, to fight a little bit harder. But it’s also an issue of, you know, need for cash if there are an event and liquidity could be tough. So give us your lay of the land.
Andy Gurczak: Yeah, so we cover both residential and commercial. Um, our specialty is large loss, Mike. I think we discussed it. Um, large loss, we did, we really helped. People and claims about 100, 000 and over is kind of our threshold. Um, now I’m not saying that we wouldn’t take claims, uh, smaller. Um, and we do, we have a large, large amount of clients that keep coming back to us that own large portfolios that have claims throughout the year.
Then we just end up handling their own entire portfolio. Um, The, you know, the difference between residential and commercial in our eyes is the type of clientele. Residential most of the time, and I’m speaking residential, um, you get the homeowner. Uh, that has kids, maybe a dog, you know, animals or pets, you know, they’re a different story, right?
Because they want to be in the house as soon as possible in most scenarios. Um, so they kind of have a different perspective. Whereas commercial or, you know, investors, landlords are more looking into, you know, they have their own contractors, they have all their own, uh, vendors. So they really want to get every penny and kind of have more time for us. To work the claim. That’s kind of the difference in how we see both residential and commercial.
Mike Zlotnik: Interesting. So, yeah, priority wise, of course, you, you, you have a house, your home where you live. If you had, if you had a fire event, then you got to get in as soon as possible versus. Commercial, of course, you’ve got..
Andy Gurczak: It’s something to keep, it’s something to keep in mind, Mike. You know, the insurance company’s, uh, position is always to go as fast, like, you know, they tell you, get a contractor, go throw stuff out, you know, go. They want you to move the claim quicker. Because the quicker you can move a claim, the less it mitigates their payment. So when we come in, you know, we want to make sure that we’re taking our time so that our client gets maximized and all their, uh, all their payments, which again, in some people’s case, you know, with families, they don’t have that time.
They don’t have the resources. So they’re in a much harder position than investors and landlords.
Mike Zlotnik: Yeah. My observation is again, you could tell maybe it’s a little different in the residential, uh, in commercial, the goal is to delay, delay, delay. Totally. The insurance company is trying to delay, delay, delay. Bleed you and then you take a lesser, lesser, uh, until,
Andy Gurczak: Until you accept it.
Mike Zlotnik: Yes. With the residential, it’s a sensitive issue because the politicians can get involved. If somebody lost their home or, uh, insurance companies making it difficult for them to get back home, maybe it’s a little bit of a different type of, uh, um, feel.
So let’s go to the basics. If you’re engaged for, as an adjuster. And if I, I forgot to mention the company All City Adjusting, right? That, that, that’s the website. All city adjusting.com. Uh, yeah. It’s on, on your, uh, on your, uh, sweatshirt or t-shirt or it’s, it’s all over behind me somewhere too. I just wanna make sure I give you the credit website company.
So when you are engaged to represent, um, the insured, uh, how do you go through the process, uh, and what kind of, basically how much you improve typically results. Versus your fees real basic question because people people ask why should I pay when I can just file a claim directly? it may be the same experience is when you are an accident and you hire an attorney and the the settlement could be way way higher versus That’s what insurance company could offer. So I’m just curious. How does it work? The industry.
Andy Gurczak: Yeah. So, our fee, for example, starts at 10 percent and then it goes up from there depending on the claim. And then the return, you have to look at the return on your money, right? Not only does your claim get expedited quicker. Um, not only, you know, do we protect you from saying the wrong stuff and potentially denying your claim, but then the best is we maximize each coverage you have, and we maximize your position in each claim.
So, the return on your investment is so much greater than working your claim on your own. Even if you think that, you know, the insurance is going to help you or take care, um, there’s, there’s no better return than having a public adjuster handle the claim, especially the right one.
Mike Zlotnik: Yeah, it’s almost common sense and I’ve seen, we’ve used public adjustment in the past, in the past and it improves your chances. Now insurance companies dealing with a professional representation, it’s almost like you have an attorney in an injury case.
Andy Gurczak: We, we basically are, you know, we’re, we’re, we’re not elite, you know, we’re not an attorney and we don’t pretend to be one. But we are the legally, uh, party that can represent the insurance in each state that we’re licensed in.
So yes, before it has to go to litigation, we can do everything. Except that go to litigation. So we are their legal representatives for their claim.
Mike Zlotnik: Yeah, understood. Um, so do you have any cases you’re working on right now with the natural disasters? I’m just curious, again, I don’t know if you’re working in these states where there have been hurricanes, uh, tornadoes, hail events, or a fire in California. I’m just curious if you’ve seen, if you’ve had exposure to any of those cases.
Andy Gurczak: So we have a few in North Carolina, Florida, that’s all hurricane. So then we’re dealing with flood, FEMA. Um, you’re dealing with, uh, the primary, there’s a couple in those instances where, you know, the primary, the insurance might be one file with the primary, uh, carrier or their home carrier.
Um, but when it’s just flood damage, you can only go with flood. Um, so you’re dealing with FEMA, you’re dealing with their adjusters. Um, that flood insurance, that’s bare bone policy. So, you really have to do, you know, I know how hard we have to work on our team to put estimates together and, and put stuff together because there’s a list of stuff they don’t pay for, right?
You know, most homeowner puts you back in, uh, most homeowners, every homeowner policy identifies you. It puts you back in the same position that you were before the law. So they’re supposed to. Well, with flood insurance, it’s very basic. Right. They’re paid for the basic stuff, like to hang the drywall, but not to patch a painted, for example, stuff like that.
So you have to be careful how you phrase stuff and how you put an estimate together, um, if you’re going to maximize the client’s, um, uh, damage. And also they don’t have additional living expenses, right? So now that they can’t live at home, they have to pay out of pocket to live somewhere. So it’s very stressful.
It’s even harder than a regular homeowner’s policy. Um, that’s flawed, that’s hurricane. When it comes to California, what we’re seeing is. Either we’re getting calls and we’re looking over policies and the clients don’t have fire coverage. So they’ve had coverage But not fire that was removed from the deposit.
Mike Zlotnik: No fire coverage. The primary purpose of insurance is typically fire.
Andy Gurczak: Mike, that’s a great question. I would, I don’t know, but we get calls every week with people that send us policies that don’t have fire coverage. They have coverage, don’t get me wrong, but they’re not covered for fire. Uh, whether it was removed a month ago, two months ago, a year ago, you know, we don’t get in detail, but if we see that where it says there is no coverage for fire, there’s nothing you can do.
You can hire an attorney, but You can hire the greatest person in the world. No one can help you. You don’t, you didn’t have insurance. Um, and then the people that do have insurance, well, then now you’re coming into place where the whole house is burnt to the ground. How do you put an estimate together?
Right. How do you build a personal property list with, um, with nothing there? So now you have to play detective through photos and, and, um, maybe old listings on the, uh, on Google and stuff like that.
Mike Zlotnik: Yeah, understood. It’s, it’s, it’s a tricky situation from the point of view that, yeah, if you have no coverage, it’s terrible. It’s, I was reading an article, uh, a little while back after the fires happened, you know, with Pasadena, Altadena, and, uh, Pacific, uh, Palisades in California. And State Farm apparently pulled out. Uh, of, uh, they, a lot of policies that were renewing, they were basically either cancelling them or removing fire risk or something.
So there was an observation where people could have been kicked out from the fire coverage a few months before it actually happened. That’s the crazy part. And a lot of those policies
Andy Gurczak: Just mentioned are State Farm. Now, not only, but a lot of those policies are State Farm, where there is a, there is a little, if I sent you the policy, you would not find it. It’s written in a certain position in a very little, small letters, you know.
Mike Zlotnik: So it used to be covered, and then they start changing it because they foresaw risk, and then people renewed, they didn’t even realize that they were renewing. Now, major element of coverage was removed. And, um, even mortgage lenders who, you know, try to Require, uh, coverage, uh, they didn’t even have time to even notify, and then procedurally you get renewal notice, the whole thing goes through the process and you lost the coverage, the mortgage company might not realize it for quite a while.
Meanwhile, uh, if the, if the state farm washes their hands, should almost be illegal in essence. I don’t know if the state is going to sue them and force them to, to cover it, especially if they pulled out a few months before.
Andy Gurczak: And it should be. You know, and if they, and that’s, if that does happen, right? Where, you know, a bunch of attorneys come together and there’s like a class action lawsuit or something where the state sues them. The only people that are gonna win, me and you both know Mike, are their attorneys and, and people involved because the homeowners, by that time, you know, all that money trickles down.
They’re gonna get, they’re gonna get shortchanged anyways. They’re gonna get very little. By that time, you know, their house has gone, their property’s gone. So, unfortunately, Darren, you know, we, when we get those calls, it’s a crappy, it’s a crappy call when someone sends you all their documents and you can’t do anything. There’s nothing you can help them with.
Mike Zlotnik: Yeah, it’s a very sad situation. Understood. Um, all right, on a commercial front, of course, the situation is a little different. One of the gigantic problems in the Uh, commercial, well insurance, I mean, it’s both commercial and residential, the premiums have been skyrocketing.
Yes. Premiums have been skyrocketing and, uh, even in the regions and areas where, uh, the events were not happening. So insurance company could have taken losses in one market and they’re raising premiums in multiple markets. Uh, are you seeing any of that? And then payment of claims, again, I guess it’s the quality of the company, right?
If you, depending on who is the insurer. So this, there’s a, there’s a better companies like, like Chubb, who’s supposed to pay, actually, and there’s the other ones who do really good job marketing. But when it comes down to payment, it’s a constant battle. So the less, least expensive policy is typically more difficult to pay.
I’m just curious, any, any comments on this? Are you seeing, uh, more success? What leverage do you have over these insurance companies? If you believe you’re right, they’re wrong. Is this pretty much you build the case and then hire an attorney and you gotta sue them to prove that they owe, you know, you a bunch of more money than what they’re offering to pay.
Andy Gurczak: Yeah. So to start out with premiums, um, even from our own experience, um, we have commercial, we have residential, um, and we’ve seen premiums go up on all. We have a commercial building that we’re having a hard time insuring. We had an insurance company for five years that Said they won’t renew with us. Um, and we have, it’s a mixed commercial, so there’s commercial and there’s residential on top, and we’re having a hard time finding a, a carrier.
It’s unbelievable. Um, some premiums are, are out skyrocketed. Um, and we’ve seen that on all our properties, whether it’s hard to insure or just no one else wants to insure or the premiums are just going up. Um, so I, I see it as an investor as well, not just from, from the, from the claims side. Now, regarding claims.
Yeah, I’ve been saying this for years that the claim handling and insurance companies, it gets worse every year as it goes by, right? They’re, they’re hiring more consultants. They’re bringing in more people. They’re, they’re, they’re having more, they’re trying to have more eye for denial than eye for coverage.
And they’re looking for ways they can prolong a claim, delay it. I mean, there’s, there’s a book about it. You probably familiar with him, right? You know, delay, deny, defend. Um, and that book says it all, right? That’s the claim process. And now it’s just been more and more, whether it’s because there’s so much.
Uh, catastrophes and so much payouts where they’re just trying to see, okay, how long can we delay these claims? Because 90 percent of people that get their claims delayed, uh, there’s, there’s been studies done about this. So it’s like over 90 percent of people that claims get denied or they get lowballed.
They just accept it. Only a few, like 5 percent of people actually hire a public adjuster or hire an attorney. It’s a very small percentage. So those other 90 percent of people just accept that lowball offer and just take it. Yeah, that, that is, uh, that is a terrible state of the matters in this industry. Insurance companies I mean, I, I remember looking at a claim, like, where there was a commercial building and the, and the, uh, insurer, the older gentleman said, uh, you know, we looked at the claim and we said, you know, you’re way underpaid, there’s so much more, you have damage, and he literally said, he’s like, ah, I’ve been with this agent, I’ve been with this insurance, I don’t need any more money, I’m good, took it. I mean, it was hundreds and thousands of money that wasn’t paid them. So
Mike Zlotnik: yeah, yeah, yeah, that’s the observation. Uh, they either low ball and people are willing to take and move on or, uh, like you said, delay, deny and defer whatever they did the third term. Uh,
Andy Gurczak: but no one wants to go to and no one wants to go to litigation. The time you get go to litigation that. Meaning your damage to your property and everything that sits there, right? Because you can’t touch the evidence. So now your claim sits there, whether it’s fire, water, just rotting away. And you got to move on with your life. You got no money. And by the time the, the, the settles, you know, you’re getting half that claim amount or less.
Mike Zlotnik: So hold on, let’s discuss this a little bit. So say you had, you had a damage, whatever it is, fire damage, you know, flood damage, whatever it is. And, uh, the event happened, uh, company hires you. You represent them, not the company, but the owner. Yes. Understand right. Or individual. Um, and you build a case for them and you represent the insurance company has their own adjuster.
You’re a public adjuster representing the owner and the information gets, gets submitted. Meanwhile, how long does it take before any action can be taken on the property? Either. You can can agree to what it is or what or what if there’s a significant difference in opinion, because basically if it’s residents, if it’s if it’s if it’s home, it’s home, people, people need progress.
Uh, yeah. As you said, some policies don’t even cover living expenses outside of the, uh, so somewhere they are now displaced, living with a relative, living in a hotel or something, right? So how does this whole process go? How long it takes, um, and then are most claims just settled, uh, through these balancing acts between your representation of the owner versus the insurance company adjuster?
Is this the most difficult outcome? Because litigation is exactly what you said. Uh, it’s multi year. There could be appeals. It’s a delay. It’s a gigantic delay type of strategy for insurance companies.
Andy Gurczak: Yeah, Mike. So, um, Again, going back to that homeowner, landlord, commercial, that difference, right? Um, they know, you know, with the homeowner, because everyone’s first question when they hire us is how long is this going to take?
A commercial person or landlord, if he has a good policy, most commercial or landlord policies, investors have a loss of income, right. Or loss of rental, you know, uh, business income. So they can wait longer, right? They can say, okay, if it takes four or five months to settle and keep going and fighting them fine.
They’re claiming coverage for the loss of coverage, right? So you have, let’s just say you have 24 months, you’re like, okay, even if it takes six months or eight months for us to get the final number that we need to, that you’re owed. You’re okay with it because you’re claiming income so that doesn’t, but let’s just say you and your three kids and your wife are out, you know, you only have so much coverage for living somewhere else.
You’re in a hurry, right? And then you still got to rebuild your home, so you’re more under pressure and they know that, right? So it’s, we try to go as quickly, like, we build our file as quickly as possible, and we try to exhaust every option, right? You have us, if we can’t get it negotiated, we can go to appraisal process. Each policy is an appraisal process. Um, and if that doesn’t work, then you do, your only option is litigation, you know, and that can take years.
Mike Zlotnik: Yeah, litigation.
Andy Gurczak: I watched, I watched, I just, you know, there was a documentary, um, I’m sorry, not a documentary on CBS. Is it the 60, 60 minute thing? And they were talking about one of the hurricane victims from an old hurricane, even their houses, the same way it was from the hurricane for like four years, just standing there, just.
They’re still in litigation. They haven’t been back to the house. The house is standing. Pieces are hanging, doors are hanging. Everything’s hanging. Just like it was after hurricane.
Mike Zlotnik: Yeah. I remember even in the commercial space, I mean, we, we, we had files, properties hit by a hurricane and insurance company, uh, creates an impossible battle.
Basically, you as the owner of the property, uh, if you don’t take a reduced settlement, uh, just the delay and the fact that you still have to pay the mortgage. You lost part of the property to, you lost the income from the property, even if you have some coverage, you just can’t tolerate it long enough. So it’s, so
Andy Gurczak: something for your, for your, for, you know, for someone listening, that’s a, that’s a homeowner is. If you have a, if you have a fire or water where you have to relocate, the insurance company will pay you for the new building or the new place that they put you in and the furnishing and all that, but your mortgage is still on you. So like, for example, people in California, they have a 20, 000, you know, 10, 000 mortgage with taxes, you know, the insurance company is paying now for them to relocate, but they still have to come up with that monthly. Exactly.
Mike Zlotnik: Yes, a horrible part because you’re no longer enjoying the house, but you still have the liability of the mortgage, and I don’t know what mortgage companies
Andy Gurczak: Well, let’s say it takes eight months to settle now, Mike. So now it takes eight months to settle. And then they build and rebuild. And rebuild. Now you’ve been paying mortgage and taxes for those two years or a year and a half out of pocket.
Mike Zlotnik: Yeah, it’s a huge practical problem. Yeah, the whole insurance business is, is gotten, um, very difficult. And I don’t know how it looks from the insurance company perspective, but, uh, it feels like they, uh, maybe the losses they’ve taken are so large that this is the only game in town in, you know, parts of Florida you can’t insure.
There’s other parts of. Uh, of the country where you just can’t even insure and then you have a state. Um, mandated the state available policy and those policies are pretty crappy. Premiums are high and then from what I heard, these state policies are not good at all.
Andy Gurczak: Yeah, and so, you know, I can’t speak from the underwriting from that side because we don’t see that side. So, all I can say from experience is, yeah, we see our premiums go up. We see how hard it is to insure our own buildings. Um, and we’re having that same issue, even the business, we’ve never had a claim on our business and had a hard time getting insurance for our business. So we know what’s going on that side, but we do see the claim side and that claim side working on your own, even thinking that you’re going to handle it on your own.
You have to be wary because if it does go south and you do have to go to litigation because it’s too late for public adjuster or appraisal. Remember the litigator, the attorney needs a file. You just can’t say I want to sue them without having some kind of background. So part of what we do is not only, you know, fight the insurance company, present everything, but we’re building a file as we go.
Because if it does go south, we have that ready, and the attorney can take that, and it’s an easier battle. There’s proof. Of, you know, bad faith or, or any other, uh, legal recourse that the attorney can take.
Mike Zlotnik: Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. It’s almost unthinkable. You can’t possibly sue without a file. To build a good file, you need a good public adjuster.
And, uh, because of the time it takes, uh, and people have busy lives and you have a massive disruption in your life with a, with a, you know, event. Uh, you almost, I can’t see why anybody would not. Go with it without, you know, we’ll go without insurance to adjust that. It’s almost critical piece and, and, and most of the compensation, as you said, it’s a, it’s contingency based, right? It’s not upfront.
Andy Gurczak: Yes. You know, it’s contingent. It’s once we, it’s once we finish everything, once we settle, once we get you with the client paid, that’s when we get paid, there is no retained, you know, there is no upfront costs costs as you go, so you have nothing to lose. You only have something to gain.
Mike Zlotnik: Yeah, it’s a, it’s absolutely, it’s a win win to use an, you know, an adjuster, a special experience adjuster that can help, uh, maximize recovery, because it’s difficult as is, and without one it’s, unless you’re in this business where you have, You know, a close friend who is in this business, you can make a lot of mistakes.
Andy Gurczak:So let me, uh, let me give you an example. Like, so we just finished, uh, there’s a large fire. It was a residential fire, but it’s an attorney. Um, the gentleman’s actually an attorney. Um, it was a large fire. Um, we spent, uh, we had three people there, maybe four weeks inventorying everything top to bottom of the house, meaning digging through the fire because they deemed everything a total loss.
So our list is going to be around 850, 000. Of how much stuff there was in the house. Just not the, not the structure, just the personal property, right? Now we have a similar claim that we just got. Um, this client already had the insurance come out and do the inventory. Same house, same amount of items, same square feet. Maybe some stuff’s not as valuable, but you know, the list they got offered from the insurance company, 30, 000.
Mike Zlotnik: Same difference, yeah. The insurance companies are going to do nothing other than say, hey, there was nothing in the house, the house was empty.
Andy Gurczak: Give us a list. They’re going to say, give us a list, right? Or we’re going to send our vendor, and their vendor doesn’t get paid to write a list, but they’re going to put a quick list together, and that’s 30, 000.
Mike Zlotnik: You understood the difference. It’s part of the policies as folks review their policies. They should be, uh, folks should pay attention to, um, the personal property items because most of the insurance, uh, covers reconstruction of the property, but they don’t really have robust personal property, uh, policies.
But, um, yeah, I mean, you’re right. It could be a huge list, you know, depending on, uh, contents of the house could be, you know, easy dollars. Of
Andy Gurczak: course. Easily that list that that that’s like over half a million dollar personal property list that we’re going to be working on
Mike Zlotnik: just just the basic stuff just the basic, you know, not probably not even a Uh, fancy house with the top end, you know, uh,
Andy Gurczak: You don’t need, Mike, you don’t need fancy stuff to get to half a million dollars on a 4, 000 square foot home. People, you don’t, you, it’s underestimating how much stuff there is in a home. And stuff adds up really quick. You look at a room, 12 by 12 room that you’re sitting in, and you look around, and you start adding up every single thing. Every picture frame, everything you got hanging. It starts adding up really good. All of a sudden, you know, you’re 10, 20, 30, 50, 000 hours.
Mike Zlotnik: Makes a lot of sense. So, um, what’s the, um, again, there’s nothing to do proactively, right? People just have to keep your information handy when something happens. Because I’m thinking Do you have any advice, suggestions to both residential, well, individual folks who own their homes, and commercial?
What should they do better now, before any event? Because once you have an event, it’s too late to do any preventive, forward type of, um, protection. Uh, Is there, you know, is this an insurance policy review? Is this a, you know, should you have, you know, review the carbon monoxide and fire alarm detectors?
Just, you know, from your perspective, what you’re seeing out there, to help folks either prepare if, you know, God forbid it happens, and be in a better position. Or, uh, obviously, like what you just said, review your policy if you have Fire coverage. If you don’t have that big problem,
Andy Gurczak: you, you named it, Mike, you named it. It’s review the policy. Send us a policy. We don’t charge clients at all. Not a penny. No matter if it’s 100 unit, 1000 unit, single family to look over a policy and see if there’s the right coverage. There’s anything missing. Just Look over, give advice, explain what’s missing or what should be added to the policy.
That costs nothing. And we do it all the time for our clients, especially for some of our larger clients. Um, that’s as proactive as you can be. Or have your agent just double check and ask him what’s missing. Is there anything else I should have on my policy? Um, other than that, no. Then the second thing is, as soon as you have a loss, don’t wait.
Like, don’t wait a day to, or maybe I’ll meet with the adjuster on my own and I’ll call a public adjuster after. Like, as soon as something happens, that’s when you want a public adjuster to start, step in and discuss everything with the insurance company. That’s how important it is that they communicate and not you, because the wrong thing that you say can harm the whole claim.
Mike Zlotnik: So, how would folks reach out to you? What’s the best way to reach out to, you know, have your phone number, your website, uh, as quickly as possible and, you know, have a good adjuster in mind.
Andy Gurczak: Like, yes, they can look us up at all city adjusting. com. That’s our website, or just type in all city adjusting. Um, but for your listeners, again, I’ll leave them with my number, which is my direct line, which is 7 0 8 6 5 5 4 1 8 6.
Um, that’s my direct client. They can call me anytime, but if they Google my name or I’ll see Justin, they’ll find a bunch of information, um, other podcasts, other YouTube videos. And, and I apologize for your listeners that I’m stuffy that by some, not my normal voice.
Mike Zlotnik: Well, hope you feel better. Yeah, it’s, it’s, it’s okay. We’re all human. It’s kind of, you know, we’re recording this in the middle of the winter, uh, whether it’s cold people, people get a little, little bit under the weather. So feel better. Appreciate you sharing all city adjusting. com. And do you work many markets? Do you work all markets? Just, just curious if this, you know, what, what, what, what are your biggest?
Andy Gurczak: We cover 40 states, Mike. We’re, I think, 41 now, states that we’re licensed in, that we, uh, we have, I think, six offices throughout the states. Um, since we do large laws and specialize in large laws We have a team that we deploy into, you know, into large loss state, wherever we’re, we’re covering. So we’re able to cover, you know, if we’re just doing smaller claims, it’s harder to, to, to leave a certain area. But because we do large loss, we’re able to, to, to cover a lot of territory.
Mike Zlotnik: 40 states is a pretty big footprint. So people could call, worst case scenario, you’re just going to hear, okay, this is not the state we’re working today. Yes.
Andy Gurczak: I think the major, the 40 major states that have claims that, um, that have stuff, uh, were in some.
Mike Zlotnik: Uh, let me guess, there’s one state maybe you don’t work in. Do you work in Alaska?
Andy Gurczak: We don’t have a license in Alaska. No, we’ve never had a call in Alaska. You know how we, you know, like how we grew actually, uh, originally was because originally our, our clientele was, you know, investors, landlords. Well, when an investor had a loss, you know, here in Illinois, Indiana, somewhere in the Midwest, all of a sudden they would say, well, we just had to have fire. We just had a water break in. Tennessee in Florida. You expanded just naturally. We just started expanding. It was natural. It wasn’t forced that we wanted to be in every state. It was a natural progression with our client. As our clients grew their portfolios, so we grew with them. That’s how we got to wherever we’re at now.
Mike Zlotnik: Yeah, yeah. It makes a lot of sense.
Andy Gurczak: So no, Mike, but if you have something in Alaska, let me know and I’ll make sure we’re licensed there and get ready.
Mike Zlotnik: Salmon fishing, that’s about it. Thank you, Andy, I really appreciate your wisdom. Thank you for coming on our podcast and feel better. Get well.
Andy Gurczak:Thank you, Mike. Appreciate it. Thanks for having me again.
_______________________
Thank you for listening to The BigMikeFund Podcast. To receive your copy of Mike’s how to choose a smart real estate fund book, head to BigMikeFund.Com or visit Amazon and type Mike Zlotnik.
Keep listening and keep investing, Big Mike style. See you in the next episode.
