ClaimIntercept

Join Joe Ferry at ASHI/MAHI Seminar in Levittown, NY

 

ASHI/MAHI Seminar Long IslandIf you are a frequent visitor of JoeFerry.com, you may already know about the upcoming ASHI/MAHI seminar on Long Island this February.

The video above details the benefits of attending this meeting full of valuable home inspector training. You can click within the video for registration information as well. I will be presenting the Law and Disorder Seminar on the workshop’s first day, and other valuable instruction will be provided on storm damage, crawl spaces and more.

Join me and a large contingent of your colleagues in Levittown, PA on Thursday, February 27 and Friday, February 28.
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E&O Insurance Does NOT Paint a Target On Your Back

E&O Insurance No Target on BackMany home inspectors believe that if they tell a client and his/her lawyers that they don’t carry professional liability insurance, the claim will just disappear.

However, there are no shortage of clients making meritless claims. I see them every day. Would no insurance from which to collect on a judgment make the claim just go away? If claimants aren’t deterred by no rational basis for their case, how likely is it that they will stop in their tracks when they realize you don’t have insurance?
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Accept No Substitutes

The other day, I got a call from an old friend and a long-time ClaimIntercept™ subscriber. He had been contacted by an E & O insurance monger retailing a product with a price that he found attractive and he wanted to talk to me about it.

I had never heard of the company but that is certainly not a disqualifying factor. After all, there was a time in my life when I had never heard of The Travelers. That’s another way of saying that there are lots of insurance companies that I have never heard of — and that you have never heard of — that are good quality, financially sound companies that serve niche markets and do so very professionally. It’s a big competitive world. What a country!

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Karma is Hell

“What goes around, comes around” is a popular expression where I come from. It is a celebration of comeuppance, the schadenfreude one feels when, every so often, some bad deeds do not go unpunished.

About fifteen months ago, one of my ClaimIntercept™ subscribers had gotten a demand letter from someone for whom he had performed a home inspection. The claim was prototypical of a home inspection claim in that it had no merit as to the home inspector and very likely none to either of the other targets, the seller of the home and the listing agent.

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Home Inspectors: Competence Does Not Equal a Claim-Free Existence

Myth 1: Competence Equals Claim-Free ExistenceMany home inspectors believe that competence and experience guarantee a claim-free existence. They are stunned when they receive their first claim (likely a meritless one) after 20 years on the job.

As part of my home inspector training video tip series, ClaimsAcademy, the video below debunks the theory that competence equals a claim-free existence. Watch the video for further examination of the myth and how that false sense of security can hurt your business and professional reputation as a home inspector. Then make sure to sign up for my free video and case study library, which includes a robust collection of valuable information to help you, the competent home inspector, protect your business.
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Good News for Arizona Home Inspectors! Not!

“Good News for Arizona Home Inspectors!” was the headline on a blurb sent to members of Arizona ASHI. What was the “Good News”? The Arizona State Board of Technical Registration – the guys who impose preposterous punishments on home inspectors who have had the misfortune of being the subject of a complaint by their delusional clients – had been operating under the truly ludicrous notion that there should be no statute of limitations for home inspections. In other words, to the citrulls on the Board, you should be subject to suit for a claimed negligent inspection until the end of time. And beyond.

How professional licensing boards always manage to comprise a startlingly large number of knuckleheads would be, it seems to me, an interesting avenue of scholarly inquiry for some enterprising doctoral student.

So the “Good News” for Sun Devil inspectors is that the Arizona State Legislature has reduced the time within which a home inspection claim can be brought from whenever and forever to four years. While four years is a damn sight better than the incumbent standard, which remains in full force and effect until the legislative session mercifully ends, pardon me if I seem underwhelmed by this legislation.
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Another Groundhog Day

Since our kids have grown into responsible adults and are no longer needing or wanting to be around us for longer than necessary, Lady Agag and I have been spending more of our time at the seaside, especially in the so-called shoulder seasons of May-June and September-October.

At the moment, we are half-way through what local meteorologists are calling “the best week of the year” weather-wise at the New Jersey shore. I cannot disagree. The temperature has been a very-tolerable-for-Irishmen eighty-ish and the humidity has been blessedly low every day so far and it is forecast to continue so. It’s a bit like Groundhog Day.
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Joe Ferry’s Fight For YOU Against Meritless Home Inspection Claims

People ask me regularly to explain my business’ mission – and while the end result is easy to quantify (get rid of meritless home inspection claims), its power is best rooted through video, as you can see below in this video that clearly answers WHAT I do and WHY you need me on your side! My interest is in squashing these meritless home inspection claims before they destroy the professional reputation and livelihood of home inspectors across the country.

99% of ALL home inspection claims have NO merit – and you shouldn’t have to fork over valuable capital or lose your insurance deductible to a claim that has NO merit!

Click ‘More’ to watch why you need Joe Ferry on your side.
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Subrogation Claims Against Home Inspectors

To the ever expanding list of rent seekers that Home Inspectors have to fend off, please add insurance companies that have paid a first-party claim on behalf of a homeowner and then want to recover that payment from the home inspector through subrogation.

Subrogation is a legal concept whereby one party – the subrogee – succeeds to the rights of another – the subrogor – either by operation of law or by contract. The most familiar examples of this concept involve insurance companies that pay losses sustained by policyholders and then seek to recover those payments from tortfeasors that may be legally liable for the policyholder’s loss. The insurance company by virtue of its payment would succeed to the policyholder’s rights against the tortfeasor.

Thus, if an insurance company paid a collision loss on behalf of its policyholder who was not at fault in the accident, it can seek to recover that payment through subrogation from the driver who had actually caused the accident. Health insurance companies and workers compensation insurance companies who pay medical bills on behalf of their insureds will endeavor to recover those outlays from parties who may be legally responsible for causing their insureds’s injuries.
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Boxcars

There’s nothing like a birthday to drive home the point that life has stages: the Immortal Stage that lasts until about age 55 and the Mortal Stage where I am now gaining seniority at a breathtaking pace. Today, I am turning 66. A pair of sixes. Boxcars.

Ever since I became the Irish Patient, I’ve become much more conscious that life has limits. On length. It’s a depressing thought and one you need to let go of for your own sake, as well as the sake of others within your gravitational pull.

Fortunately, there are other spheres where life holds considerably fewer fixed limitations: happiness, job satisfaction, friendships, personal achievement, learning and the like.

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