Riding The Tide

As the economy continues to boom in Newfoundland, so too does business for Colonial Adjusting & Appraisal Services.

But it is not always like this for businesses so closely tied to fluctuations in the economy. “If the economy is booming, then everything is booming,” Reg Butt, manager of Colonial Adjusting & Appraisal Services, says. “When the economy goes down, there’s less cars bought, there’s less people driving, there’s less traffic on the go, less accidents, hence our business is down a bit.”

Something as simple as a deductible on a policy can mean less business, because when there is no money to pay the deductible, an insured is not going to be making a claim. On the flipside of that, something as simple as dealers offering leased vehicles to make cars more affordable, can increase business for the company.

While the economy has been suffering somewhat over the last few years, the current recovery has the company very busy. And while busy is always positive, there are other factors that come into play: Is this going to be a short-term boom? Does the company need to hire more staff?

“You just kind of wait it out for a little while, you’ve got no choice,” Butt says. “You hate to hire somebody and then in a few months have to lay that person off. So, you just try to cope with it as best as you can.” This means late nights, early mornings and weekends in the office until the company is able to get a firm feel for the direction the economy might take.

This always makes looking into the future tricky, Butt says. “It’s hard to foresee; we’ve been doing that for years, trying to foresee what’s going to happen,” he says. “It’s virtually impossible, it depends on the economy.”

Family values

The company started with one adjuster/appraiser in 1992. By 1997, business had picked up and the company brought Butt in to manage the office. Today, there are six adjusters, including one in Corner Brook — Butt, Mike Gallant, Terry Hiscock, Jackie Noftall, Bert Avery and George Cunning — and three support staff. Having such a small office makes for a family-oriented workplace. “You leave one family in the morning, you go to your other family during the day, and you go home to your previous one at the end of the day,” Butt says, adding that the staff socialize together after hours and try to keep things light and jovial. This camaraderie helps adjusters work with each other and sort through unusual or difficult claims. “We’re here for one another,” Butt says.

Increasing the staff base is not the only change that the company has seen. The biggest change for Butt was the move from a manual-based system to a computer-based one. “We’re old school,” Butt says. “We’re used to doing things manually; we write things, you keep notes, you write statements — everything was handwritten.” Now everything is inputted into the computer system and while it was a big deal for the staff to wrap their heads around, Butt notes that now they all wonder how they ever survived without it.

A job well done

One thing that hasn’t changed is fast, efficient and personalized service. “Our customers, the insurance companies, want fast, fair claims settlement,” Butt says. “I think that’s what it’s all about. It’s a service-oriented industry.” Within three to four hours of the claim being assigned to Colonial, a phone call is made and an adjuster is sent out. “We strive to get the job done as quickly as possible, and properly of course,” Butt says. “You can get things done quickly and cut corners, but that’s not the way we work here.” The experienced staff contact the insures and make arrangements to meet, assign contractors or appraisers and a report sent back to the insurance company within a given timeframe. “You’ve got somebody who is depending on you to help them out and that’s what the bottom line is,” Butt says. “You try to get that done as quickly as possible, no matter if it’s somebody with a house full of sewage or somebody with a scratch on their vehicle. They’ve got a problem. They pay for the service; we provide the service.”

And this upstanding service is exactly how the company, despite being small, is able to attain new business. Butt notes that because it is a smaller company, they don’t have the same marketing resources that a larger firm might have, so they must rely exclusively on word-of-mouth referrals. “We provide the service, we’re good at what we do and we are definitely starting to pick up a few more sources,” Butt says. “We offer such a good service, I think that more people or more companies should avail themselves.”

In addition to word-of-mouth, being a member firm of the Canadian Independent Adjusters’ Association is also beneficial to expanding business. Butt notes that he has received calls from the West Coast after the company was listed in the Claims Manual. Further to that, the company is able to be a part of adjusting catastrophe events because of the affiliation with the association.