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on today's episode we're gonna find out the answer to the age-old question can you earn six figures working auto claims as insurance adjusters we need to be covered by insurance we're writing estimates climbing ladders walking on roofs and mistakes can happen what are you going to do when something goes wrong complicate cplic or complete for short is an insurance company for independent adjusters formed by independent adjusters they understand our job and the potential problems that can arise if you want help understanding what coverages you need as an independent adjuster head over to cplic.net slash adjuster tv for a free download that will explain the common types of insurance for adjusters hey guys it's chris stanley of ipath you know how most new adjusters cannot break into the industry they struggle because companies have two to five years worth of experience as a requirement and how can they get that experience but don't worry at ipath we get that experience waived with our 90-day online mentorship program if you're interested head over to ipath.com today i'm going to interview james mathis james fell off a roof while handling property claims and broke his knee in his first year as an independent adjuster now he thought his ia career was over until he stumbled across the idea of auto claims on one of my videos today we're going to look back at james's first year in auto claims and we're going to let him tell you whether you can earn six figures in auto claims all right is welcome back to the independent adjuster podcast or if you're watching on youtube the auto ia show uh today i'm doing an interview with a former student who has uh got started with some of our methodologies but taking it way further than i could ever imagine his name is james mathis james thank you so much for being here today good to be here chris it's good to see you uh james why are we bringing you on the show though like what's the momentous occasion in the timeline of your career why we're bringing you on now i think it's because you finally recognized that my good looks and personality is what got me to where i'm at today and you've realized that that methodology in itself is enough to uh get you through in life yeah we're writing a new book called the beauty adjusters playbook i had a great year i had a great year exceeded lots of uh goals and uh and it was all tied to what i learned from ipad a lot of it most of it so well so is it been officially one year now if we hit that mark yet yeah so let's there's two ways of gauging it one is my official graduation date from ipath was um i believe it was late august is when it was or i'm sorry mid-september um it was two weeks after that um which i believe it was september the um i'm sorry october the first is whenever i landed in odessa texas and that's kind of when i really got started uh prior to that i've done one or two claims um but that was it so let's trace it back then so why did you decide to get into auto adjusting like good uh let's let people know kind of that backstory so i can we really want to take them through the journey of your year james so you can see their journey might look completely different but they can take some key learning points i think from some of the things you had to do and had to sacrifice and pivots you had to make to survive i think there's a lot we could learn so basically what happened was that uh like a lot of people were sick of corporate america especially where i was at wanted some more independence and and i had been exposed to um the adjusting world through some friends of mine through some other careers that i'd been in and had made the decision that i was going to jump into being an adjuster and being an ia uh did not in in even though i had a background in automotive my first choice was not to jump into auto right away like a lot of people i was heading straight towards property because we all hear that's where the money's at and and so to to get started i was studying i was getting my license i started working doing one of these um you know where you go out you do virtual assignments where you're taking photos you're scoping and all that and and i was doing that and he was actually doing quite well and he told my wife a few times hey i'm doing so well with this i'm not even sure if i ever want to become a full-fledged adjuster because i'm doing so well at it well during that time of course like a lot of people i'm watching matt allen on adjuster tv i'm soaking all that in um matt comes to dallas i meet matt um at the same time matt has talked up you know had said something about uh ipath and then you also had some videos that were on adjuster tv that he had uh that he played and and i saw those and so it kind of got me a little uninterested but what the catalyst was is that in june of last year um i was inspecting a roof in sherman texas and i had an accident on the roof um injured my knee and subsequently had to have knee surgery and when that accident happened i was thinking geez what am i going to do now you know i've got too much time invested this is a goal of mine i'm not going to quit i've got to figure out how to make this work and at the same time you know hey i quit my job i mean the income stream is you know everything right now um and i was okay for a while but you know you don't want to deplete everything so i saw that's whenever i contacted chris and i attacked well first i called matt and matt says well have you thought about otto and so boom you know that's that's how we got started then you know what did i tell you on the phone do you remember because i remember very clearly what i told you on the phone um you know i mean you got me on the spot and i've only had one cup of coffee so i told you james don't sign up you live in dallas that's right i'm not sure if you're going to be able to compete in that market and i think that's what got you so fired up uh yeah that just was like winding up a car you know yeah you said you said you know you live in the mecca of a of ias there's more there's way more adjusters and more ies there than anywhere else and you're going to have a difficult time finding work and i might go on challenge accepted you know uh i told you not to buy my mentorship because i didn't know if i could help him compete in dallas and he buys it anyways and takes off so because when he gets me to do something quickest way to get me to do something is tell me not to do it well so you break or bust your knee in some capacity you hurt your knee you gotta go for surgery i remember the surgery because i think it was the first night of class somebody was a little um up on pain pills if i recall actually what happened was is that we had the first class that thursday i had the surgery it was the second class i was hopped up on pain pills so that's that's uh on paying medication so uh that's how i that's how that went down it was that actually that's how we got to know james mathis then we turned to find out it wasn't the pain pills that's just james mathis so um so okay so you come through you go through our five-week class uh you pop out um you know into the class did you feel like yeah i can do this or or did you feel like how are you feeling i felt i felt between what i had learned in the class and my knowledge of automobiles and in the repair process that that i had the mechanics of the job done that i could write a i could write a good estimate i could you know i could do what i needed to do that was my thoughts when i left the class okay um however when it came time to write my first estimate i panicked and i think i blew your phone up like 17 times in like 20 minutes and and we finally got through it but uh it's it's the hardest claim you'll ever write is your first one you know and then and then it gets easier after that because you just things just lock you overthink it you know and that and that's what i was doing i was overthinking you can be waste too smart for this business i can tell you that so you're in dallas you get you get your first claim or two in dallas proper you know in that area your service and daily claims actually my claims they sent me a hundred miles east those are my first two claims my first one was a total loss rollover f-150 that was my very first claim and uh and so but i had to drive a hundred miles to get my first two claims so i go breaking into the industry to get your first claim i'll drive 100 miles sure for 600 bucks or whatever i'll get that so what made you make a leap because you said you you left to odessa uh and for those who don't understand odessa is not near dallas yeah it's that's a six hour six and a half hour drive um basically as chris said this is a tough market i was you know i just wasn't getting work i wasn't getting offered that much work and if you know me i can't sit around for very long i've i've got to keep moving and and so i'm calling ia firms and where do you need help where do you need help what do you need help and i had three ia firms and within a couple hours said hey if you can go to west texas if you can go to midland odessa we can we can get your work you can stay busy so that was a no-brainer you know so um that conversation happened i believe on a tuesday and by thursday i was um i was parked in odessa texas in my rv on the phone calling a firm say him i'm here send me work and i believe that within i believe within the first couple of hours that i said i was there i received 13 claims and was in complete panic mode at that point because now i've got to figure out how i'm going to go see these things and they were they were not all in midland odessa proper they were spread out all over west texas and now i've got to figure this thing out and so that's that's how that got started and i spent i spent two and a half months out there learned a lot learned i mean i mean you talk about a crash course in rvs a crash course and heavy equipment um super duty trucks things like that um semi-trailers tanker trailers meant within my first two and a half months i was just inundated with all these different types of claims and and it was it was some long days and a little bitty trailer you know there were days i'd wake up at five o'clock in the morning i wouldn't be finished on nine or ten o'clock at night sometimes later but you know i was determined to make this thing work and i didn't want to fail and i wasn't going to give back claims and i wasn't going to say no to claims there was times where my queue was so full i had to call the i had to call the iframes and say hey put me on hold until i get caught up you know and of course the day i go back on like all those claims they held they just like dumped them back on me so it was a fun time so did you just work midland odessa for two and a half months and then went back to dallas so basically that's what happened um there were some family things going on and i need to get back home and uh and so i worked there two and a half months came back home and the i firms that i worked with because i had gone out to west texas and i did everything i said i was going to do they supported me when i came back home and they gave me work you know because they knew that i was qualified to do it and i was going to get the job done and it wasn't going to leave hanging so that that created opportunities here for me um but of course now we're into late november uh actually in december and that's everything's slowing down anyway i mean everybody was slowing down and so there just wasn't still wasn't a lot going on but i was staying busy and i had done well enough during my time out in west texas that that income carried me over a little while so um well you know one of the observations when interviewing people across the years and talking about how they've been successful is the principle that we talk a little bit about in our books and things is a working adjuster tends to keep working it's getting the first wave of work to get that started to get people to trust you which is what i think you did by going to odessa you know it was like the catalyst for all your relationships that you then built with the ia firms it was uh pretty shocking to watch james kind of catapult out and be like guys this is how many claims i got we're like where are you going man like you're i see you're sending me pictures of your camper and you're in west texas what's going on i don't understand yeah it was it was pretty phenomenal but i think that risk would you say it was worth it to obtain made that risk in a heartbeat if i was given a choice to do it again i would do it exactly the same way i there's there's nothing i would have changed um you know maybe i would have asked more questions if there was other places under the middle of odessa because if you've ever been there you'll know why but uh someplace a little prettier maybe that had green grass and water but uh you know i would i'd do it again especially if i live in a place you know if i lived in the major metropolitan area like dallas fort worth it's just inundated with ies and had the ability to travel and to go someplace and stay for a while you i would do it i would do it again in a second you know i would sit around and wait for a catastrophe i wouldn't sit around and wait for for things like that i would i would do the exact same thing all over again so so you get back from midland you work some in dallas and then kind of where did you go from there so by mid-january um well i was i was blessed and lucky enough that i received a phone call from matt allen and i went and went to naca convention in vegas with him and i got to walk around and be goofy with a microphone interview people but um i really didn't work much in january um there wasn't uh everything was really slow i had taken i've taken myself he was fishing he was fishing i was fishing too i was are you looking for an ia firm where you're not just another number let me tell you about our sponsor ccms and associates ccms has been called a big pop firm because they care about their adjusters they also care about results the ccms family is dedicated to training and developing a talented adjusting team if you would like to be a part of their family email your resume and cover letter and introduce yourself directly to careers ccmsclaims.com there was a lot of work went to vegas took myself off the schedule to vegas came back um of course they're like okay well they start trickling in the work again because i just got back well then i took off and went to salt lake city for another convention and so i was off the schedule for a while and i come back and now they're going okay well james is putting himself on schedule to put himself off the schedule the guy that was really dependable before is not so dependable now and so now my share of the work is starting to shrink uh where as i before i've proven myself and got a lot of work so there's a lesson there is that you know if you're going to commit to working you need to commit to working because they're going to depend on you and the second you're not dependable they're going to go to the next guy that is and so i learned that hard lesson really quick so my income stream was starting to dry up a little bit and then um lo and behold you know i get a phone call uh from a a catastrophe firm and they were starting a daily claims business and they wanted me to come in and help put that together and manage it manage the process because i knew claim leader uh i knew the process was some of the carriers they had and so they wanted me to help out with that uh two weeks into that so now we're looking at march we're in a march here uh two weeks into that um i get laid off uh covet thing happens everything shuts down um they're like man we gotta shut it down for a little while and so i'm like no problem well this is also whenever hell season's starting to kick in okay and then immediately i'm getting phone calls from pdr firms other ia firms and now the work is just exploding and i'm busy i mean i'm extremely extremely busy um not a lot of fishing time going on yep then and things are going great i mean just the the the work's flowing my i mean i've got so much steady work coming in i'm not having to drive real far for it and um you kn w you're working in dallas you're traveling around i was working i was working at that point i was still working in dallas uh dallas what most of my work was was dallas and north and a little east which is perfect i lived northeast of dallas in the far northern corners of the metroplex um so those easier i can get i can go 100 miles west of dallas faster than i can get into dallas so just it's it was perfect for me so then i had the opportunity received a phone call and was given an opportunity to go to shreveport to to work a a drive for a for a pdr firm and and that was probably the best decision i ever made other than joining ipath i mean it was just the they they paid me a really good daily rate um i learned a lot i became i mean i was down to the point where i could photo scope photo and scope a vehicle in six and a half to seven minutes and it was accurate i mean that's you you get really as the more dense you see the more you look at dense the more you find and then you just get a good pattern and a good rhythm and you're you get pretty accurate at it and so i i did that and then this firm because i stayed there i was the i was the first person on the storm and i was the last person to leave you know and so if you know this business the last guy to leave is the guy that did the best job and so that that was the biggest compliment i could receive i know it sounds a little braggadocious there but you know yeah did my job but uh i've never been known to be shy so then uh right after that you know uh immediately after that they sent me to college station texas i went down to college station uh finished up in college station i said hey guys i need a break you know um let me how long have you been working at that point when you say man at that point i was so i had i'd started the end of april in shreveport i got back home the the week of memorial day the friday before memorial day and then um the tuesday after memorial day i went to um i went to something five six weeks uh five straight weeks is when i was out there and then so i go to um college station which college station's not that far i was able to i was only working six days a week so i would come home on the weekends uh come home saturday afternoon and i drive back down early monday morning i get finished in college stations you guys i need a break man i need to i need a breather i want to do some fishing i want to spend some time with my wife give me some time off and they go hey not a problem and so i'm about an hour and a half out of college station bryan texas and the phone rings hey james want to go to odessa i'm like no nobody wants to go to odessa and they go well we got a new guy that we're going to be trying out and we asked him if he knew anybody else that worked for us he knows only one person and that's you and i said what's his name and they said max olson i was like oh little max olson um have it been anybody else yeah it would have been anybody else i probably would have said no and so i agreed to go to odessa went to odessa for a couple of weeks uh matt uh max stayed out there uh i left um he i think he stayed out there another week or two after me but when i returned home i was home for maybe three or four days and then made a deal with another company to run up to champaign illinois and urbana illinois went up there i was up there for maybe 10 days and it i just rock and roll man i just had made a ton of money in a few days i mean i wasn't there longer than two weeks and and you're still only working auto at this point at this point i'm only working auto yeah so let me back up a second so back whenever i was the other thing i was doing was talking to some other firms when i was working in shreveport and i was working in college station i was also doing desk writing at the same time so i was so i was working during the day on the drive and at night i was pulling from a queue and i was writing claims well then by the time i went out to odessa the second time actually i did a little bit of it in uh and in college station i was also getting field claims so i'm running dailies i'm doing i'm desk riding and i'm working a drive so i'm triple dipping my income you know i'm working from basically sun up to sun down and beyond but you know what hey i'm not there to work i'm not out there to play when i go home i can play and so um it's either that or just stare at the walls and watch tv so you might as well do some work while you're there so that's what i would i did during this period of time while i was traveling uh those you were like you know eight to six or whatever at the drive and then right trying to do field claims for two three hours and you're gonna go desk right from nine to two right all right and i wake up at like 4 30 5 o'clock in the morning and i would desk right until i'd leave and go to the drive you know and so yeah that's a lot of hours but you know you make money with it you know make hey when the shines that's where the term goes so that's what i did in in fact up the bank account and um how did i learn how to do that stuff i learned it from my path of course you know because the principles that they gave us of how to write a good claim um and i was able to take the scope sheets from other people and just follow their scope sheets and write those claims and um you get pretty fast at that and especially on hell claims you could write a decent health plan within 15 minutes you know if you're if you're chris downey you can write them in six and a half but uh you know but so i did that after we went uh went to urbana came back home for a little while um took a risk went up to uh minnesota there was some work up there i kind of told this one firm and said hey if you get 20 claims in any one area call me i'll go do it because you've got 20 you're going to get 50 if you've got 50 you're probably going to get 75 100. so i'll go ahead and run so i ran up to minnesota minnesota was a bust i didn't get much work up there made a little money not much and then i'm gonna head back well this is whenever the the ratio hit went through the midwest went through iowa illinois everywhere called some firms they said yeah if you get to if you get to iowa we've got work for you i was in iowa 10 days made a gross amount of money there my first day in in iowa i did 20 school buses my first day and uh and was paid very well for those and they all had the same damage the same everything you talked about just duplication it was really fascinating so finished up from that came back home uh well that was during i was watching what was going on with all the activity tropical activity uh and then that's when laura and marco were coming into the gulf and i said you know what i'm gonna bug out of here i'm gonna go back home and i'm gonna try to do property again and that was my goal i knew that i was gonna get a call for property i get a phone call to do desk riding desk adjusting for auto i took it and then the day went had one day of work matter of fact we didn't work we went to an office and sat there then they cancelled the assignment i'm like great you know and uh jason revere another ivy path graduate he was on the same deal a matter of fact he had come here to dallas from shreveport and was staying in my rv while he was gonna get his training done well he goes back home i'm like what am i gonna do now and then i get a phone call and sure enough i go to southern louisiana to do property and so that's where i ended up my year i just came back a week ago not even i didn't get home a weekend i got home this is what is today thursday so i've been a week i got home last saturday if you enjoyed this video you'll love riding along with us on adjuster tv plus myself in a growing list of industry experts will show you how to handle claims with confidence we know it's hard to find a working adjuster who's going to let you shadow them which is why we let you right along with us on adjuster tv plus check it out for seven days absolutely free at ipath.com tv if you back this up and what you didn't mention about the lord upon it is you hurt your knee again so yeah so one year of uh uh property hurt me property hurt you i'm just saying it's not property and you don't don't don't i'm done with property i'm done with property so when i was when i was down in southern louisiana i'd worked for probably 10 days no pain whatsoever in my knee everything's going fine and then one day i'm on a roof and it just starts hurting i'm i'm kind of going down the roof and and it just the pain just hit and went and inspected another house another roof next day i go out again i'm just a lot of pain um and then that was it they put me on life light duty that was fun because when looking on live duty you have a lot of you know you have a lot of new adjusters that hit these big storms and some of them can't handle it and they quit and so they were taking those people's claims and giving me all their notes and photos and i had to figure out what needed to happen next get them caught up and write the claims if i could if not then get sent out for reinspection but uh that's how i spent my last you know basically two weeks down in in louisiana so that's crazy what what a journey and but before i let you go though james i gotta share something here let's see if i can can you see the screen here now this is the path that we show students when they come to ipath and what we believe is is a strategic way to break into the industry and get to wherever you want to eventually go but if you can kind of follow the path here at the beginning you're just getting ready as an adjuster we get you in auto training we then in the the second phase here you're trying to get your first claim that was uh uh you know james that was your first claims in dallas right like right oh those are your claims in doubt so you have a little relationship with people to say hey is there anywhere else i get more and they're like well he's not a complete bozo so maybe we could trust him with more work and you expanded from there and you basically took on a cat deployment at that point right that was odessa was like cat and then you head there and then you're off to the races with unlimited potential in options down here at the bottom which is where you've taken it to wherever you want to go at this point tanaka to to all these different things you did that were beyond what myself or anyone could ever coach you to do but you opened up the floodgates at that point so i just want other people to see that they're like yeah this is like the little skipping stone stepping stones to get on the porch but from there you can do whatever you want to do like james did and i think uh for everyone who hear james's story just realize there is risk involved ultimately you got to take some risks uh so james other than saying hey you got to take some risks is there anything you want to leave people with there's a couple of things number one is so i worked for i counted up yesterday i worked for nine different companies this past year okay i didn't limit myself to one or two companies um you know i'm you guys it's it's networking it's making friends it's putting your name out there it's i joke around about being a pest you know um there's some of that involved i'm going to say that every opportunity that i received was a result of first taking the steps that christos do go out and meet people in and get on rosters and and call but i didn't stop there i i called these people constantly asking for work because the squeaky wheel gets the grease you realize they've got hundreds of thousands of people on their roster that are just faceless people to them and they don't know who they are why are they going to call them versus somebody else and so the the thing is if they know who you are the last person i mean i was in sales for years if you can't tell um sales the thing is is you don't want to be the first person to call somebody you want to be the last person to call somebody because the last person they talk to is a person they're going to remember and so if you've never talked to these people they're never going to remember who you are they're not going to know who you are so that's number one is don't forget i mean call your your your firms don't don't just sit there and go well i'm on the firm i hope i'm gonna get work you know you're gonna make phone calls you gotta reach out uh number two is is that network man make friends okay uh some of the work i received was because another ia told another firm about me and says hey i know this guy he can probably do it another thing is i mean let me look i mean if i didn't know max olson i wouldn't end up in odessa the second time i don't know if that was a blessing or a curse but um that you know and then there's been other times where i have brought other people work i mean i'm gonna i'm gonna pick on jason revere for a second the day that i met mount allen in dallas jason revere was there as well and so and jason and i stayed in contact with each other i of course ended up getting jason to come to the dark side and go through my path and and then subsequently he and i have created a friendship where i've helped him get other work from from a couple of different sources and at the same time he does the same thing for me you know and so you make those friendships you make those teams and you'll you'll get work you know and there's terry albrecht i've worked with him um i've referred work to him he's referred to work to me i've had situations where i had to go take photos someplace i'm just not in a position to do it i've picked up the phone called another ia that i knew and said hey we go take photos for me and they'll take the photos i'll pay them some money for doing it and you work together like that you'll be very efficient number one and number two is you're leveraging the other person's networking as well and so that's that's the main reason why i was able to accomplish what i accomplished this year was because i i was constantly in quote unquote sales mode constantly calling people staying trying to stay in front of people and trying to stay relevant the best i could so don't disrupt i mean i'm going to say it one more time don't just sign up for a roster and say well i'm signed up with them i don't understand why i'm not getting work you're not getting work because they don't know who you are that's why so love it and so uh at the the pre-recorded teaser james we uh we teased him with uh is it pod the question truly that could be answered is it possible to make sick the holy grail of independent justice you know making six figures that's what everyone is after and so is it possible working just auto for someone to even make it if they're hustling the way james mathis does is that even attainable so i will make that a little bit better for you so from the time that i started in west texas until i until we're gonna go to the end of august okay which ex that was before my full year i had exceeded six figures okay and and i exceeded it by a pretty nice number okay at the same time to kind of go a little bit further this calendar year so not only did i exceed six figures from the first of september of last year until or the end of september 1st of october last year until the 1st of september this year but i've already exceeded six figures this year this calendar year and so um but a lot of work i'm tired i'm taking some time off i'm so serious about taking time off i turned out four assignments you know in the last 24 hours but uh it's it the journey was worth it now i've got myself set up where next year you know now the stress is repeat next year what i did this year but it's going to be a lot easier because of the groundwork that i did this past year and the relationships i've made you know and not trying to end this on a negative note but hey if there's a firm out there that you don't work well with okay that you're just not clicking with don't waste your time with that okay that's negative energy it's it's frustration on your level that you can be more productive somewhere else and finding other work doing and and i did that at least three times this past year where i had firms where i just said you know what this isn't worth me work ng with it's too complicated for me it doesn't my business model doesn't fit their business model and just part of ways you know nothing negative about that it's just you know it you have to be efficient or you're not going to get there yup that is very true very true and so you guys and gals who are listening and watching understand that what james did is not what you should expect to do it's what you should aspire to maybe if if you're like james mathis and you're just like running uh like a bat out of hell uh and you know you like risk and you like travel you like those things um but also understand take away that hey it is possible there is opportunities out there like i know we hear all the negative things in our industry but it is possible to make money in this industry you might have to do different things to what you envisioned but you got to be open to those doors that are opening the way james was i think that's a huge part of this it's just be aware what's going on who's calling where are the opportunities and being that network that james is talking about with other ias with the ia firms and be constantly contacting people but james thanks for sharing your story because it blew me away every month you're giving me updates every week sometimes updates and i'm like this is amazing you know uh what you've done and i know you worked hard for it ipath cannot take the credit for what you did we helped open up a door and then you just bulldoze the whole house and kept going so we're proud of you and honored to be a part of your story well chris it's been an honor to be associated with you this year you know and not only do i call you my mentor but you know i'm blessed to call you a friend now and uh thanks for all you've done for me and uh i'm looking forward to next year to see where we go from here can't imagine what 2021 is going to be like in it and also it was 2020 that you did this with koben right like right that's pretty crazy that you had a good year during covid so don't make excuses don't make excuses heard it from james mathis all right everybody go out there and claim your life my name is chris stanley and we at ipath are dedicated to giving you actionable advice on how to have an amazing adjusting career that will help you break into the insurance industry so you can obtain freedom in your career and life if you need help learning how to get work head over to ipath.com and click the how to find work button we'll send you a free video course that shares insider tips on how to get started and until next week keep walking your path and claiming your life