No-conflict restoration is more about conflict-of-interest than about disagreement.
For the past several years many insurance companies have offered a tempting deal for damage restoration contractors. Sign a contract with us to use our pricelist and we will steer business from those who have damage claims to you.
These arrangements are usually called preferred vendor programs. Most preferred vendor programs have some fundamental flaws.
First they are based, first and foremost, on price. Typically a vendor is chosen on an agreement to follow prices published by a company called Xactware, which is owned by the Insurance Services Organization. Xactware uses a scheme called feedback that gathers settled claim amounts from insurers and contractors that have agreed to adhere to that pricelist for much of the data they use to develop their pricelists. Xactware claims they don't set prices, but......you may already see the man fixing prices and blowing smoke behind the curtain in the Wizard of OZ. We think that below market prices lead to below standard service.
Then, the question arises, do the contractors work for insurance companies or do they work for the property owners? It's not that anyone intends to improperly favor the insurer when a question arises about what is the best way to put property back to its pre-loss condition, but if I depend upon an insurance company to deliver work to me on a daily basis........well, we just don't want to be in the position where there is any confusion that we work for the property owner and with the insurer. Not the other way around.
We believe price-based preferred vendor arrangements create a conflict of interest for restoration contractors and we have chosen to provide no-conflict restoration service to our clients. When a property owner suffers a loss, they have a right to hire the contractor of their choice. We hope they will choose us to help you recover from a damage event because we provide the best service at a competitive price-not because we are a captive contractor to an insurance company.
For a more much more detailed discussion of the challenges presented by common practices in the insurance restoration business visit http://www.10and10-is-a-lie.info/ .
